Sitting in a sea of gas

Well the bilge pump kicked on at 5am but hasn’t kicked on since.
Wayne say’s it’s probably due to all the rain we’ve had or it might be that the packing needs to be tightened (we had the cutlass bearing replaced last year).

The sun decided to greet us this morning.
You could see the rays reflected in the windows off of the rigging. It was a cool morning. We got off to a slow start, but the sun quickly warmed the temperatures back into the mid-seventies and we broke out a sweat getting the sails up and covers on. Things seem to go a lot slower here than other years when we’ve gotten the boat ready for the water. I don’t know if it’s the warmer weather or getting older, maybe both. Next season we need to see about getting the staysail fixed. It’s getting more difficult to get her up. It has a wrap around configuration that has a zipper on it. The zipper has deteriorated at the top fitting and bottom and each year it’s a struggle getting it going. The only time we think about it is the beginning of the season when putting it up. Fighting that zipper, to get it started, is vexing.

So we need to see about fixing the stern light, deck light, and windlass.
Everything else seems to be in working order.
We took measurements along the boom (176” or 14’8”) and up to the spreaders from the deck (23’1”) so we can get some braided rope to make new lazy jacks.
The lazy jacks are a system of lines forming a cradle. The mainsail falls into when you lower it. They basically hold the mainsail from falling all over the deck.
The sail cover also needs replacing, but that will have to wait until next summer when I have access to my sewing machine again. I think I’m going to make a stack pack to fit the lazy jacks. This will replace the sail cover and will protect the sail the sameway that the sailcover does. It will be a much easier system to use. The stack pack is material that covers and surrounds the lazy jacks. When the sail lowers into it, you just zip it up! Wella, we have instant protection from the sun’s rays. So it looks like the sails stack to a height of 43” at the mast. That seems kind of high, so I’ll measure that again to make sure.

A2+B2=C2
It’s been a while since we’ve used the Pythagorean theorem (since the house addition) but with a height of 23’ and length of 12’3.5” I think we came up with roughly 26’ to complete our triangle from the spreaders to the end of the boom where our current fitting is for the old lazy jacks. We have a 4-line lazy jack system that we want to adapt so that we can raise and lower the lazy jack lines from the cockpit. This will make it easier to raise the sails (we seemed to catch the battens in the old ones) if we can get the lazy jacks out of the way. There’s also less chafing on the sail if we can do this.

After putting up the sails and boom/mast measurements, it was time to go below and enjoy a sundowner and reheat last night’s spaghetti. It was just after dark and a sport fisher boat came by to tie up into a berth for the night. We didn’t think anything of it. Probably a local keeps their boat here. It wasn’t until later that we learned otherwise. The 3.4 million dollar boat was actually someone sneaking into the marina to stay for the night and not have to pay. Can you imagine? Anyone having that kind of money could afford a night’s dockage fee.

Around 6pm it smelled like someone was varnishing something. The strong smell of solvent came wafting through the cabin. It must be the boat behind us, I thought. It kept getting stronger. The smell was so thick you could cut it with a knife before it clicked that what I smelled was gasoline. I figured someone was getting gas since we were at the fuel dock. Then I hear voices outside talking about the strong smell too and someone mentioned that maybe there was a fuel leak from one of the tanks or a boat. Holy crappola! No wonder the smell was so strong! We’re right next to the fuel tanks and pumps.

Wayne and I were up out of the cabin in no time flat looking for the fuel leak! Several people were milling around talking about how strong the smell was. Particularly near our boat! I thought, that’s not possible. We’re a diesel engine. Then I thought about the outboard motor on the dinghy. The smell we were smelling was way worse than anything our dinghy could emit. I grabbed a flashlight while the guys were looking around the dock area and at the other surrounding boats tied up to the dock. We were all diesel powered except for our dinks. We searched up and down the dock area but could see very little in the dark. The smell seemed strongest by our boat. We were parked right in front of the fuel tanks on the gas dock. The smell was so strong by us, it burned our lungs. Somebody nearby was smoking. I asked them to please not come by the boat. We checked out the fuel tanks and nothing seemed to be leaking above. We flashed our lights in the water and you could see a film on the water. Steve (the painter) sprayed some chemical on the water and it dispersed from that area. He went along where it smelled strongest and it was obvious even in the dark that there was gas floating all around. It was all over the marina basin but the fumes seemed worse by us. Dave from Buckeye said – it’s a shame too because you got that boat looking so pretty, now it’s going to blow up. Of course he was being funny.
Of course I didn’t take it so funny!
Oh crap!

