Why is it that most emergencies happen in the dead of night?
It was about 3am and we had just restarted the engine about an hour earlier when the wind finally died during the night. I was at the helm for the 3-6am watch when I heard the bilge pump running. That's a danger signal as our boat takes on no water in the conditions we were sailing in. We were taking on water!
I headed below and checked the bilge which had a few inches of water that the bilge pump had not emptied yet. Whew, at least the water was not up to the floorboards and the main bilge pump was handling the problem. Next I checked the shaft area and was happy to see no water there. So next check was the engine room which was full of water up to the bottom of the engine and more water was pumping in. We had a cooling water line break!
We shut down the engine, which solved the incoming water issue. Next was to determine the exact problem. One of the clamps on a cooling water hose to the oil cooler had rusted and broken allowing the hose to come free of the fitting. It was a quick fix to install a new stainless clamp solving the problem. Then all that was required was an hour of pumping the water out of the engine compartment by hand (the engine sump doesn't have an automatic bilge pump to prevent you from auto pumping oily water overboard). We have hand pumps onboard and were able to clear the water from the engine sump and the main bilge.
By 4am, crisis overcome and time to get back underway. The best news was that the wind had now come back up and was from the southeast which allowed us to complete our jibe and sail on a port tack directly towards the St Mary's Inlet at 5kts.
We arrived at the Inlet at 0900 and were anchored off Cumberland Island by 1100. Time to crash and nap after the 24hr transit from New Smyrna.
