PAN-PAN-PAN, Torshavn radio - No maneuverability & no engine!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ต.ค. 2024
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as a former dutch navy communication operator I can only say that your way of communicating with the emergency services was just professional. You stayed calm, you didn´t exxagerate the situation but still informed them about the changing currents, you said your position clear and accurately, you spelled your boats name using the maritime alphabet. In fact I would say, maritime schools could use this video to show their students how situations like this should be communicated and handled. Don´t be too humble, you did everything right
I fully agree and admire Juho for his calm collectedness! You are legend! But shouldn't it be "PAN PAN - PAN PAN - PAN PAN" rather than "PAN PAN PAN"? At least this is what we were taught in the SRC course...
@@thomasgraf9257 It at least used to be PAN-PAN-PAN in a course I attended years ago in Finland. It might have changed and Juho might still live by that old rule. I don't actually know whether there is a big difference.
It's alphanumeric alphabet in English 😊
@@jonnenne three times is internationally correct just like “Mayday, Mayday,Mayday “ is three times , for clarification of the call to emergency calls
@@darrenjones3681 Yes, exactly. In fact this means three times "PAN PAN"!
Ultimately, it's always a good idea to have a simple backup for anything electronic. In this case something like a clear piece of fuel-line or some such that is an utterly reliable sensor.
Videos like this are such a valuable tool for learning. Being able to watch another sailor's experience is worth sooo much more than reading it or hearing it. Humility is strength of character and thank you very much for sharing this. I love your channel, and keep up the great content!!
This guy is a legend!
I agree. Going through such a detailed debrief is indeed valuable for everyone, including Juho to begin with. Not sure everyone would do the same. 👍
Thanks for watching and remember to subscribe if you want to see whether we ever make it to Iceland! FAQ below, feel free to ask more 😉
Why did you not just simply sail away?
See the end of the video for explanation about the understeering problem. To put it short, when this video was shot Arktika wasn't really maneuverable with just sails. Also at that point we were under the 300 m (900 ft) tall cliffs and there was either no wind or just random gusts coming from different directions.
Why didn't you immediately check the fuel day tank for fuel quality / level?
Accessing the day tank inspection hatch requires unbolting a table and cabin sole.
Why didn't activate your emergency beacon or the DSC alarm on your VHF, that would transmit your location immediately?
Because it was not a life threatening situation.
Why did you not rig a jerry can and take diesel straight from there?
The fuel hoses are not long enough / suitable for this, I thought it'd be faster to change the filter. In hindsight, since we weren't certain of the problem, a jerry can might've been a better choice since that'd be almost a certain way of solving any fuel line problems. However it would've taken more time.
Why didn't you spend more time solving the problem before calling for help?
Since we weren't sure of the problem, we thought it might possibly take a long time to fix. We weren't sure of what the currents would do to us (currents up to 8-9 knots in the area, maybe 4-5 knots in this specific spot), current was changing as we were drifting. Anchoring probably would not have been successful (too deep close to shore). We also had no idea how good the rescue/towing services here were and how much time they'd need to reach us.
Why are you saying "pleasure craft" Arktika on VHF?
Our AIS is sending our boat type as "pleasure craft".
This business about calling yourself a pleasure craft at first glance doesn’t seem important but sailboats do enjoy navigational advantages/right of way over powerboats since they can generally alter course easier to avoid collision.
🤔 once you include 'pleasure craft' or 'sailboat' into a Pan Pan Pan, the response time does seem slower, if at all.👍 good to see & know they responded.
You did well!
Making a pan pan call was right thing to do, and exactly what pan pans are for, alerting that there is a developing situation but not a full emergency.
As for the fuel system I much rather have separate day tanks for each engine, with cross connects in case of tank problem. But if that's not possible at least have separate suctions and lines from the 1 tank.
Is the daytank fitted with the long dimension across the boat? If so, given that Arktika is a motor sailer, it seems to me you either need to fit two outlets outboard, one to each side, and ideally a (heavily damped) pendulum operating the changeover valve via a simple linkage, so you don't have to configure it every time you tack.
