I removed the muffler, which also contains the freshwater based coolant.

With Olaf, who came over to MaRe, we looked carefully in the openings of the muffler and found the hole at the exit opening. Then I knew for certain where the coolant gets lost.

After Olaf went back to his boat, the wind got really pretty strong. As Olaf’s tender is fully inflatable only, no aluminum floor, no aluminum bottom, it is very light. In the combination of a strong current and winds from the side his tender flipped over with the outboard engine attached. He could turn it around again, removed the outboard engine and started cleaning it from salt water. As he found some sand in the carburator he called Raiatea Carnage, the shipyard, to get it cleaned. Thus, we took my tender and brought his outboard engine to the shipyard. On the way there, Olaf had the idea to get hole welded.

With the back at the wall this idea could be pursued. The muffler is a kind of aluminum alloy and there is, around the corner of Raiatea Carnage, a company doing also aluminum welding. I went there and asked. A few hours later when we picked up Olaf’s outboard motor, I brought the muffler along. After inspection of the hole by the owner of the company and a very experienced person, he said he will give it a try.

Before bringing the muffler to the welder, I called a technician of Onan NZ. As a result I put a list of all needed spare parts together and send it to Onan NZ.

In between I also checked out various possibilities to get spare parts from DHL office close to Pape’ete airport to Bora-Bora.

Again my friend Tevai offered also his help in this matter. I’m really very lucky having gotten Tevai as a friend.

With the 2 way approach I will see which way I have to pursue until the genset is up and running again.

Luckily, I got my fresh water tank fully filled up before the problem with the genset happened. I also switched over to using seawater as much as possible. For cooking and drinking I started using bottled emergency water. This all allows me to use as little as possible freshwater because when I have to wait for parts from NZ it will take a bit of time.

Now let’s see if the hole can be welded.