welcome to our blog!

This blog tells the story of our 22-month sailing journey from Oakland, California, to Bristol, Rhode Island, aboard our beloved Bristol 32 sailboat, Ute. Please feel free to browse through the archives (partway down the sidebar to your left) to see pics and read stories of our adventures in North America and Central America . (Sorry the first 3 months of the trip are missing - they vanished somewhere in an internet cafe in Mexico - but all you're missing is CA, Baja and Western Mex).

If you're trying to track us down now that we're landlubbers, try us at uteatlarge at yahoo dot com. Thanks!

Monday, March 20, 2006

problem solved

engine fixed!! we disassembled the transmission shaft coupler, secured the bolt, put everything back together and, miraculously, the engine is still aligned to five one-thousandths of an inch as it should be.
the most exciting part was when we dropped a screwdriver in the bilge and the regular magnet-on-a-string wouldn't bring it up, so we had to take the hacksaw to an old defunct speaker to make the macgyver supermagnet. which worked.
ah, boat life.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is so great! (neat-about the magnet!)- Have you guys started writing a theme song yet? >Preferably not in the tune of Gilliagan's Island "Three Hour Tour"<... It could be a sea chantey that will summarize your trip-- we can all sit around listening to you sing it when you get back... and we can drink grog and join in on the chorus, too!
Miss you! Love you!
~Cally

Anonymous said...

Hello guys,

We just came back from 2 weeks in the sea. We took 'Con Te Partiro' from Puerto Escondido to La Paz. You will not believe what happened. Halfway thru the second week the transmission stopped spinning the prop. So we had to actually sail the last 2 days :-). Anyway turns out that the big nut that holds the output coupling onto the transmission shaft has come undone. The shaft seal is chewed-up so the oil goes right into the bilge. How's that for a coincidence. Looks like a week for coupler troubles no??

Anyway, still following your blog. You make us Bristol 32 owners proud.

Jeannette
http://www.eblw.com/contepartiro/contepartiro.html

Anonymous said...

Thanks Cora for all the prose. It's an amazing adventure, and if this is the worst of it, I'm thankful. Much love. Deb

Anonymous said...

Totally forgot speakers have magnets in them. Happy to see you're getting past all these things and continuing your trip. Bummer about the cooler being gone too... that was totally unnecessary.
- Ben

Rick Carey said...

Non-blog update, March 27:
UTE is victim to another engine problem and now in port in Nicaragua at a non-Internet location.
Cora called Cally the 27th to update. No major problem or unsolvable, just an interruption and probably at an inconvenient location.
That's what we know today.

Rick