It also seems to me preferable to fit either a reliable sight glass which can be seen without disturbing any furnishings (it can be remote from the tank as long as it's on the tank fore and aft centerplane),
or a diptube style sensor (eg "Tank Tender" ... but it's easy enough to design your own) which is failsafe, in the sense that if it has problems it understates rather than overstates the level.
A half mile offshore from a rocky shoreline, drifting in a strong current with no maneuverability, unable to anchor, for me, would be an emergency condition.
This is an excellent video because it gives an honest assessment of an operational incident, its causes, what was done well and what was not, before, during, and after. So that all of us can learn from it. It is not an easy thing for a skipper to do. Respect to Juho therefore for doing this so thoroughly, honestly, and indeed publicly. Additional respect for identifying the leadership aspects as well as the technical ones - lots of skippers would not have thought of these, or would not have had the honesty to highlight them. Thank you indeed Skipper.
I must endorse firmly Edward's comments above. Thank you Juho, for your very frank and honest explanations. I have to say my respect for you as a sailor is in no way diminished.
Relief that you were not in any serious danger. I totally understand the difficulty in dealing with emergencies. Our minds always leap to complicated problems. In my experience, 20 years of cruising, the solutions are generally extremely simple. 99 times out of a hundred it is the simplest problem! So we now have a rule on our boat that we begin at the beginning when troubleshooting. So if a fuel issue-do we actually have fuel? If electronic most things can be traced to a contact problem so out with the can of switch cleaner! What you did right was not to panic-far harder than it sounds. Well done. You had a problem, you followed safety protocol and ultimately you fixed the problem yourselves. Well done.
As you rejig the fuel system consider dual parallel fuel filters on each line where you can switch between them without stopping the engine. I don’t remember if you guys ever replaced or conditioned the old fuel which was onboard but you should consider doing it as a visual inspection can only tell you so much
As a former Canadian Coast Guard deck officer I can assure you that many people faced with similar difficulties go into a panic mode and compound the problem. While this is all fresh sit down with your crew and create a troubleshooting checklist with assigned task (including scripts for whomever handles communications) I assume all your safety equipment is up to date including flares. When you have a plan for each eventuality print and laminate it and store in a prominent location with something you can use to check off the steps taken. During an emergency is not the place to start randomly guessing what to do. Make a comprehensive plan and follow it including what to do if you ever have to abandon ship.
I agree that your ice protection is overwhelming your steering but consider perforating it rather than eliminating it. Ice can get drawn under a boat and multi year ice is as hard as concrete
Keep your spirits up. Boating offshore is fraught but careful planning will make it safe and pleasurable
I'm amazed that ice continues to accumulate on rudders from year to year, thus forming as hard as glacial ice. Seems to be a business opportunity for de-icing equipment to be retrofitted to ships that freeze for years in a row, like aircraft leading edges are protected.
This is a fantastic video, and I loved the post incident review. It's really courageous to post something like this on TH-cam and be candid about what you did wrong, what you did right, and how you could do better. It really helps others and I believe also helps your own growth. A lot of people would have skipped that part, so congrats on airing the "non-sexy" but most useful part of the event.
beyond impressed with your handling of such a stressful and critical situation
this video is not only useful as a teaching tool for sailing, your "methodical debriefing" of the event, is an example for others to have successful debriefing
brilliantly done.
also, your mastery of the English language and its vocabulary is beyond excellent.
Having a drift “sea anchor” rigged and ready to deploy can sometimes make a big difference. Also, being able to manually measure fuel and water tank levels with a stick marked appropriately, is something I have used to the exclusion of mechanical gauges.
Your videos are wonderful.
Hi. Do u mean slow down boat by sea anchor even that this not wind, but currency? Thanks
@@Bor1945 You are thinking correctly. A sea anchor would be no use in this situation. When the tiday current started the boat and anchor would just move in the current. At least the current would not have pushed them towards land, but mostly parallel to it.
