Our friends Lacey and Jeremy recently joined us aboard for some sailing and to take part in our official renaming ceremony of Kaleo.
Lacey and Christie prepping Chick ‘N’ Spuds for dinner
By the end of the weekend they got a lot more than they bargained for as:
- Matt and Jeremy practiced their diesel mechanic skills for the better part of Saturday, installing and testing the rebuilt heat exchanger (helps keep the engine cool).
- However, within 5 minutes of leaving the dock to go sailing the engine temperature alarm let us know the heat exchanger wasn’t working as planned.
- We immediately returned to the dock where Matt and Jeremy went back to work. It seemed that they simply hadn’t added enough coolant to the motor, or so they thought…
- With coolant topped off, Kaleo left the dock again headed for a special appointment in the bay – her offcial renaming ceremony. The name Kaleo had just been put on the boat a few days before and as good sailors we had to pour some champagne on the bow and into the sea.
- We hove to (parked the sailboat in the wind) and gathered on the foredeck to toast and offer champagne to Neptune and Anemoi (the wind god). We even went for one of the more esoteric practices of having a virgin pee on the bow. Thank goodness Lacey is about 7 months pregnant, so baby Valley helped via Lacey and a cup. Naturally, Jeremy was in charge of pouring the cup over the bow.
The hand-off
Thanks Valley
- After going through the fun renaming ceremony we said a prayer to the one true God for safety and prosperity of His Kingdom on our travels.
- After a few hours of lovely night sailing, we turned on the motor to head back to the slip and surprise, the cooling system wasn’t working! That left us no other choice than to sail back to the slip, or at least as far as we could. After sailing all the way to the Kemah bridge, we limped to a nearby yacht brokers’ dock to call TowBoatU.S.. After a smooth tow in, Matt washed the bow very well and we called it a night.
All-in-all it was good practice for when plans take a detour, we enjoyed having friends aboard and our Kaleo has been officially christened.
Even though you had to get towed, it sounds like a fun night with friends. You’d think the gods would have treated you better with all that champagne! =)
Thanks, Cheryl! We were treated very well to have had the engine overheat so close to home port :o). It was an easy tow (covered by insurance), were able to hook back up to shore power (A/C!) while diagnosing the issue, and were close enough to order the right parts to repair vs. being out on passage, waiting for the parts to arrive.
I loved seeing that you guys got to enjoy a nice sail last weekend. The skies and your smiles looked wonderful in your photos!