Mathilda dies, the Adak lives!

I truly felt like Colin Clive, sinking to the deck, shrieking in ecstasy, “It’s alive! It’s alive!!” as the monster took his first hesitant steps. Water churning behind the prop, gunmetal smoke pouring from the stack.

“Pollute, my sweet boat! Pollute until your heart’s content!”

And so she did. The beast shook and the oak timbers rattled. With great fanfare. Spinning out a hapless by-boater, as the case may be, who had the unfortunate luck to be passing by in a dingy as we switched direction with the screw. Glorious to watch him flail about.

Of course it didn’t happen easily. In fact Mathilda seemingly gave up her ghost in order to let the Adak run. I’m not sure if that’s true – but in my estimation her starter contacts went and we spent a good day trying to remove the starter but I swear those Japanese must have small hands to get in there to remove those bolts. And one bolt just wouldn’t budge so now she’s out of commission and I’m dreaming of sending paraffin wax along heated screw threads to get the bolt to move. I don’t know what will happen with that.

I  pledged to take mornings to write, to record the ups and downs of this project — but have gotten so caught up in the need to get Adak moving that everything – dog walks, proper eating, caring properly for Mathilada, conventional enjoyment itself – has fallen by the wayside.

But to hear those cylinders sending forth the conga of their drumbeats, the unmistakable smell of old oil burning off, the lube gauge bouncing up to six and shivering their – music to these  eyes.

The final hurdle presented by the seacock. Not the seacock itself – but the raw water cooling system. A few days ago we fired up the Deutz DC generator and built air. We turned the wheel to “Start” – just to give her air, but not delivering fuel to the cylinders. The engine turned over, but the belt-driven Jabsco pump did nothing – the belts just slid on its pulley.

So we opened the sea chest, and started by finding that the screens on both sides were completely corroded.

And the shaft wouldn’t turn. We spent a good four hours with the pulley-puller and blocks of wood and various other silly ideas trying to get that thing to move. We popped it off, and did our best to turn the shaft with a pipewrench – only chewing up the brass shaft more.

We took out the impeller – the fins snipped off so that water could travel up the pipes both left and right. The impeller was – one guess – you got it –destroyed! And the shaft seized up by so much salt corrosion.

We investigated shaft repair kits – but they would have to be flown in. We ordered a new impeller from Murray’s. They would ship it Express from the West Coast. On second thought – no. Let’s call Jabsco. No one answered. Cancel the impeller order. Post something on Sitka Forum for a belt-driven pump. Maybe E-Bay. There wouldn’t be time. They don’t even carry a 2-inch Jabsco in town, even if I could afford it.

Then Marat had the brilliant idea to use the Honda trash pump – of course not working – to circulate the sea water. So we got out the manual on that, looked through. And Marat – his brilliance working at a steady fever now – looked elsewhere for the problem, and found a pinprick hole in the hose we were using to pump water.

So we rigged that baby up. I cut off the cage surrounding the exhaust and – talk about Frankenstein – developed an exhaust system using all sorts of connections. I swear – one of those rare mornings where everything I looked for suddenly just appeared at my fingertips. I strapped it to the bottom of the deck. We fired up the pump – and indeed it worked. Exhaust was coming out – but the pipe was heating up. We decided instead to build a platform and hook up to the Yamaha Gen-set exhaust.

Second try – and this time she worked like a top.

We fired the boiler, and the engine block heated in no time. I went down into the fo’c’sle, and spent a couple minutes deciphering graffiti left  like pre-historic cave art on the plywood walls – one quite wonderful, almost Banksy-like, of a naked man staring through his legs.

Found a few more lines, and tied her tight to the dock. We made sure the stack – usually covered with a plastic container and old flywheel – was uncovered. Pre-lubed, checked that fuel lines were open, checked the site-glass on the day-tank. Decided that sending air through the cylinders worked in place of barring it over – put covers on the cylinder skirts, on the fuel injectors.

The sun shone. The air on the humidity reader read under 50 percent. One of those Sitka days where people walk around in dazes, banging into stop signs, the brightness almost too much to swallow. The mountains – Bear, the Sisters, Verstovia, Arrowhead and Cross – like great kings and queens presiding over our sea-side hamlet.

Marat put a hand on a cylinder skirt.

“You wanna try her?”

Marat part Turkish, a native of Fishtown, Philadelphia. Having fished and spent a good ten years going back and forth between Philly and Alaska.

The brass wheel – “Ahead, Stop, Astern” on its face – sat on the horizontal, faintly accusatory.

“No beginner’s lessons in life, right?” I said.

I turned it to start, then ahead. The cylinders pounded, knocked, a dull thudding followed by a sharp knocking. We shut her down.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

It didn’t smell or look good either. Blue smoke puffing out from the seal on cylinder five. And that knocking. Like some beast wanted OUT OUT goddamit. I put on my safety glasses. Seriously, I didn’t know what was going to happen.

“Maybe it’ll burn off.”

We tried it again – the knocking continued. I called Bob T – the town engineer, who ran a few Fairbanks-Morse as generators. He wasn’t around. Marat left to go check on the Shelikoff, Bob’s boat. I tried the engine again – the kids playing topside got scared by the banging and left the boat.

Marat returned – no Bob. We sat down with the book and leafed through on the stern deck. Not enough oil? Too much fuel? Air in the injectors?

I continued to leaf through. Marat went back down and started her again, this time in reverse. Same coughing. But then – I swear I could feel it in how the boat vibrated – everything at once dialed in. Like an orchestra getting in tune. The vibrations fell into sync, the sound began to hum instead of bang – even the smells once I ran down to the engine room were not acrid but just clean burn.

Shaft alley – the shaft at the stuffing box was turning. Top side the prop turned. Smoke came out. Checked the raw water coming from the side of the boat – she was working like a champ. We switched directions – bringing the throttle all the way down, stopping, going forward again. Sending our friend in his dingy for a spin.

Who can tell whether the Adak will go on to ransack villages, strangle little boys, finally demand a female companion. Indeed who knows if I’m not just another male enacting our age-old fantasy of parthenogenesis – expressed so beautifully in Jean-Leon Gerome’s painting of the same name, Galatea’s buttocks growing rosy with Pygmalion’s touch as Aphrodite answers his deepest wish to bring his creation to life – expressed equally beautifully in “Weird Science, as Anthony Michael Hall animates the computer-generated Kelly LeBroc. Our fantasy of creation sans female involvement.

That sounds sad. Sad indeed. And yet few days in this life have given me such joy.

Now we have to move her.