@@DavidTangye thank u david
This was a great video
Task saturation is a real thing. I deal with this during emergencies at my workplace. (I deal with Nationwide communication).
You cannot always rely on your subordinates, therefore you must learn to priortize between task and dealing with what important most.
Thank you for sharing your experience so honestly with us. I think you handled it very well. Glad all turned out well. I bet that you WILL make it to Iceland this year still 🙂
thanks benoit, and I hope so as well!
Great analysis.
Don't be too embarrassed, I had a similar problem on my boat. Electric fuel guage on the day tank & ran out of fuel. In my case on a river, so no rescue & drifting, but was able to pump in more fuel, bleed & go fortunately. So my solution was to disconnect & forget the electric guage, but fit a sight glass tube (protected by brass bars & heat proof glass), so now I can see the level in the day tank. Nothing to go wrong. I can also see the clarity of the diesel, any slime, water or sediment.
Personally when I had twin engines, I had entirely separate tanks, fuels, batteries, etc. I could start either engine from either battery by an extra change over switch & wiring.
Ideally fit twin filters to each, so you can change one filter with the engine running on the other, in case you have bad diesel or water / sediment stirred up in bad weather.
I have fitted glass bowls with drain plugs below each filter, so again I can see the fuel & easily drain a sample off, if in doubt.
I don't know your boat design, but ideally I would want twin rudders too, one in each prop stream & maximum redundancy. But that is maybe too major a design change now.
Also of course emergency tiller steering to back up the wheel.
All I see are excellent decision making processes. No one died. You worked the problem.
2 things for me
You're all well and no damage.
You learnt from it.
We all look back and think how things could have been better. For me you handled it well. Must have been scary.
Update. Suggest you make sure that all crew can handle emergency calls/situations. Next time you might be injured/incapacitated.
Crew management and handing off the comms is an excellent insight.
Echoing all the previous comment: this is an incredible display of how to stay calm, and communicate clearly when in a potentially dangerous situation. The honest point-by-point debrief is an invaluable model for what to do afterwards, regardless of a positive or negative outcome. Well done and thank you!
You keep opening the tanks to see the fuel-change the tank access to a sight glass top you you can see the fuel without removing the top.
Great adventure! Cheers!
Thank you for sharing so much of this passage. It would have been so easy to have not shown the problems you experienced, and just shown leaving Torshavn, and arriving in Vestmanna, and the viewers would not need to know there were problems. It is very brave to expose yourself like this, but your handling, and analysis of the problems shows great seamanship and strength of character. This video is a learning opportunity for all of us who put out to sea.
This might have been your best video so far. Very educative. Your communication was very professional during your communication with shoreside. Respect to you Captain!
Great debrief. Thanks.
Thanks for such a clear eyed analysis. I think laminated work flow sheets for emergencies are very useful. Helpful reminders for novices and very tired, stressed or injured people. ( Hoping they would never be needed )
I'm so happy that everything turned out well in the end, and that you learned from your mistakes, by doing so that makes us better prepared for the next time. What happened was your fuel line got vapor locked after it sucked air. I don't know if it's practical for you to do, but on my boat, I have a small mechanical fuel pressure gauge on the engine plumbed into my fuel line on the pressurized side after the fuel pump. What that does is it allows me to instantly see if I have fuel going into my engine or not.
It would also help everyone on board if you had a special binder for troubleshooting and emergency procedures, setup so anyone with even limited knowledge could handle any situation in emergencies. Commercial airline pilots use a similar reference for troubleshooting and communications during emergencies. Good luck and safe travels💖
hey Karen, thanks for the comment. Yeah a fuel pressure gauge would be nice, but then on the other hand it's yet another thing that can break! For sure not going to make the same mistake again ;)
@@AlluringArctic true, it's another thing that could break, but not likely and if it did, it won't stop the engine from working.
