Here it (she/he?) is:
As noted in the advertisement above, the boat was built for Jay Gould III. However, for most of its life it was owned by Gary Fraser (below, in 2005 or so):
Gary restored the boat to near original (only better) condition over 30 years. His nephew Jim bought Jason last year. Jim and I did a repositioning cruise up from San Diego to Seattle, where Jason now resides. This blog is the story of our trip, and some subsequent adventures.
TIME FOR A BREAK -- Typical photos showing the delights of boating in the Puget Sound area.
END OF BREAK
At this point we should mention that not all boating is snow-capped mountain peaks and uh umm other sorts of peaks.
Some of it is definitely depressions and depressing. Such as the power outage we had for 2 days that sadly sunk a boat across from us, whose bilge pump had no volts for 48 hours. Jason was safe, with strong batteries, a good generator, and an onboard crew.
We took it out for a short ride on Tuesday, in preparation for the big SeaFair extravaganza this coming weekend. While cruising, Jim noticed the Starboard engine was overheating. We shut it down and I drove around slowly for a half-hour while he did troubleshooting to determine the cause.
The diagnosis was a bad water impeller, a small part which circulates ocean or lake water through a heat exchanger, which removes excess heat from the coolant in the diesel engines. It's a water pump (in automotive terms) consisting of a housing and a rotating portion with rubber vanes to push the water. Or at least it is supposed to have rubber vanes. Ours had none! Luckily we carry a spare.
The coolant pump is "conveniently" located here on the side of each John Deere diesel engine.
Of course the engines were running for an hour, so they were plenty hot. Let's say 200° F or just below boiling. All Jim had to do was keep from falling into the still running Port motor, and reach into the engine, remove these 6 screws, pull out the old impeller and all the debris, then refit the new one and put it back together.
Did I forget to mention the 120 decibel noise level, the 120° F air temperature, and that he was on his knees in jeans and a long-sleeve shirt while doing it?
Since our trip resulted in little damage other than some sunburn, we stopped to celebrate at Ivar's Acres of Clams. The Slippery Sue's hat was a gift to Jim from his sister, some time ago.
Yes, boating is surely lots of fun. But only some of the time.
We made it safely back to the dock, and I predict that Jason is out there right now, cruising Lake Washington, while we are in San Diego.
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