Someone said that the smell seems to oscillate, like when a bilge pump kicks on and off. Strong, weak, strong, weak. Whoever said it was correct. It seemed very cyclic. People had smelled it in the parking lot, in the main part of the marina, by the fuel dock, and in the courtyard and kitchen/lounge area. The consistent smell though was our boat in front of the fuel dock. Don’t know how many times I checked around our boat, dinghy and fuel tanks? But we couldn’t see a source of emanation. The fumes were still thick and rank and somebody else said their throat and eyes were stinging. Several people were smoking near the lounge and patio area. One of the guys said want me to help look? Not with that cigarette in your hand. Oh! Ha ha ha…


This shows our boat docked at the fuel dock for a perspective of where we are and where the gas tanks are.


Eric showed up and started investigating our boat, dinghy, gas can in the dinghy. Nope. On to the next one, gas can laying down. Nope, that one never had gas in it yet. And on, and on. I was glad our fuel cans were all still in the car. Next after checking all the boats along the fuel dock and hearing where the smells were coming from at various times and how the fumes seemed to oscillate, Eric asked if any boats came in after the office closed. It seemed like someone must be dumping gas into the water from the boat but we were all diesel engines along the docks and in the slips. Nobody remembered any boats coming in. Then someone recalled a large sport fisher coming in and said it was listing to one side. Nobody had remembered that until that moment. We all thought that it was a local but it turned out on further investigation that nobody was onboard. All the ports and doors were open, the bilge blower was left on and there was gas all over the bilge. When the bilge pump kicked on as the gas level built up in the bilge, it was purging the gas in the bottom of the boat into the marina basin. Eric or Steve tried to find the guys that came in on the boat & couldn’t. Then they turned off the bilge pump and tried to locate the people that had come in on the boat in the lounge & kitchen area. They weren’t anywhere on the premises. Someone said they came in looking for food and a restaurant. They were told that this was the kitchen and they were welcome to use it, but it wasn’t a restaurant. They wanted someone to cook them a meal. It sounded like they were drunk.

On further investigation, someone who had just come back from the local Italian/Pizzaria restaurant said they saw a couple guys there. The restaurant had picked them up from the marina to come to dinner. Eric asked if anyone knew them? Nope. Someone said they had the restaurant number in their cell phone because they’d called for pizza so gave Eric the phone. He called the restaurant and got a hold of the two guys from the boat.

The one sided conversation went something like this:

Sir, you need to come back to the marina.
Your boat is leaking gas all over.
I know you’re there to eat dinner, but your boat is dumping out gas into the water.
Do you understand what I’m saying?
You need to come back to the marina now!
Did you know that your boat was leaking gas all over when you left it open with all the ports and doors open and the blower running?
Why didn’t you contact someone?
Sir, I understand you’re having dinner.
You need to come back to the marina now!
Sir, how long before you can finish your dinner and get back to the marina?
Your boat is pumping gas out into the marina and you need to get back here as soon as possible.
You are putting other boats and the marina in danger.

Whoever Eric was talking to on the phone was quite belligerent with him.
I thought Eric was very calm and cool talking to him.
When Eric hung up the phone, he then threw it across the lounge into a chair. Then with a look of horror realized what he had done. Someone was nice enough to let him use his phone and he just threw it!
Yikes!
I was glad they found the source and was hoping the jerks would get back quickly.
In the mean time I wasn’t about to fire up the stove to make dinner. After a lot of discussion and milling around, Moose asked where my shoes were?
I don’t know?
On the boat somewhere…
The fumes in the boat were still pretty thick and with puddles of floating gas coming back and forth surrounding the boat, there was no way I wanted back on the boat for a while.
We went for Italian.
We’d just missed the culprits.
I guess it was a good thing because they were drunk as skunks.

The pizza was good and our lungs got a chance to clear out before we headed back to the boat.
When we got there, a firetruck and one of those trucks with the equipment to remover water from fuel was there. They were pumping out the gas from the bilge and the gas tanks into another tank. I heard that their gas tank had leaked and according to one of the guys that work at the marina, that the guys had filled up at the last marina. They have a 300 gallon tank and had either still had 100 or 200 gallons remaining in the tank that they had been purging into the marina water.
That means that they’d dumped at least 100 gallons into the waterway and marina basin, then left the boat to continue pumping out gas and had opened up the boat to air while they had callously gone to dinner! He had endangered not only their boat, but every boat in the marina by doing this. Then when they came back, they were drunkenly belligerent still, so Eric called the police and the fire department. Steve was surprised that the fire department showed up because this was a maritime matter. The police couldn’t arrest the guys because there was nothing on the books that they could find to arrest these guys for. How about public endangerment of life?!?!?! I guess the guys got irate because somebody had the gall to go on their boat while they were gone, without permission. Can you imagine?!?! Just let the gas spew out into the waterway?!?!? The guys have balls. They’re lucky the marina didn’t call the Coastguard on them. I believe there are Federal Laws about dumping hazardous stuff into the lakes, streams and territorial waterways.
The stinging odor of gas had dissipated while we were gone so we were able to go back onboard. It’s been one longgggg day.