We all learn from our mistakes, which is why I'm so smart , because I've made plenty of them LOL
I think you are a good sailor with excellent boat handling skills, experience sailing alone and under different conditions, and good forethought and common sense. As far as fixating on being neat while working in an emergency: the routine of working the same way is a way to stay calm. You did have the time, and you knew that. The thing I fear most when you are working under a worsening but not life threatening situation is working sloppy. You could have possibly caused a fire when working with fuel. Then your situation would have been extreme. You could have lost the boat with the crew in the water.
Phew, what a scare! Well done in managing to remedy your problem. I do not think this could have been handled in a better way. And thanks for your debrief, really interesting discussion.
Don't leave port without filling your tanks. Very simple.
Brilliant video, we keep a log of engine hours, as we don't trust the the fuel gauge, we estimate the diesel burned with engine hours against the fuel tank capacity and can accurately gauge the tank to +/- 10 litres
Don’t blame yourself. You did everything perfectly ..most of the time there’s air in the lines when diesel engines stop running or won’t start. can fix by bleeding the lines.😊
Great lesson not just for you but for anyone in this situation.
Good news that everyone is safe and well.
I was told the same thing about the emergency app when I fucked up and got a rope stuck in my propeller a couple weeks ago. Luckily the border partrol boat that came to assist me had a younger officer on board and he was keen to show off his aptitude to the older guys so instead of them giving me a tow he went in the water and actually got the line out without even cutting it.
My only PAN call has been due to the same circumstance, in gale conditions but at the entrance to somewhat sheltered waters, but to my surprise i was able to wind it off the saildrive prop by turning the crank handle with the (single cylinder diesel) gearbox in reverse.
I think it was only possible because the motor had not been in gear. The prop must have been turning only slowly and with no real force, due solely to oil drag in the gearbox (which was cold, as we had until then been under sail only). A jib sheet had washed overboard as we dropped the sail, and floated under the hull before I could get to the engine stop button.
I was able to get an anchor down before even making the call, which I cancelled as soon as I resolved the problem, but they opted to turn out anyway (for practice). It was also great moral support.
I had only one crew, inexperienced and very young (not yet teenage) but he did a fantastic job of handling the engine controls and tiller when it came time to weigh anchor. It was fairly important we did not set off on the wrong "tack", because there was limited searoom in that direction, and over against the land, the wind was strong enough in the gusts that we might have struggled to bring the bow into the wind. (While there was room to leeward to wear about if necessary, I didn't want the rescue boat to panic, thinking we were intent on heading out to sea!)
By prior arrangement, I just pointed my arm in the horizontal plane every time I wanted him to change the tiller angle, and in the vertical plane when I needed him to change the (single lever) engine control, and he faithfully copied the angle he saw.
I hope he was proud to do so well in front of a critical audience. I had to do the foredeck work because the boat does not have a windlass, and it carries a big anchor and chain.
What app? Cheers
thanks so much for sharing this....much for us all to learn...you were very calm and considered under pressure.."ice man"
Thanks.... This is a very useful video! Excellent... The post mortem breakdown of your response is particularly useful. You should be proud of your response to the situation.
It you have an an active AIS sender, your position will usually be broadcast well enough, so you don’t have to explicitly read out the numbers, just what boat you are. Also it can be sent by DSC by most modern VHF units.
Not a nice place to be in trouble Juho . Pleased to see all is safe and ready to rock and roll again. Mark - SV Gung Ho
Verry nice , but you have to check everything 😎 regularly, I also have 3 simple water alarms. Then I am on time 😅👍
Here is an idea - I'm even not sure if it is a good one, but what da heck: Bilge pumps have this simple, mechanical level switch which get them going at a certain liquid level. Introduce one such unit put near the bottom of the tank or at a defined "crisis level". Set it to activate an alarm buzzer. It will be active whether the rest of the system is active or not, like any bilge pump. In this way all the other fuel installations would stay intact (= minimal setup changes, I.E. simplicity). Something to think of?
