We mentioned our engine trouble a few times already in our podcast, but I thought I give an overview and update here on the blog as well.

As is usually the case, the engine didn’t just stop working out of the blue. When we were in Walvis Bay, about half a year ago, we ran the engine to charge the batteries (which was also a sign of battery issues coming up, if we were only able to see it) and Richard on our neighbouring boat Cassius, noticed the white smoke coming out of our exhaust and mentioned that this could be a sign of the piston rings being worn out. An issue he had before and resolved by replacing the piston rings. We weren’t too worried about it as the engine was still starting and running fine and we thought we had time to look at it “later”.

One should never leave work on a sailboat till “later”, we should have known that, we definitely know this now. We are now stuck in Brazil with an engine that’s been taken apart and without any spares available to fix it. We are now are looking at not only replacing the piston rings but the whole postins as they are looking pretty messed up. We’re not sure if this is because we left the problem to become a bigger problem or we mistreated the engine when it wouldn’t start.

What happened in between Walvis Bay and Brazil is that as we were getting close to St Helena we motored the last 70 nautical miles or so as the wind was down to about 5 knots and we weren’t going to make it to the anchorage before dark if we didn’t use the engine. This was all fine for the first 6 hours or so until we started to worry about the engine, we noticed a different smell coming from the engine compartment and it seemed to be overheating, and the oil seemed to be needing a top up sooner than usual. I had the great idea to top up the oil without turning the engine off (don’t judge me, we learn from our mistakes). As soon as I opened the oil cap, very hot oil squirted out (anyone who knows anything about engines would have been able to tell you this would happen) and we had to quickly turn the engine off and refill the oil the right way.

Turning the engine on now proved to be a challenge. Until now the engine had always stated within seconds. We had to put the throttle on maximum and even then it would take a long time for the engine to “take’. It would kinda start running but on a much to low RPM: the engine would sound slow and it would over about half a minute slow down until it stalled completely. Eventually we managed to get the engine started again and continue to the Jamestown anchorage, just in time before sunset.

At some point we wanted to move to the other side of the anchorage, we thought the swell might be less there but our engine wouldn’t start: it ran on low RPM until it stalled. We did all the usual troubleshooting: replaced all the diesel filters, assuming there wasn’t enough fuel coming coming trough. When that didn’t fix the issue we had another good look only to discover that the fuel cutoff (a lever used to shut down the engine) was half out, which meant the flow of diesel was severely restricted. This gave us some confidence that we had enough basic understanding of diesel engines to suspect fuel to be the issue.

After putting the fuel cutoff in the proper, down, position we started the engine without issues and it ran like a dream, much better than it had before. Yay, we almost felt like diesel mechanics. We managed to move Tropical Dawn to the other side of the mooring field, closer to the island. I”m not sure when or why we tried to start the engine after that, but the same issue as before was back: engine doesn’t want to start, it turns over but to slow, and eventually it stalls. We talked about this to our local friend, ferry man Johnny, who came to our rescue and gave us the same possible diagnosis as we heard before: it could be the piston rings. If these were worn out to much the compression could be compromised. Quick aside: diesel engine troubleshooting comes down to these three fundamentals: fuel, compression, air.

Eventually Johnny managed to coax the engine into starting by applying some Q20 (South African version of DW-40) in the air intake. The issue with the engine this whole time was with getting it started, once it ran it kept running. We didn’t take him up on his offer to get a mechanic to do a compression test (another mistake we chalk up to the cost of learning), mainly because we were getting ready to leave St Helena and didn’t want to be stuck waiting for repairs or worse spares (which could have taken months to arrive on St Helena).

When we finally did leave the beautiful island of St Helena we had the same issue: the engine didn’t want to start. But now knowing the trick Johnny thaught us we used engine start spray (which is specifically made to help start engines) and eventually we got it going. Only later, when we were trying to figure out how to get the engine started for our approach to Cabedelo, Brazil did we read up about the use of this engine starter and learned that you should never spray it into your diesel’s manifold/air intake as it can cause the engine to misfire and damage it.

We had a lot more issues (see separate post about our battery issues) on our passage from St Helena to Cabedelo so we never did get the engine started and we had to sail into the river and onto anchor. Having managed that (and hand steering for 15 days straight) we felt like we’d checked a lot of things of our sailor learnings list and felt quite proud of ourselves at making it.

It’s been over two months since arriving in Brazil and we got someone to look at the diesel engine as soon as possible. The first mechanic also brought up compression as a probable issue and the piston rings as possible cause but because it would be faster, easier, and less costly top check the fuel pump and injectors he decided to have checked out first. Since then this mechanic has had to move to another town (we won’t get into why here, but we talked about it on our podcast) and the second mechanic, who came to put back the fuel pump and injectors said it made most sense that the issue was an issue with compression. By now we are onto our third mechanic in Brazil as the second was specialised in electrics and couldn’t help with compression issues.

The third mechanic (or actually pair of mechanics) have by now taken the engine apart and out of the engine bay and have been trying to source the piston rings and find someone to repair the pistons. We don’t know if the engine starter caused more issues or just running the engine with broken piston rings but the pistons are in pretty bad shape, so it looks like we will need to replace the pistons as a whole now. Unfortunately these aren’t available anywhere in Brazil and the local Yanmar representative said ordering them from Japan would take at least 150n days! Not only do we only have 90 days on our visa and are already over half of through, it seems impossible to extend your visa with a European passport (I’m Belgian) although Kay could extend hers because she has a South African passport. Problem is that that still doesn’t give us 150 days and even if were able to stay in Brazil for that long, we would miss our Southern hemisphere summer window to cross back to South Africa.

So yeah, next steps aren’t clear. The few options we have contemplated. First options is getting someone coming from Europe or South Africa to bring the spares, which would depend on these spares being available there and someone heading over to Brazil being able to take them. Second option is sailing back to Cape Town without an engine. This would be quite stressful but mainly one leaving here and arriving in Cape Town. We already sailed into the river without an engine, so we know we can do it and Cape Town was out home port for a long time so we have a pretty good idea of how to sail into there. It wouldn’t be easy but it is possible. Third option would be to leave the boat here and leave Brazil, either flying back to Cape Town or traveling in South America, until the spares arrive and the engine can be fixed. The last one is definitely our least favourite, and the second one would be quite stressful, so let’s keep our fingers crossed that we can get these pistons here with the help of a fellow cruiser.