Redemption

June 10th, 2025

Two days into a month’s long trip into the arctic, 20 miles offshore, is not when you want to see black smoke pouring from the exhaust. At around noon today, that’s exactly what we saw. Scott was scratching his head as all other indications were fine. Good temps, pressures, nothing out of the ordinary. Sarah-Sarah has always burned clean and has, in my experience, been the least diesel smelling power boat I’ve ever been on. Any black smoke was highly unusual. This wasn’t a problem we could simply press on with. Scott had me point the boat towards shore and started to work the problem while I pondered the implications of engine issues two days into an eighty-day trip.

This whole thing was originally the brain child of Sam Devlin. The story, apocryphal or not, was that Sam talked to Scott about how great it would be for him to return Sarah-Sarah to the Pacific Northwest through the Northwest Passage. And, if he decided to do that, Sam would be happy to go along as crew. You have to admire Sam’s unabashed willingness to go for the big ask.

Now, Sam Devlin is a legend in the world of boat building. I’ll admit to being a longtime fan of his boats and his writing in Passagemaker and Soundings. But after last night’s problems with, you know, how clocks work, it wasn’t clear to me why Scott agreed to bring him along. But today, I had to try hard not to kiss the man.

In my head, I’m imagining a weeks-long delay in Mahome Bay or Halifax as we wait on one of the few engine parts we don’t have aboard. What I know about diesel engines you can write on the back of a stamp with a fat magic marker. Unintended black smoke from an otherwise spotless engine seemed like a very real problem to me and I started worrying about weather windows and timing issues. That’s when Sam stepped up to the helm, looked down at the gauges as Scott worked the throttle for a few seconds and said, “Uh oh, I know what this is. Your Engine Control Unit is going.”

Scott spends the rest of the transit in the manual and talking with contacts back in Anacortes. The manual has a warning that says “The ECU is the least likely part to go bad on this engine.” His ship’s system expert in Anacortes confirms that it is probably not the problem and that we should change the fuel filter on the engine. Everyone, including the manufacturer is thinking Sam is wrong.

To add to our problems, after 15 minutes of searching, none of us can even locate the ECU on the engine, in the engine room, or anywhere aboard. We tore panels off walls and even went so far as to look outside the engine room under a bunk before Scott remembered that he had the phone number of the project manager who built Sarah-Sarah. Where was it? For a part that nobody thinks will ever go bad, it was surprisingly easy to get to.

But where were we going to get an ECU? Scott had one in inventory under his bunk. With the spare ready to swap out and the ECU location confirmed to be the most accessible place in the engine room, we worked our plan: find a protected anchorage where we could safely drift, swap the ECU first (it took max 10 minutes) to confirm or deny Sam’s theory and, if he was right, celebrate with steaks for dinner after some extended test runs to another lovely anchorage.

As if to say “In your face, John Deere” Sam’s diagnosis was correct and the engine purred to life with exhaust gasses as clean as ever. The least likely part to go bad had gone bad. The Diesel Whisperer took us from what could have been a long night (at least) of trying everything else first to a 10-minute fix with plenty of time for a steak dinner and a full night’s sleep.

I retract, fully, my threats to pay him back for robbing me of my sleep last night and instead will be filling his glass at his lightest request. Scott’s as well for his insistence on having even the least likely to be needed spares aboard and in inventory.

All is well, we’ll be back on our way in the morning. We are definitely taking Sam with us. We’ll figure out why Dan is here later.