BTW love your stuff as always.
very educational thank you for not making a mountain out of a molehill
A very educational video. Thank you.
I‘m a sailor and a Diesel car driver for many years, here‘s my recommendation:
You have a low pressure fuel pump, which will suck up the diesel and push it through the filter towards the high pressure injection pump.
When you now put one mechanical pressure gauge measuring the underpressure between tank and the low pressure pump and one gauge measuring the pressure right before it enters the engine pump/system, you can see by noting down the values, when a filter ist starting to become dirty. Or if the system sucks in air, because the pressure gauge will show this.
Ok so you have nailed it down. The fuel system needs work. Separate fuel systems need to be set up. Also a visual way to check fuel levels. I am impressed that you were in communication with EMS right away.
Thanks for sharing this -- always good to see the bad times along with the good.
Great job. Clear and precise communication is so important.
Love the honest retrospective of what occurred. Thank you
Thanks, very interesting. My boat is Marihøna. I did a Pan Pan off Lindesnes, S.Norway. No engine and I blew out my jib, (a gaff cutter can not sail with no jib) then I got knocked out by the boom. When I woke up, I Pan Panned the coastguard, and they sent a rescue boat.
Here’s what I did on my boat…very inexpensive and foolproof….remove that day tank cover plate and weld a fitting in the top which will allow you to put a dip stick in. Simple when all else fails. And if you have some water paste you also can check for any water in the fuel! Great channel. Good luck and be safe!
From Camano Island Washington
I was in a similar situation off the coast of California after two days out in stormy seas when my engine overheated. We were also only a short distance from shore. We dropped anchor but it never reached the bottom as we got drawn out to sea, which was good until we needed to pull up the entire weight of the anchor by hand because the windless wasn’t working at the time. You made so many great decisions and handled it so well. My fuel gauge didn’t work either, but I had fuel!
If your sensor is the ultrasonic type, you may be able to put it in a tube inside the tank. This will damp out the sloshing motion and give you more reliable readings.
Great episode. Nice to see calm heads and constructive focus on the problem at hand. Very good of you to do a critical debrief of the experience and to share it with the rest of us so we can benefit from your experience too. This is a process we should all follow after an incident.
Will that tube idea work? What material do you recommend?
One of the simplest methods of cross-checking a day-tank setup is with a simple sight-glass in the day-tank. Barring that, a way to dip the tank with a stick can let you know if things are going awry. Very common to have a day-tank to diesel stove connection. Had it on several boats I've been on. I would make sure there is a stop-cock in the line to the heater, though, both for maintenance and for troubleshooting. If you have a wide ice-protection frame around the back of your props/rudder, just perforate it. Keeps the protection in place but provide protection in an environment where you'll want it. If you rework your fuel supply lines, put a dual set of fuel filters in each line with a valve between sets. This will allow you to swap filter sets quickly to verify a problem and makes changing filters much less of a mess in the future. Good review of the events and situation including self-criticism. Dont' be too hard on yourself though and enjoy the travels.
Theres a reasson we, today in 2022, still install "see glasses" or glass/see through plastic level tubes on the daytanks of modern ships :)
Coinsidently, I was studying for my VHF certification today before stumbling upon this video!
Some of the scenery could be Hawaii although I know you're near the Arctic Circle. It's beautiful. I'm adding new locations to my "bucket list"... Juho, at the beginning your hair was down. First time I'd seen it.
Some one else on another vlog installed a backup electric fuel pump, and my plan when I get to doing engine things is to install a backup electric raw water pump to prevent over heating. With the electric fuel pump you would know from the sound of the pump that there was no fuel for it to pump (continuous running). Another option would be to put a sightless ahead of the fuel injectors, that way you can see both dirty fuel and no fuel. Will I take my own advice? Yes I think that I will. Definitely the fuel pump, and the water separator will act as a sight glass. Your procedure was excellent though, and when I get to doing check lists will refer to your notes. But now you have a more detailed “engine down” check list, and that is very good. Another separate item for the sailing check list from my cousin sailing in the Whitsundays off Australia at present is to turn off the electric water pressure pump while sailing. They had rough weather and in the turmoil the galley lever type water tap got bumped and they lost all of their water unnoticed because of the noise of the weather outside. I am going to be upgrading my Galley and head hand and foot water pumps.
