First Aborted Trip?

December 23, 2021

How are you all doing?

Here are some pictures of New Zealand’s Christmas tree, the pōhutukawa, from our recent aborted trip due to mechanical issues (and only aborted trip in the 20 years we’ve owned Legacy, if memory serves).

Legacy floating behind this beautiful pohutukawa tree at Waiheke Island.
They are called New Zealand’s Christmas tree because they bloom each year in November or December.
We’ve heard that every other year is a bigger bloom and this year is a doozy.
We didn’t get back to the marina until about 11 PM. Even that had its perks. (The Skytower is lit up in red for our current Covid-19 traffic light system. We’re hoping for orange in a couple of weeks – though that won’t make much difference to us as we don’t usually go to large gatherings.) BTW – photo by Cyndi!

How are we doing? Not so great (but not that bad either, really). We got a few days free and left Monday to go out to the Hauraki Gulf until Boxing Day (the day after Christmas when the crowds out on the water really get bad – and stay bad until early February). In addition to the six gallons of fuel we had, I added 20 gallons to the tank from jugs before we left. By the time I checked the fuel gauge at Waiheke Island, about 3 hours away from our berth, we were down to 5 gallons in the tank. Huh?!?! WTF?!?!

We opened the bilge cover and found the missing 20 gallons of fuel! I looked at the engine while it was running as I was sure it was our problematic engine fuel filter but I found no leaks. There were no leaks from the engine at all. Must be the tank, right?

We headed back to our berth Monday night. The next day, I transferred what fuel was left to our bladder tank and filled the fuel tank with water and fluorecein dye (a bright green dye that is really easy to spot even in low concentrations). After six hours, there was no green tint to the bilge water (which we’d cleaned the diesel out of already – yuk). Must not be the tank, right? Oh well, it’s an engine leak I didn’t spot.

I cleaned out the tank and transferred the fuel back from the bladder tank. The next morning, we found five gallons of fuel in the bilge. OK, it must be the tank! (Cyndi was not happy when I told her we needed to clean the fuel out of the bilge, AGAIN!)

Yesterday, we pulled the tank out and while it could have been worse, it wasn’t fun getting the tank out. There were a couple of paper labels on the bottom of the tank that had probably been wet with salt water for Legacy’s entire 30 years. Under those labels were small corrosion holes into the tank.

So here we sit, with the tank out and probably no way to get it welded until mid-January. Things really close down for the holidays here. Oh well. I’ll add pictures and updates as the repair progresses. -Rich

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