Santa Cruz Sea Scouts power boat program

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Mrs Higgins

Member
Joined
Aug 14, 2024
Messages
5
Location
Santa Cruz, CA
Our Sea Scout Ship, "Pearls" is a 38' 1979 Defever trawler, donated to us by a USCG Auxiliarist in Martinez upon his retirement. It has been an excellent training vessel - a clever kid can almost singlehand her. With some horrifying (but reversible) modifications, we can sleep 12 inside. We've cruised Monterey Bay, gone up the coast and through the Golden Gate, and spent time in the Delta. A slightly bigger vessel would probably accommodate us better - we have 65' of dock space to work with, but a bridge to navigate in our harbor. We're pretty happy, except some daunting engine trouble right now. I've been on the Defever forum, but often Google up good advice from Trawler Forum, so looking forward to joining this club too!
 
Welcome to the Trawler Forum! Your boat is a well built boat. Some info on the engine issues you are experiencing may result in someone who has had a similar issue coming to your assistance. I am assuming it has a Ford Lehman 120? Single or twin?
 
Welcome aboard! My son is a member of the Chaser crew. Chaser is quite a bit larger, but a bit less sea worthy at this point. I think your ship is lucky to have a boat that is relatively easy to keep up.
 
Yup yup, it's a Ford Lehman 120 (2715E) single screw. We've been told that the corroded ports on our exhaust manifold are unsalvagable and untenable (I guess letting carbon monoxide into the engine "room" under the salon, isn't advisable, even though most of it probably gets sucked back in to our air hungry engine, and our CO alarms have never gone off).

Searching this forum and wider, I'm finding we're not the first ones to come up against a brick wall with replacing the exhaust manifold. Brian at American Diesel says Bowman discontinued the part 18 months ago and is still pointing folks at the place in England selling an "upgrade" part for $3500 (that's before tax and shipping).
 

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Pearls love Chasers! We've slept aboard your 82' (?) submarine chaser every chance we get, thrilled to be on such a big boat after our crowded quarters. But the Chaser maintenance stories are daunting! And we don't have a Skipper Carl to work on it. We sold our 62' steel hull trawler about 5 years ago, and visited it in Berkeley last Spring...still doesn't look like it's going out cruising.
 
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