Envoy arrives at Didim

When starting cruising again we always make sure we do the basics like testing bilge pumps, man overboard drill and lifejacket drill. Everybody must know where to find their lifejacket, how to put it on and how to inflate it. It’s all too easy to think “we’ll never need these”, but I’ve seen too many unlikely situations happen to believe that.
I recall an incident one fine Saturday morning where a brand-new forty foot motor vessel was on her maiden voyage. Only about a mile from Auckland’s Half Moon Bay Marina she hit a well-marked rock, and was quickly awash to her gunwales. When we arrived on-scene the occupants were waist deep in water drinking beer, as if in some macabre celebration of their own incompetence, and without a lifejacket to be seen.
It’s warmed up during the last week to mid 20s, with sea water at 20 making swimming conditions pleasant. No more need for parkas and jeans.
We went ashore for a walk at Camel beach, near Bodrum, and like a lot of Turkish resort areas it’s pretty scruffy with poor quality, pot-holed roads, few footpaths, and badly maintained properties. Although they provide plenty of rubbish bins here, nobody seems to use them as the roadsides, grassy areas and beaches are strewn with litter.
In some areas the Turks have over-provided facilities in expectation of tourist numbers that haven’t materialised, and some resorts have been mothballed. Here at Camel Beach is one of those, complete with a large fenced-off area that originally was four tennis courts. Now the bar and dressing rooms are locked up, and the courts are overgrown and now used for corralling the camels! I’m sure this is not what the original architects had in mind!
We spent a few days cruising around the north side of the Bodrum peninsula and today we’re heading further north to Didim. Still no news of our water maker parts arriving.
We mostly cruise at about 1400-1500 rpm on our Lugger, 6 cylinder, 143hp, 6.8L, normally aspirated (i.e, non turbo’d) diesel engine, and this gives us about 6 knots with a fuel economy of about 8L/hr. If our paravane stabilisers are in use our speed decreases about 10%. This rpm range (although commonly also used by other owners to achieve good fuel economy) is a bit low, as the engine is under-loaded and doesn’t reach full operating temperature. It’s recommended (in Passagemaker) that diesel engines be run at about 75% of max rpm for 75% of the time. Failing this it is recommended that the engine be run at about 75% of max rpm for at least half an hour after reaching normal temperature, and again for at least half an hour one hour before switching the engine off. Running for periods at higher rpm, and consequent higher temperatures, reduces soot & carbon build-up, keeps the injectors cleaner and reduces condensation within the engine. Incidentally for this reason it’s not a good idea to run your engine for a few minutes when going down to your boat on the marina during periods of non use. It’s no problem for a diesel engine to be left unused for several months at a time with clean oil.
So why am I saying all this? Because on our cruise towards Bodrum we increased the rpm to 1800rpm, and above 1700rpm felt some heavy vibration – everything on board was rattling. At the same time the autopilot went a bit haywire, and we started going off course about 20d from side to side, leaving an “S”-shaped wake. As mentioned in a previous post we checked the engine vibration levels before leaving Marmaris and they were great - I mean virtually no vibration at any rpm setting. When we reduced rpm to about 1500 again all was OK. After a couple of days at anchor near Bodrum sitting out a gale warning we motored to anchor off Bodrum, and this time there was no vibration at higher rpm at all, and the autopilot was fine too. I can only guess that when we encountered the vibration there was something like a plastic bag or piece of fishing net on the propeller or rudder, and when we anchored it dropped off. Another one of life’s unsolved mysteries.