Well, I spent 8 hours out in the garage today completely dismantling our starboard engine.

First I removed the lower unit, then all of the engine mounted electronics. Once the power head was clear, I undid the 8 bolts that hold him to the middle unit and plucked him out of the engine cowling.

I had hoped that the gasket that separates the power head from the middle unit would show some signs of being messed up as this would explain where our oil is going, but no such luck. Shitty death!

While I had the thing apart, I replaced the readily serviceable pieces and parts and then began putting it all back together. I didn't want to dally as I was afraid I would forget where everything bolted back together, kind of like that original Star Trek episode where McCoy gets a temporary brain boost so that he can put Spock's brain back inside his body after a race of super smart, big headed aliens removed it for use in their own version of a Super Nintendo.

Serious Trekkies know what I'm talking about....

For better or worse, the engine is now back together and awaiting installation in the mother ship. I don't expect the problem to be fixed, because I didn't really see anything wrong, but I am hoping I haven't made it any worse. I guess we'll know soon enough.

If the engine does work, I think our plan is to nurse it through the upcoming season and then completely tear it down when we reach the states sometime early next year. Worse comes to worse, we'll operate on one engine and maybe have Ollie and Pam (Dejarlo) bring us a spare in come November.

In other news, I have reached a stand still on our new dinghy chaps as I wait for the vinyl rub patch material to show up from the states. You can see work in progress side right.

Our friend Adam from Rubicon is currently up in St. Augustine and he is acting as our collection point for several UPS shipments from around the globe. He is due back here sometime in August, so we're in stand by mode on a number of projects until then. Among other pieces and parts, he'll be bringing in our new to us, used autopilot, a lithium ion battery charger for my 18 volt hand tools, a replacement keyboard for my mini computer and a new usb speaker for Team Dream Catcher's movie night setup.

Ok, be safe, it's dumb out there ....

PS - Spell checker just tried to replace Trek with Tuareg. For those of you who have been to northern Africa, I think a Klingon-Tuareg substitution would have been a closer match.