If that were a good plan I would expect all of the seasoned sailors to be doing it by now .regular checks and servicing is the chosen alternative .
All good points in your honest review. Just want to point out that nobody got wet, your calm thinking had help on the way, nobody got wet, and your open and honest review will make the next exciting moments more smooth. Good job Captain, much respect. Be well.
Very good video. I appreciate how calm and clear you were when calling for assistance and how you continued to problem solve while waiting for assistance to arrive. Thanks for sharing.
Ace as always. Reflective, self critical and able to evaluate risk with a level head and make exactly the right decisions and calls. You're the right stuff.
This video is an outstanding teaching tool.. Stuff does happen and the most important thing is to have a "process flow" of actions to be taken.. etc..
Now the so called "debrief" after the facts is also very important to define "what and why things wends wrong" and "what and why things went right" ..
This is indeed the "lessons learned" phase with the corrective/improvement actions to be taken..
This makes you the better skipper,.. as the saying goes "there is no substitute for knowledge"...
Thanks for sharing...
If there big tanks just carry a round dowel to stick into the tank. My main is 100 gallons I filled it 5 gallons at a time and marked it on the stick so I know how much is in the tank. I can also switch tanks and fuel filters turning three way valves. I also have two 65 gallon tanks. I have one that I hooked up to the stove only so if not that good of fuel I put in that tank. You'll always find things to fix or change on a boat! Cheers Vern.
hey, thanks for the suggestion, we've used a dowel after this small accident ;) Even better would be a sight glass gauge..!
Reality sailing. Love it. Even picture up side down.🤠
Just a few solutions you could have had handy.
1. with the type of sailing and locations you travel, a Marine SSB is essential. Also the VHF location button will surge a signal to emergency services if its a AIS based unit.
2. As im sure you keep spare jugs of diesel on board,, ALWAYS have a quick line ready to 1 engine where you can run fuel DIRECTLY into the engine bypassing ALL filters and separators giving the engine fresh fuel directly. This has saved my butt in the past with Vapour Locks and a bad water/fuel separator unit.
I simply put a direct fuel line into the jerry can and had a working motor immediately.
Lastly. As i know you have a dinghy and a motor for your tender you could strap tender to Port Side and use her as an emergency propulsion system
Or have a lowering bracket to use that kicker on the stern of your vessel.
AND having a 2 into 1 fuel line system is a bad setup. As sailors we live by redundancy
So having 2 separate fuel lines would have avoided this issue altogether
Fair Winds my friends. !!!!!
This is a great example of staying calm and methodically solving a problem. It’s an even better example of debriefing the incident- valuable and underused part of incident response.
Chin up, great job in the end. Learning from our own errors is key to life.
Excellent video, lessons learned for us all! Thanks - we recently had a similar problem, air in the lines. However we were fairly close to home port. Not as perilous as your situation. Patience and not panicking are key!
I've had air in the diesel engine a few years back it stopt working while entering a harbour full of expensive yachts. Luckily we managed to
dock by sail with minimal damage. After a few hours of tinkering (filter replaced, vented pipes, etc.) the engine continued to run irregularly at full throttle. Even after replacing the fuel lines, this problem returned once the bunker tank was at about 25%. Since then I have had a day tank above the engine on my boat, never a problem again.
Good old gravity! No fuel pump needed :)
I am glad it did not ‘turn bad really quickly’.
Good post action review. Not fixating on one thing during stress is hard to compensate, because the stress literally shuts down the brain so it can focus on only the most immediate issue.
Great video. It was helpful to hear your thought process and list the good a bad things.
