Quest Nº 1: Remove our diesel engine

Our first quest you can read the story below or watch the video here we hope you enjoy.

After realizing that ,what we thought was a simple case of a leaking stuffing box, was actually a much bigger issue we hauled out Oiysh in August of 2019.

We then left her for 2 months on the hard and went to earn some money for the refit.

Upon our return we jumped right into it. We needed to remove the engine as we realized that

we have not only a cracked stern tube but also water was coming in from around the keel bolts. To assess the damage better we needed full overview and well the engine was in our way.

Thus Quest Nº 1 - Remove our diesel engine.

First on the list was disconnecting all the cables and hoses that were connected to the beast.

and so we started to remove each of them one by one carefully labeling what is what and where it goes so it would be easier for us to put everything back together when all of the repairs were done. Little did we know as in fact Volvo would never return on board. but lets not get

ahead of the story.

Oiysh is a 40'' Bruce Farr design

retired racing boat and although the distance of roughly 3-4m from where the engine was mounted to the companionway might not seem like a lot, perspective changes while your trying to move a 350kg engine. Moving the beast inside the boat that is on the hard standing on its keel supported on stands over 2m above the ground, then trying to maneuver it out through the companion

way and finally lifting it up from the cockpit seemed like a lot of unnecessary, painful and potentially dangerous work so we decided against it.

Instead we chose to lift it directly from where it was. The only thing in our way was obviously the deck or was it ..?

With a little bit of grinding ( which was more of a preparation for the future reintegration then a necessity),some drilling and jigsaw action the obstacle was no more.

And so everything was ready for the engine to vacate the premises.

When the forklift arrived and got positioned in place, the engine was attached to a chain block which would do the lifting. That way we would have more control over what was happening.

Perhaps Volvo sensed what its fate was and it decided to put up a bit of a fight. But with a little bit of wiggling, some persuasion, some more wiggling and yet a little bit more wiggling

it finally gave up and within less then 15 minutes it was airborne completely detached from the boat. Before lifting it through the roof we added one extra thick dyneema rope just to make sure that it won't come crushing back down.

I won't lie, the moment Volvo cleared our lifelines I started breathing much more easily, as if it would decide to fall at this point it wouldn't harm anyone nor it would destroy Oiysh in the process.

Fun fact: till the last moment before the forklift arrived, we were not sure if it will be able to perform the extraction.

All because Oiyshes' draft is 2 m 45 cm and the operator the magnificent Señor Victor wasn't sure if the forks would go high enough for the operation to be possible.

It worked out at the end, but we did have to lower the lifelines cause the forklift was at its maximum extension. All that was left now, was to move the old rusty pal to his temporary storage place. He was carefully rested on some wooden blocks safe from the weather elements.

With the engine out and secure we could proceed to closeup our new sunroof. As it was meant to be a temporary fix in our usual savage style, Bartek simply screwed a couple of blocks to support the piece in place and then we slapped some masking tape from the bottom.

At this point we were still thinking that Volvo will come back on board ,but as the refit was taking place during the rainiest part of the rainy season, we decided to reseal the cut out part with epoxy, so both the inside of the boat and the core of our deck would be nice and dry.

With the roof back in place, we could shift our focus to the nasty grimy diesel mess, that for years accumulated under the engine.

Any thoughts we still had, that it would be more reasonable and economically viable if we were to put the diesel back in, where slowly starting to vanish at this point. Lets just say they were slowly suffocated by the smell of old engine oil and grime.

If you never had to clean a mess like this, you might think that,s a bit overly dramatic, and perhaps it is, but for us with every hour spent cleaning that yukiness, we were finding more and more reasons why we didn't want to deal with a diesel engine ever again.

Yes we already had this engine, and it was working. It didn't need any major repairs for now, just a bit of maintenance and maybe a fresh coat of paint but during countless hours spent on scrubbing and washing we came to the following main conclusions:

• a diesel is dirty, smelly, expensive in the long run, super loud and this particular one very heavy.

• we almost didn't use it anyway, especially since the gearbox control cable broke a couple months earlier.

• we decided we own a SAILboat and even if we cannot afford to go electric right away we can go engine-less for a time.

• and finally that Oiysh used to be a racing sailboat after all and didn't deserve all that unnecessary weight.

And so the decision was made and we continued on cleaning but almost enjoying the chore, because we now knew, it would be for the last time*.

After the initial cleanup we could finally start to assess the damage. and lets just say that what we found was not good. There where cracks and de-lamination all over the place, the more we looked and poked and drilled around, the more it looked like someone had hit the ground hard in the past and did less then ideal job of the repairs, or in some places not at all...

The wood inside Oiyshs stringers in the good spots was just wet with oil in the bad parts completely de-laminated from the floor and cracked. If we had any hope before that this refit might go without dropping the keel fully, that hope was now gone but hey we knew

this would be an adventure.

Next quest Dropping the rudder so we can drop the keel ...

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*Well almost ... later on we kept on finding places that were contaminated. But definitely no new diesel grime would be generated ever again.