After finding this ad on Craigslist, I contacted the seller, Ronnie Simpson right away.  I met him on Wednesday, looked over the motor and made him a cash deposit of $300.  I found out a lot of impressive information on Ronnie over the next few days.  He mentioned he had singlehanded in the Transpac to Hawaii, but he didn’t mention that he had one his class.  I also found he was active in the Bay Area Disabled Sailor (BADS) group, and was a wounded veteran, having been injured by a rocket propelled grenade blast that left him legally blind.

Ronnie and I met on Saturday at his cruiser boat, a Cal 2-27 berthed in Alameda.  We spent most of the day pushing the engine out through the small access port in beneath the galley, then up through the companionway using a hoist connected to the boom, and we plopped it on a dolly.  Ronnie had the engine fully disconnected when I arrived, but we wound up having to remove most of the motor mounts, the alternator, starter and fuel filter before we could get the motor free.

In the course of removing the starter we found the reason for the grinding noise was that the starter housing had basically exploded.  The hope was this was the extent of the problem and a new starter might get the motor back on its feet.  Ronnie also mentioned that the engine did leak oil and suggested at least replacing its seals.

We loaded the boat into my 2000 MPV van.  We had to dump about $50 worth of diesel in the recycling because it was sloshing around too much.  I came away with a nice Racor fuel filter, a raw water filter, 10 gallon aluminum tank and filler, as well as the electronics harness and panel for the Yamar 2GM.  Ronnie’s going to work with a diver to get the driveshaft and propellor out and then contact me for pickup.