Apart from staying so cool, I am very impressed by your practical/technical knowledge. You realy seem to be able to get right to the heart of problems very quickly without getting side-tracked. And your analysis of how systems should be laid out seems very good to me as well. Respect.
Great video. You had new boat issues. I’m betting you’ll make it to Iceland. 👍👍👍
I am so happy that you got through this "minor interruption". I am certain that you are very skilled and did fix the problem to a happy conclusion !!!
Great video. Calm and collected under pressure and an effective analysis session after the fact to see how to improve systems / crew training for next time; which will come. I worked as a commercial fisherman and can fully appreciate your situation. Nice one.
I ran into a similar issue down on the South American coast, you know, because of the low-quality diesel they sell there. Ever since, I always carry an extra gallon of diesel, with rubber hoses already connected to this gallon, so if necessary, I can quickly feed the engine from this gallon in an emergency.
I can't say enough about how much I appreciate this video. Just in making this video you've gone through the process that we should all do when things go wrong. I actually think I need to do this myself for some experiences I've had....
This is an excellent sailing video for novices and skilled sailors alike.
While your fuel tank is empty and you are in the yard. May I suggest a mechanical "sight" fuel gauge, Glass or clear tubing simply running from the bottom to the top of the fuel tank. This sight tube fuel gauge could be could be fitted on both your primary tanks and your Day Tank. If that is not practical I suggest a simple stick gauge to measure your fuel by dipping the tank's. Also it is very good practice to Top Off all the fuel tanks before a extended voyage. Something that I had on a Pilot Launch I captained for many years was a In Line Whistle in the fuel tank vent line. As you filled the tank with fuel the whistle would sing. When the fuel got close to filling the tank the whistle would flutter. When the tank was full the whistle would stop. This was a excellent device to help prevent overboard spills. Great Video and thank you.
Excellent assessment and breakdown of what happened. It is very helpful for myself and others to see you go though this process. Thanks for posting it. :)
100% agree on the single fuel line - when you talked about "filter" in the singular I realized you had the possibility of a single point of failure.
Finally, You all did well!! This is an opportunity to learn/prepare/improve. I think You all are doing excellent and life is just sharpening You Up!! CHEERS
As an equipment engineer, the first question I would ask: Is the fuel going to the engines?
Check fuel flow gauge (if present).
Check for burst pipes and fuel loss.
Is the pump working - listen, feel for vibration.
Can I see the fuel flowing through the lines (transparent) - if not, disconnect the fuel line and turn on pump instantaneously to verify - bleed line.
Change filter, check for fuel line blockages between tank and engine.
Suggestion : Get rid of the single point of failure.
Create two independent fuel delivery systems with flow switches on HP side.
Very helpful summary of your situation. Others will learn from the experience Tks
Good handling. But since you have two engines there should be some kind of redundancy, do a reconfiguration.
Great debrief. I had a similar situation ten years ago in force 8/9. Was rescued by a 60 ft gin palace who took my lines and towed me. Afterwards I removed and cleaned the entire fuel system and altered the fuel tank so that there were 2 independent, switchable fuel lines to my single engine. The cause of my engine failure was diesel bug, which I also see you have, so I changed my single filter for a much larger racor setup where I could see the fuel easily.I can also use it to polish the fuel if it has been lying a while. Good honest analysis gets you a long way. Stay safe.
Thank you for this really instructive and useful video. As one who designed electronic sensors for fluids I'd be curious to know what caused the fault of that sensor.
Hi, you made it to Iceland, well done my Ship Tracker app showed you stopped just inside west side of faroe islands for 24 hours, out of range for the app. Ray.
Thank for your honest, straightforward way of telling your story. I’m late to the party, having just found your channel, but I’m definitely enjoying getting caught up with you! All the best! 🔥❤️👍👍
If you can it would be best to take 3 outlets from the day tank...one for each engine then one for the heater.
