Inside The Heart Of Every Good Sailboat Lurks A Tractor | Thornycroft T80 Engine Repair

Can you tell which is the old water pump and which is the new one?

When we lived in Portland, we adopted an adorable black puppy from the Oregon Humane Society. She was part Labrador Retriever and part something else. We never did figure out what the something else was - possibly German Shepard?

Some people think mixed-breed dogs are better. Some people think purebreds are better. To us, it didn't matter what her lineage was. One look at us with those large brown eyes and we were hooked. We took our little puppy home that day.

I hadn't really thought about the whole mutt vs. purebred debate since then until I discovered that Thorny, the diesel engine in our Moody 346 sailboat, was a mutt.

Thorny is a British-made Thornycroft T80 engine. I had always assumed he was a purebred - 100% English from the top of his glowplugs down to the bottom of his oil pan. Usually he just growls at us, but if he could talk, I'm sure he would have one of those lovely English accents you hear on Downtown Abbey.

Turns out Thorny is a mutt. His mother was a Japanese lady who came from the venerable Mitsubishi clan. His father was a sailor from England. I'm not sure how they met, but the result of their happy union was a diesel engine based on the Mitsubisi K4D engine block with marinized parts added on and fitted out for use on a sailboat.

Thorny's mother must also have had some sisters because you can also find the same engine block used in tractors. Yes, tractors. I should have probably whispered that. Thorny is a bit of a snob and doesn't like to be reminded of the fact that he has lots of cousins out there who are tractors. He thinks sailboats are far superior to farm equipment.

Are you wondering how I found this out? Sure, it's possible I have way too much time on my hands and research the oddest topics on the internet. But, in this case, it was all due to the fact that we had to replace Thorny's water pump.

We couldn't source one through our usual supplier of spare parts, ASAP Supplies. So we started looking into spare parts of the Mitsubishi K4D engine block. You know where you can find them? Places that sell tractor parts. I ended up calling a few places in the States and found a nice man in Pennsylvania who had exactly what I needed in stock.

He was a little befuddled when I told him it was for a sailboat and not a tractor. I guess no one told him about the British side of the family.

Eventually the part arrived and we replaced it. Thorny assumed the water pump came from England. I think if he knew it came from some rural town in Pennsylvania he would have kicked up quite a fuss.

Cruising Log | Thursday, 11 May 2017 - Friday, 19 May 2017

I won't bother with giving you a day-by-day recap of what we did while we were at Indiantown Marina repairing our water pump. It basically came down to sourcing a water pump, waiting for the water pump to arrive, replacing the water pump and eating more Little Caesar's pizza. We also installed a flat screen TV in our aft cabin. Ah, the glamorous life of a cruiser.

Nautical Miles = Nil. Engine Hours = 2.5 (flushing antifreeze). Spending =$583.47 (water pump, hardware, groceries, TV, gas, propane refill, misc stuff)

What do you think about the whole mixed-breed vs. purebred debate? Have you ever adopted a dog or cat? Have you ever driven a tractor or worked on a farm?

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