After 7 years, and 10,000 sea miles, there are a few things I always wondered about Gray Matter – never expected to discover all of them in a period of 5 hours.   To name a few; how would Gray Matter handle dead in the water in 25 knots of wind, abeam to 4-6 foot waves; how about underway without stabilization; what is required to tow and with what tackle; and most importantly how to diagnose a fuel system puzzle while rolling 30 – 40 degrees abeam to a building sea state.

Underway down the east coast of Australia from Brisbane to Newcastle with following wind and sea, we experienced a main engine failure, leaving Gray Matter without the Naiad stabilizers.   We started the Wing Engine, which failed within 5 minutes.

The nature of the engine failures appeared similar to fuel contamination, with a slowing of RPM, loss of power then finally the “sounds of silence”.  So that was our working hypothesis.
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