Rule #1, dont lose your cool! Collision repairs part 3 (ep 295)
June 28, 2025 · 13 min · 5K views
What this video covers
Vernon spends roughly 20 days in a boatyard in Indonesia completing collision repairs on the catamaran Learning By Doing, working alone while Marie-Morgane and their son Eli wait in Bali. The central mechanical problem is a worn clutch cone in one gearbox that cannot engage forward gear despite roughing up the cone surface and trying every available adjustment. After removing and disassembling the gearbox three times, Vernon discovers the forward and reverse clutch cones are dimensionally identical and flips the cone to put the less-worn face on the forward side — restoring a working forward gear and retaining partial reverse. A kinked exhaust hose between the heat exchanger and the waterlock, damaged by repeated removal, develops a leak and is replaced with radiator hose. Other completed work includes engine servicing, alternator reinstallation, new engine mounts, anti-fouling on both rudders and the bow ramp, repainting the cockpit and forward ramp, reinstalling the bow gantry, and relashing the trampoline nets with Dyneema cord cut to identical lengths and tensioned from the center outward. A wiring error trips the starter motor circuit on final engine test, leaving that check for the next day. Marie-Morgane and Eli return at the end. Flipping a symmetrical clutch cone is a viable field fix when a replacement part cannot be sourced locally.
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