Tania Aebi’s book inspired me to buy my first sailboat in 1996. I’ve never lived on land since then.. If I hadn’t read her book then I might have never become a liveaboard. ☺️🙏

Depending on how cold it is… but I don’t think we ever filled the stove with coal more than twice in a day.

Hi! To ask Davie about this you have to go to his Facebook page sewfarnorth, based in Shetland, or maybe to his KZbin channel sewfarnorth.

We have a wood/peat/coal/anything that burns stove for the apocalypse. 😳 kzbin.info/www/bejne/maKwaYZ9ap2YkJI

Actually, it wasn’t her impeller at all, and if she had changed it out right then and there,then it wouldn’t have made any change to how her engine was overheating at all. I believe Hazel explains it all on the videos on her channel @SailingAlanouwoly. 😊👍🏼

My understanding is that many weeks prior back in France, Alanouwoly’s engine was overheating. At that time, Hazel hired a mechanic, and they discovered that the impeller had broken apart. They then replaced it with a brand new one, and the engine seemed to run fine. Weeks later, in Spain, her engine overheated again, and we towed her back to Gijon. She then hired another mechanic and they discovered that a piece of the 1st impeller (the one that broke in France and got replaced) had finally clogged the cooling system. It had been in there for many weeks without causing a full blockage, but it finally did cause a clog, and a new engine overheat. So there was nothing wrong with the new impeller that was running in there when the engine overheated and we towed her, and just changing it then and there wouldn’t have fixed it.

@drakeParagon well in her video it says it was completely trashed, so not intact. Would the blockage from the bits slowed cooling with the new impeller? Absolutely, but it would've still cooled better. Also, when an impeller fails you are supposed to either retrieve the bits, or go through the cooling system to make sure they all flushed away. These are basic maintenance issues. Fwiw, if she replaced the impeller with an aged "new" impeller, rubber often doesn't age well. I prefer new off the busy shelf impeller to stored in a boat for 10yrs impeller (those are just secondary back up). So either an aged impeller was installed or her raw water intake is clogged, because an impeller should not disintegrate in a couple of months. Either way, swapping in a new one was the solution that worked for her, I am just saying that can be done at sea, at anchor etc, and should be something a sailor (especially Solo sailor) can do quickly. It's great that you towed her etc, but the lesson is better preparedness by her, and definitely heavier gloves (was she wearing any) ?) while pulling up chain.

I’ve been told by mechanics that it’s a best practice to use new impellers rather than old ones that have been sitting in a locker for 10 years. Thank you for reminding me that I should get some new ones to replace our now very old spares. When Alanouwoly was overheating back in France and Hazel hired a professional mechanic to fix it, there might have been some things lost in translation. The mechanic had definitely replaced the old impeller with a brand new one, and I think Hazel was under the understanding that he had flushed out all of the old impeller bits from the system. But apparently that was not the case. So even though Alanouwoly had a lot of engine hours on her since leaving France, when we pushed off in convoy in Spain, that’s when the old impeller bits finally worked their way to where they caused a complete blockage. And this blockage caused the new impeller to overheat and break apart. After we towed Alanouwoly to the dock, Hazel hired a new mechanic, and made sure that he completely flushed out everything. The mechanic had to dismantle the whole cooling system to do this, and it took considerable time to do this. When Alanouwoly overheated and we towed her, if Hazel had right then and there swapped out the impeller with >>another new impeller<<, then I wonder how long that one would have lasted? If the old impeller pieces that were caught up in the cooling system were still causing that blockage, then wouldn’t the newly fitted impeller also overheat and break apart? How long would that take? At the time we were running out of daylight and still had a very long day ahead of us to get to the safety of the nearest marina. I think if Hazel had swapped out the impeller right then and there, and if it had also overheated and gotten blown to bits in a short time because of the blockage, then the delay would have meant that we would be making port in the dark, and in much windier conditions, which is definitely something that I felt we had to avoid.

Hi! To ask Davie about this you have to go to his Facebook page sewfarnorth, based in Shetland, or maybe to his KZbin channel sewfarnorth.

Éanna could only get away from work for 2 weeks for this voyage, but he did sail with us for over 4 months on our voyage from US to Canada, Greenland and Iceland. It was the greatest adventure! He joined us for that in Season 3, Episode 1 “Welcome Aboard!” m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/fHTVlXx7obCtb5o