2025-08-15 Grounded Again!

When you use your boat as much as I do stuff eventually breaks.

Yesterday while I was doing a routine engine room check I noticed a crack in one of the main engine sea strainers.

My Yanmar diesel engines have 2 cooling systems. One is a closed system much like we have in our cars. Antifreeze is circulated throughout the engines in a closed loop. The other system is a sea water cooling system. Sea water is pumped in via "thru-hull" fittings and then is pumped through the engines to help cool them. The sea water goes through a strainer which is designed to trap kelp, small twigs, jelly fish, pine needles or anything else that comes in with the sea water.

This what a generic sea strainer of the type I use looks like.

The clear bowl around the strainer is made of very hard plastic. I noticed a crack in the bowl of one of the strainers. Upon further investigation I also found cracks in the strainer on the other engine as well. There was no sign of leakage, but the cracks were several inches in length. If the sea strainer fails when the engine is running it will no longer get cooling sea water and will quickly overheat. This is a serious problem and one that needs to be addressed immediately.

And so, just like that I am grounded again until replacement parts can be ordered and installed.

I'm just so grateful that I had no issues like this during my Glacier Bay adventure.