We were cruising in the Eastern Caribbean when Covid struck and like so many other sailors, I had to quickly lay my boat up ashore in order to get one of the last flights back to the U K .

This winter I booked a flight and had made other arrangements to get back to the boat on January 2nd but I have had to cancel that trip due to a strict lockdown being introduced here in Wales.
It may well end up being nearly a year or more before I can get my engine fired up again so my question to the forum is:- Is there anything specific I should do before pressing the button to start the engine again ( other than turn it over by hand a few times with a socket on the crankshaft pulley nut like I usually do).
I did manage to change the engine oil before I left the boat and I will of course change the impellor and fuel filters.

Martin Smith

I have just returned from the the Caribbean after a three week visit to check on the boat and do a few jobs, one of which was to start the engine.

  My boat has been laid up ashore since March 2019  so I changed both fuel filters and the impellor and turned the engine over by hand a few times before trying to start it. The fuel tap had seized but I managed to ease that open with a wrench. The engine battery was dead so the shunt switch was employed to use the domestic batteries  for starting.

I thought I had bled all the air out of the system after changing the filters but after briefly firing, the engine failed to start. I bled again and this time cracked open a couple of the gland nuts which connect the fuel pipes to the injectors. I  pressed the starting button to turn the engine over a couple of times then retightened the injector nuts. The engine started straight away with the next press of the button and ran sweetly until I turned it off.
Hopefully the long period of the engine being idle has not done it any damage.
Best of luck to all those OCC members whose boats have been left unused for more than a year as mine has been.
Martin

Martin
I too warily started our engine last week after 2 years of abandonment. All good. Out 24 volt alternator didn’t work for a few days but I traced the fault to a poor connection on the relay which was easily sorted.
Simon