But we still had a great time! Dave joined me in Puerto Vallarta after Gerry and Tim both had passport issues. We motorsailed a lot. The drive belt modification that worked really well for a while eventually started making this squealing noise. We determined it was coming from the drive pulley that had snapped off the drive shaft. It looks like the bolts themselves sheered off, leaving studs in the original output pulley for the engine. I guess these engines really weren’t designed for high output alternators, or the kit really didn’t do well.

Here’s a picture of it, which was hard to obtain because it’s in the back of the engine. Notice the three (of 4) holes and lots of rust.

In any case, I had everything except the original water pulley which meant we motorsailed on the port engine for the last leg to Cabo.

In any case, we did stop at Isla Isabel which was probably the highlight of the first leg of the trip. Check out the Isla Isabel Photo Album here.

When we got to Cabo, Gerry brought me a new pulley and I reinstalled the original alternator and belt setup. Then we started bashing north from Cabo around 8am on the 22nd. We tried sailing it for a while. It went well around Cabo Falso even though it was pretty rough. We weren’t making great time; by the end of the day we had sailed about 41 miles in about 14 hours, or about 3 miles an hour (this is only about 2.5 knots). Our actual speed over ground was better, but we were trying to do some sailing. In hindsight, we probably should have just motorsailed 15 degrees off the wind. I think we would have switched to that over the night shift if we continued.

In any case, one of the bilge rags slid back and wrapped itself around the propeller shaft. This was a disaster -- it sprayed oily salt water over everything, including the battery charger, alternators, battery monitor, etc, leaving us with no way to charge our batteries. We turned around and were back in Cabo the next morning.

After fixing things up enough to have one charging system, we decided to take the boat to LaPaz to complete repairs, and then enjoyed ourselves in the Sea of Cortez for a few days. LaPaz is really hot this time of year.

It’s time to repower Jane’O. There are far too many engine problems to keep sailing her. Things are just rusting out, like another serious oil leak in the port and starboard engines. I suppose these engines lasting 30 years is pretty good, but the time spent down in the smelly engine room would be better spent elsewhere. I’m sure I can keep busy just with cosmetic work -- the galley needs a makeover too.

So, she’ll be shipped back after all. I think we will still need to sail her from Ensenada back to SF, but I don’t have dates on that yet.