Ra'iatea - Boatyard Blues

Yes, the title of this post is correct. We're back in Ra'iatea and unfortunately stuck in a boatyard. Before leaving Hurepiti Bay, Tahaa enroute for Bora-Bora, our pre-departure check of the engine room showed a lot of oil had sprayed out from somewhere. Further investigation revealed that it was gear oil. G found a couple of slightly loose bolts, tightened them up and topped up the gear oil. We started the motor, put the boat in gear and all seemed well and sounded good. We headed out and stopped a couple of times to check that there weren't any leaks, it all still seemed good and we continued on for about an hour. We lined up our aft transit bearing line and headed into PaiPai pass, applying a little more throttle to get us to 5.5 knots to ensure we had enough way on for accurate steerage in what could be turbulent waters. The pass is about 0.5 mile long and 300 yards (approx. 300 meters) wide. It's always nerve-wracking in these passes as you can see the submerged reefs, usually with a lot of wave action, close on either side of you as you pass through.

We were barely past the reef, almost into the open sea, when, all of a sudden, there was a loud bang
and then a sickening 'crunch-grind-crunch' sound. We took the engine out of gear and when we started floating back towards the reef quickly put it back in gear again. The noise got worse, but, we persevered for a few minutes just to clear the exit. What now? We're sticklers for not towing dinghies and even though we have dinghy davits, for the first time, on this boat, we don't store the dinghy in them when we're on a long offshore passage. It's strapped onto the foredeck. As this passage was just twenty miles on a windless day with a flat calm sea we'd taken the motor off and put the dinghy, luckily, up on the davits. It was a simple matter to just drop it into the water, strap it on sidesaddle and get the 8HP Yamaha outboard down using our new outboard crane that we'd had fabricated in NZ. Then, G provided the propulsion from the dinghy while A steered. Luckily, even though we were now in open ocean there was hardly any swell and no wind, so, we were able to get 3.5 knots, but, to where?

Unbelievably, we realized that we were within just eleven miles of probably the only place we could get any engine repairs done in all of the Leeward Islands. We went south, back to Ra'iatea and entered through the all-weather Pass de Rautoanui and came back north a little to Chantier Naval des Iles boatyard where we dropped anchor outside their entrance. Thierry,  the mechanic,came out the next morning and removed our gearbox for a preliminary diagnosis. He showed it to us on the workbench, the damage was very ugly and it was obvious that we'd need a new gearbox. He couldn't really say what had happened, other than a large quantity of gear oil was missing. Later, we found that a drain plug, which is, for all practical purposes, inaccessible in our installation (and it should still have been factory-tight as we'd never used it, we change the oil through the top using a vacuum pump) had come loose and we can only surmise that's possibly where the leak occurred, although we're not sure. Very disappointing as our 'new' engine only has 1,100 hours on it. We'd rigorously followed the maintenance schedule for gear oil changes and made sure to use the correct grade of oil (which is an obscure type very difficult to source).  We'd just had a professional 1,000 hour Yanmar service done in NZ (for $2k!) and now this. Another chapter of how to sail the world by fixing your boat in exotic places.

It wasn't a good idea to stay at anchor. We were wide-open to the prevailing winds and deep, 25m, so, if the wind came up we wouldn't be able to increase scope that much (we only have 90m of chain). If we started dragging without an engine, it would not be a good thing. We made our way, with a couple of helpers, into the tiny, hot, dirty boatyard. We're sandwiched in like a sardine, between two huge catamarans which tower over us, but, at least we're still in the water. We've asked for gearbox quotes. Even if we find one, it probably won't arrive for at least 2-3 weeks and probably longer if it gets held up in Customs, which is likely. Let's hope that it is only the gearbox and that the engine doesn't also have damage. We only have six weeks left on our visas, so, it looks like our cruise of French Polynesia will be cut short, not by choice.