Kailani Captain’s Log #1

I am uniquely unqualified to write about the dream of owning a sailboat being a success. 

My own boat, Kailani, hasn’t left the dock in the year and a half since I bought it. However, if some exasperated yacht owner had a gun to my head and asked me what the secret to sailboat ownership was I would say this: 

“it’s allll part of the fun baby (Austin Powers voice)” 

Every step and each successive complication to a two hour job that becomes an eight hour job is part of the fun. It’s a puzzle and another problem to test wits against, nothing more. When the owner/dreamer takes it personally, that’s when it all falls apart. There will be times when things go smoothly. The bolts will line up on the first try and an angelic host will proclaim victory in operatic fashion. Old salts walk by and sing praises about your cleverness for all to hear. Unfortunately for a majority of the jobs, shit hits the fan. 

Take for example, my own engine install on Kailani, though I need to explain why Kailani needs a new engine in the first place.  

When I bought the boat, a young gentleman in the Army named John sold me a dream and he sold it well. He’d been living on the boat dockside for about a year and the interior was as homey as it gets. There was a swivel mounted Roku TV which swung around for movie watching in the saloon OR up in the comfy V-Berth! Warm string lights illuminated the wood paneling which hid the insulation and allowed the small A/C unit to keep the boat comfortable during summer. The galley was neatly organized and clean. The saloon table had coins and maps from faraway lands inlaid into its surface and the surrounding benches were comfortable and cozy. I pictured morning coffee and breakfast as we gently rocked at anchor, tucked away in a leeward cove somewhere in the Hawaiian islands. On my first visit to the boat the fridge was stocked with beers and John and I shared a few over sunset as we talked about Kailani’s history.

Eventually we came to the issue of the engine. The original powerplant was a Volvo MD11C which is a durable, two-cylinder, 23hp marine diesel engine from the 1970s/80s. On John’s maiden voyage off the dock, the Volvo seized and brutally dismantled the buzz he had been fine tuning all afternoon. John is not mechanically inclined and after hemming and hawing and letting the engine sit for far too long he eventually addressed the issue. 

He removed the engine from the boat and carted it over to an excellent mechanic who worked several slips down at the marina. He begged the mechanic, named Russ, to “please please please just get it running again so I can sell it.” Russ thought he could get it running but knew from the get-go that Kailani wouldn’t be crossing oceans with this engine in it. So what John needed was a sucker who would pay him enough to escape his debts for a 50-year-old sailboat with no engine in it. 

Here’s where I come in.