A summer cruise survived a broken transmission cable
Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016
While on our annual vacation cruise last summer, powering across Lake Ontario from Sacketts Harbor to Waupoos, we started to have issues with our engine not running well due to sludge buildup in the fuel tank. I had already spent quite a bit of time in the engine compartment unclogging the pickup screen in the tank when I noticed that the gearshift control cable had broken at the transmission.
We were very lucky to discover this while out on the lake and not while docking at a marina in a narrow channel and surrounded by other boats. Anchoring that night was an old-fashioned-looking and -sounding affair. I called out the gear lever position I wanted and my daughter Sarah repeated the order, then used a boathook to manually select the proper gear. It worked but, given that the way home would include five locks and a marina stop or two, we clearly needed an improvement over the boathook method.
Genius and tonic
The morning following a brainstorming session (aka sunset drinks) with friends, I channeled my inner MacGyver and dove into the problem. A closer inspection revealed that the control cable had broken at the transmission end and the remaining piece was firmly stuck in the connector at the transmission. As Sarah was removing the connector, I realized that all I needed was a piece of small-diameter line and a few blocks.
It did not take very long to find suitable attachment points for the blocks and to attach one end of the line to the gear- selection lever on the transmission. Next, I strung the line through the block, through the bulkhead into the sail locker near the helm, and back to the engine compartment and the next block. After tying that end to the gear-selection lever, I now had a continuous line running from the transmission, to the back of the boat, and forward again to the transmission. I made sure to use some fuel line pieces as chafe protection where the line passed through the bulkhead.
To differentiate between forward and reverse, I tied a red ball into the line that engaged reverse and a sail slide into the line that engaged forward. Ta dah! Once again, I had a way to select forward/neutral/reverse from the helm.
The next morning saw me seated at the helm with the lines draped over my knee while the windlass (aka Sarah) was on the foredeck, ready to raise the anchor. It quickly became obvious that draping the lines over my knee was not a good solution. Each time I wanted to shift gears, I had to look down for the right line, grab it, and pull. This was too distracting and time-consuming, but was easily solved with a bungee running to the stern pulpit. The side benefit of the bungee was that it kept a little tension on the lines and made sure they could not get caught in the propeller shaft.
This system worked like a charm for the rest of the vacation and all the way home. A little ingenuity and a reasonable collection of spares — from our boat and begged from our friends — turned what could have been a major issue into a minor inconvenience that had no impact on our vacation.
Sarah has been a lifelong sailor. She has shown quite an interest in the mechanical aspects of the boat and, as she puts it, is our deck monkey and windlass. We are truly blessed in that she, at the age of 20, and her little sister Katie, at the age of 16, are still keen on spending three weeks on the boat with us every summer.
Matt Koch started sailing at the age of 6 when his dad bought his first boat, and sailing has always been a family affair for him. He met his wife, Carolyn, 25 years ago at their local sailing club and they have been sailing together ever since. They sail with their family on their good old Island Packet 31 on Lac St. Louis, Montreal, and visit the 1,000 Islands and Lake Ontario every year on their annual vacation.
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