(Continued)
Crawling westward in super light air, I had a chance to google “diesel runaway”. Scary videos!!! I realized that I was indeed lucky that my motor hadn’t exploded! It turns out the best way to stop a runaway diesel is to cover the air intake with either a piece of wood or a t-shirt in a thick plastic bag. Too bad I hadn’t known this earlier! Also, too bad the air intake is on the far, back side of the Yanmar...
Luckily HULA lives on a dock that’s pretty easy to sail to, and that I’ve practiced it many times. My wife was there to help bring our 20,000 lb beast to a nice gentle stop. Just like stopping 5 Olson 30’s all at the same time!
After tying up the boat, I had to know if the engine would start. I removed the cockpit floor to access the motor, and gave it a crank. It started right up, rpms ok, but sounded awful, all “clickety-clackety”. I immediately decided I was not going to rebuild or repair this oversized rusty motor that had tried really hard to kill me, and so with some satisfaction, I snuffed her out with a t-shirt in a thick plastic bag! That trick works really well...
HULA will be getting an owner installed brand new Beta diesel soon.
THE END