Also fuel filter housings are not too expensive so fit 2 filters to each engine. On each engine you will have a valve to switch between the 2 filters. For normal running one filter would be doing nothing but would be primmed. If you had a situation where you thought you had a blocked filter you simpley switch the valve and would be running on a fresh one without getting tools out or making a mess. From time to time switch filters for a few minutes running so you are confident your back-up is ready to go.
How big is the dingy on your boat? Need 10 horse engine to pull Articka with a stout line. You might check the Air intake and filters on both engines to see if there is a blockage. Check fuel to see if it's clear and not clogged filters. Check throttle linkage for loose fittings. Check engine temp, did it overheat?
Good and important debriefing, at the end of the video. And, therefore, this actually IS an educational video, despite what you stated at the start.
I Have lived 8 years in a sailboat now in Tromsø,Norway, and been in a couple of "exciting" sitvations in those years. Good communication, a cold head and a good plan for troubleshooting is key to survive. Panic kills you faster in cold water and bad weather. Thank you for sharing, much better to pressing the emergency button once too much and in good time ! Can quickly take time before you get help, and delays can quickly cost both vessels and lives when bad things evolves.
Good call on giving yourself space from the shore. Indeed, a lot of people cut unnecessarily close to lee shores on the regular! I share your view that it is always best to give a bit of extra space should something happen as you experienced.
Indeed. With an crew of occasional or anxious sailors there can be a tension between keeping them happy by hugging the shore, and keeping the boat safe by preserving generous sea room. Unfortunately this is a dilemma which does not respond to invoking the "Master (only just) under God" clause, because an unhappy crew can lead to unsafe behaviours.
as AckGeezer suggested - a sea anchor, but if cronic understeer - use a trailing small sea anchor on a bridle - it can provide emergency drag on either quarter. I t has been used on boats with broken steering gear - should work for providing larger impetus when needed.
Nice one, one thing i always do is to record the engine hours and rpm and the amount of fuel in the beginning, this could be a back up way of estimating amount of diesel left
I had a lot of customers with this kind fuel problems. I cant understand why somebody connect the fuel line from the heater to the fuel line of the main engines. But i see you are on the way with the technikal things on ur boat. Good luck... :-)
Love your videos.....absolutely gorgeous view. I wish you'd put out more videos of what the passage looked like way up north. I'm so glad y'all are safe! Great video on emergency call too. I would have been freaking out! 😳
Thank you share you experance as this has make me think about how i will deal with crew on board a boat i have just done a day skipper course.
Excellent post incident analysis. Thank you for honestly sharing. Multi engine aircraft have the ability to cross feed fuel from one side to the other but generally they are required to feed respective tank to engine only during critical phases of flight (takeoff, landing phase)
thank you!
Your SeaFaring skills are recommendable Juhu and Sopvi.
very interesting episode. It looks like you are skilled and prepared enough that this did not become a big emergency. thanks so much for sharing, and for your analysis.
Juho, thanks so much for this one, as luck would have it in prep for our launch first of November, we had all the fuel and tanks cleaned as the boat we purchased has been sitting 6 years with no maintenance. We found, as expected, layers of "snot" in the bottom of the tanks but all of it cleaned up beautifully. But to get to my real point, I also remarked and mapped all the fuel supply and transfer pump lines for this exact situation you have shown. I will make sure I also delegate and trust my boat/life co-captain in these situations. Cant wait to see me mods.
Lol…, thanks for the honesty and sharing this (great lessons in terms of what we all rely on, electronics!) - and thank goodness you’re all safe - a good practice run on safety that hopefully you’ll never need to repeat… 😉 …, stay safe… 🙏 - some great lessons learnt and shared.., very useful insights… 👍
Well handled in the end. It had the makings of a "seconds from disaster" episode, where small problems compound.
Can't help but wonder how much good those lifevests could have done... maybe for jumping to a rescue boat.
You all did amazingly
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Forever best wishes
to all of you
⛵️🙏🌟🌎☀️
Two engines, two day tanks, if there's room. Great video.