What broke when, 2019

Stony Brook Medical Center, Stony Brook, Long Island, NY, 15-DEC-2019 – I’m sitting in my Dad’s hospital room.

We’re in the belly of his recovery. The immediate recoveries have slowed. He is able to move is his right thumb and right index finger. If his right arm is supported, he can flex and extend that arm. He can inconsistently move both his legs a bit. Nothing in left arm. He is beginning to swallow a bit, but can still not move his tongue, nor move his eyes right to left.

More devastatingly, he has dropped into depression becoming difficult to engage. When asked if he thinks he will improve, he says No. He can show his emotions in his face and he cries. This morning during rounds when he started to cry his nurse started to cry, as did his doctor. When his doctor recovered she said to me quietly, he can show emotion, that is a good sign.

In America, and I suspect this is human nature, we often view people as two-dimensional. You are a doctor, not also a sailor, and parent and child and home-owner and all of the things one is.

When one is working, one keeps one’s multi-dimensionalism by being the visitor to hospital and having a job. Here, I have begun to think I am just the son who visits his dad for 14 hours a day. I’m not. From your point of view I am Jennifer’s partner and we sail.

I am also the retired son of my father, who until two weeks ago was as hale and fit as a man my age. He has gobs of muscle mass and none of the brain shrinkage of a 92-year old man.

And most of all, that my dad is just a stroke victim. The staff here was so pleased to see pictures of my dad in his life, what he looked (and looks) like in his life where is a father, grandfather, expert RC modeler, and local lobbyist. I can’t thank the people here enough for not seeing him one dimensionally.

There is no segue into what broke where that isn’t terribly, embarrassingly painful, so I’ll use a rule (a drawn line).

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I’d like to make two posts about what broke. This post which lists what broke where, and a second about how we fixed what broke. Things that are really interesting, in what they were, or how they broke, or how I repaired them will get their own post.

I started writing this list in Hilo on the thirteenth of November, a month ago. It seems like ages ago.

Compared to other years, the list of items that broke is not impressive, nor that expensive, less than $1000 to repair. An old friend, air in the fuel lines, returned. We learned that mechanical manufacturing was better thirty years ago, as we treaded on the prophylactically-replace versus if it-ain’t-broke, don’t-fix-it divide.

Interestingly things continued to break at the dock.

Jennifer learned from the cruising books that she is now reading that other boats break, too, which, on the one had made her feel better in that we were not unprepared and things do break, and worse, because even though we were prepared things did break and will continue to do so.

Here is the list:

1. Windvane (self-steering gear) – Out of Cape Flattery
2. Pelican Hook – Out of Cape Flattery
3. Impeller pump leak – Probably out of Cape Flattery
4. Old starter continued to act up and was replaced – In San Francisco
5. Quadrant kept jumping off rudder post – In the Channel Islands
6. Air in Fuel line returned as a problem – Out of Monterrey.
7. Two tears in 135% Genoa because I left wire strands sticking out of nicopress fittings on new life lines – idiot – Out of San Diego.
8. Bilge pump wiring – Out of San Diego
9. Windvane – Out of Cape Flattery. Again after repair in San Diego. Turned out to be a set screw knocked out of its detent
10. Autopilot – Out of San Diego. We replaced a working, and apparently better manufactured part (the ST-4000+ wheel drive) for a brand new replacement that came with the EV1 .
11. Preventer shackle after autopilot failure – Out of San Diego
12. Traveler mount welds after autopilot failure – Out of San Diego
13. Iridium GO – Out of San Diego. After I knocked it to the cabin sole with the USB cable still connected.
14. Bow Running lights – After arrival in Hilo
15. Bilge Pump – In Ala Wai, Honolulu
16. New Starter – In Ko’olina

Hmm, well the list does get a bit bigger when I give it some thought.

18-DEC-2019 – I spoke with my brother Vin who tells me that this type of starter break is common. The engine was ready to start and kicked back when we removed power from the starter.