On the road again

Sunday morning and another attempt at fixing the fuel problem with FF III. The problem started about 10 miles from Bimini on Friday. The starboard engine started starving for fuel. We were able to limp in at about 1500 rpm's (10 knots). Saturday morning the first and easiest thing to change was the Racor secondary fuel filter. Having just serviced the engines I knew it was a long shot but was the first thing to do. It didn't help. We fished the rest of the day anyway and decided to take the next step on Sunday. By the way the Bahamas phone is coming in handy. I called a tech from Yanmar Friday evening on his cell phone to get a direction and he said we absolutely could not hurt the engines running them this way and that the problem had to be a supply problem. This morning I pulled the fuel pickup from the tank. The guys who have serviced our boats in the past Carl & Gerd Wunderlich from Port Engineers had told me they had experienced a fuel tank pickup problem in a couple 35 Luhrs like ours. I used the old Bahamas phone again and called Gerd first thing to go over what I needed to do. He was very helpful, even on a Sunday morning. He said no problem Cap'n, I was just riding my bicycle to pick up a paper. Pulling the pickup was a chore. I had 4" of room to snake an 18" long tube out. I usually tear up more than I fix in these situations. I saw nothing wrong when I got it out, but Gerd told me to cut it at a 45 degree angle to help the flow and put it back in. It worked. Running good again. Went fishing for awhile this afternoon and caught dinner. Still doesn't get much better than that. Tomorrow mornig leaving early for some fishing and then on to the West End of Grand Bahama.

Cap'n T. Morgan, Almost