If you see thick blue smoke in your boat’s diesel engine exhaust, what are the likely problems?
Send your answers to cruisingcompass@bwsailing.com. A winner will be selected randomly from the correct answers and will win a one-year subscription to the digital version of Blue Water Sailing magazine.
Thanks to all who sent in answers to last week’s question. The way the question was worded was a bit ambiguous so here’s the best answer from the many submitted. From Richard Watrass, Fairhaven, MA: “If it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, a boat in that hemisphere will have the sun at local noon due south of it, so the mast’s shadow would fall to the north. But, if is summer, say at the summer solstice, and the boat is between the equator and the tropic of Cancer then the mast’s shadow will lie to the south. Or, if it is spring or summer and the boat is on the same latitude as the sun, there will be no shadow. Or, if it is winter and the boat is north of the Arctic Circle, there will be no sun at noon and no shadow.”
