Chapter 58
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Funter Bay, AK
If a boat was human, the raw-water impeller would be its heart—pumping cooling seawater through the big diesel’s heat exchangers and then out through the exhaust. The impeller itself was a spider-shaped rubber gadget with vanes radiating out from the middle.
The gear-driven pump made the impeller spin, and the vanes worked like a paddlewheel, pulling the seawater through the system.
Marco replaced the impeller at least annually—in accordance with the manuals.
Marco had never seen an impeller fail like this before.
It had only a hundred hours or so on it.
He’d replaced it just a couple months ago.
All of the rubber vanes were partially broken at the base, but not all the way across.
And they didn’t have the usual rough texture where the break occurred.
It was clean. Maybe a manufacturing defect?
He set the old impeller aside and unwrapped the new…
What the heck? Different size?
Marco held the bad impeller up next to his replacement—they were definitely different. The new one was slightly smaller—and had a different diameter shaft opening. This was the wrong part!
Marco always carried spares of the critical parts aboard Radio Flyer.
He usually carried two spare impellers, but he found only one.
How could he have gotten the wrong size as a spare?
He always ordered the same exact part number when he replaced the impeller each season.
He should have two spares, and they should be exactly the same as the one in the engine.
First the water in the fuel tank, and now the wrong spare impeller? And only one spare?
Am I getting too old for this? These are the kinds of careless mistakes that could get me in real trouble.
Marco took out his cell phone—two bars of signal. Good enough. He called his friend Steve Birkinbine, who ran a fleet of charter boats out of Juneau.
“Well, if it ain’t the Old Man in the Sea.” Steve was obviously trying to be funny.
Marco was not ready to joke around. “Too soon, Steve. I’m sitting here with a bad impeller in one hand and the wrong spare in the other.”
“Then what’s holding the phone?” Steve goaded him.
Marco ignored it. “Hey, I’m in Funter and dead in the water. Any chance you’ve got an impeller for a Cummins QSC eight-point-three?”
“You won’t believe this, but I’m holding one in my hand—the hand that isn’t holding the phone. I’m about to fly it over to Hoonah to rescue one of my charter boats. Guy has a PhD, but apparently can’t remember to reopen the seacock before he starts the engine.”
Marco felt a weight lifting off of him. He hadn’t realized how tense he had been feeling, but his shoulders dropped from his ears, his throat relaxed, and his breathing felt easy again.
“Any chance you have another one?” Marco asked.
“And any chance you can get your pilot to land in Funter on the way to Hoonah? I’ll pay for the plane. ”
“No need to do that—I’ve got a whole case of em. Charter customers go through a lot of impellers. I’ll see you in about two hours.” Steve disconnected the call.
Marco motored the dinghy slowly around the starboard side of Radio Flyer, examining the damage.
There were a few deep gouges, but nothing that looked like it would make her not seaworthy—lots of ugly scratches in the gelcoat.
He’d have to get some expensive repairs done at her next haul-out.
He wished he could see better below the waterline, but the rock contact seemed to have been mostly higher up.
He realized he’d been lucky she’d only drifted into the rocks rather than striking them while underway.
A floatplane was approaching directly toward him, the pontoons sending a spray sideways as the De Havilland Beaver flared and touched down on the smooth water of the bay. The pilot killed the engine and the plane coasted up to within a couple boat lengths of Radio Flyer.
Pain shot through Marco’s arm as he threw the dinghy’s bow line toward a cleat on the plane’s pontoon.
His throw went short. He reached overboard to secure it.
His head ached from multiple bangs against the ceiling of the engine room.
His knuckles were red and scabbed from turning wrenches on Radio Flyer’s big diesel.
The passenger door opened and Steve Birkinbine stepped smiling out onto the float. “Better place than most of my charter customers pick to get stranded.”
Marco held the damaged impeller out to his friend. “Ever see one fail like that?”
Steve turned the part over in his hands and pulled back some of the rubber vanes with his thumb. “It didn’t fail. Someone cut it, partway through every single vane. Lucky none of them broke off and got sucked into your heat exchanger.”
Marco trusted Steve. He’d probably replaced hundreds of these things over the years. “Could it just be a manufacturing defect or something?”
Steve shook his head. “Somebody’s got it out for ya. Somebody who knows a bit about boats and diesels. They went to a lot of trouble.” He handed the part back to Marco, then reached into the plane and produced a new one wrapped in plastic. He tossed it down to Marco.
The part bounced out of Marco’s hands, landed on the inflatable tube of the dinghy, and slid toward the water.
He twisted himself to catch it and caught it just before it went overboard.
His back protested in pain. His reactions just weren’t up to par today, and his nerves were frayed.
He held the new impeller up next to his old one. They matched.
Birkinbine was right. This was sabotage.
If somebody had time and access to do this, they also could have swapped his spare for the wrong one.
That would practically guarantee that he would get some distance away and then be stranded.
Smart. And Steve was also right that whoever did this was probably a mechanic.
It must have happened during the break-in at Baranof Marine. But none of it made sense.
Who would gain anything from this kind of sabotage?
It seemed a little like a series of bad pranks. Expensive, annoying, but not a real attempt to harm him. If he hadn’t gone out in the storm, the impeller problem would have been nothing more than an annoyance. That was just bad luck and a combination of circumstances.
Still, somehow, he felt he was missing a piece of the puzzle.
“Thanks a bunch, Steve! Email me an invoice. Oh, and I brought this for ya.” Marco reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of Jameson 18 Years.
“Oh, the fancy stuff.” Steve took the whiskey and grinned. “Thanks, buddy. Gotta run. Let’s do some fishing when you get back to Juneau.”
Marco untied the dinghy, started the outboard, and pulled away.
The big radial engine of the Beaver sprang to life. The pilot turned the plane in a half circle and gunned it. The wind from the prop blew Marco’s hat off his head and onto the floor of the RIB. The floatplane disappeared over the point, headed toward Hoonah.
Marco installed the new impeller and started Radio Flyer’s engine. Everything seemed normal.
The diesel spill and the stuff at the boatyard had all happened after that stupid newspaper article.
And whoever took the Radioville journals and his snow globe must have seen the second article as well.
Somebody seemed to be trying to send Marco a message, and he wasn’t sure why.
And that somebody knew their way around a boat.
There were probably other unpleasant surprises waiting for him, and he didn’t want to wait for them to pop up at a bad time. He decided to stay an extra night at anchor and give Radio Flyer a thorough bow-to-stern inspection. He didn’t fancy any repeats of yesterday.