Monday 4 Nov, HHN day 24: Watermaker feedwater pump dismantled, ceramic Pro applied above waterline and final piping reinstated to the engine room new sea-cocks.
Today’s missions are to conquer the polishing and the engine room. So despite the bitterly cold morning, Glen heads outside and resumes polishing from where he left off yesterday evening (half of one side left). He progresses nicely, but he soon abandons the task as the compound dries too quickly on the hull under the warming sun.
In an effort to distract himself from polishing, he dismantles the feedwater pump for the watermaker to give it a good clean and scrub the rust marks. Around the electric motor is not too bad, where he had put lots of grease two years ago at the last servicing. But the pump end is quite rusty and won’t come apart. So it’s left in WD40 for a soak while he reluctantly goes back to the arduous task of polishing.
An hour later, back to the pump, its completely dismantled and we discover why it has been leaking. The shaft seal uses rotating ceramic-to-ceramic seal. And one of the ceramic rings has broken. We only replaced this seal just 2 1/2 years ago. Well, we have made about 30 tons of RO water since then, meaning this pump must have pumped about 1000 tons of water. So not a bad performance actually. The pump is made in Italy and we wonder if we can get the parts in time. We’ll leave that search for an evening job.
Meanwhile, Ray comes by and brings our new outboard (the replacement of the Suzuki 20HP which was stolen in Vieques back in April) which has been in storage in the Weaver workshop throughout the summer. It’s quite exciting to unpack it. We have a giggle thinking this is our fourth outboard engine in 3 years. First was lost overboard in Martinique, second stolen, third a Suzuki 6HP bought as emergency replacement, and now here is the 4th. Any bets on how long this will last us? 😊
During a coffee break we give Karen a call (Red Sky Detailing, she did the CeramicPro coating last November) to ask for some guidance on how to apply the products ourselves. Sounds easy enough, so Glen is temped to give it a go once he finishes with the cleaning and polishing along the waterline. There we go again: first apply the stripper to remove all previous polish, then compounding with Nano which is the first step of ceramic, then finishing with Bravo, the second step. Quite a task to go around and around the boats with each product using just a small step ladder.
Same as yesterday, once he gets the technique Glen is quite efficient with the whole process and by 1pm one side of the boat is finished. No smudges and looks shiny (well, at least the sections where he applied the ceramic). Speaking of which, let’s test it with the water hose. And indeed, 50 cm above the waterline the water runs off immediately, and above that (where we still have the original coat of ceramic, 12 months old) not so much. Wonderful! That’s what we wanted to see, with the hope that the muddy water of the Chesapeake will not stick to the hull same as it didn’t last year when the ceramic was fresh. Well, the hull did get a bit brown back then, but it was very easy to wash off. Ideally, we should reapply the ceramic all over but a) we are running out of time and b) rather dangerous on this small step ladder. Encouraged with the result, Glen moves on to the other side of the hull for the same treatment and manages to finish the complete set of applications just before dusk. At the end of it he is aching all over and got a bruise on his hip from falling off the ladder, but he is pretty happy with himself. First mission accomplished: the polishing and ceramic coating conquered.
As usual for the evening, the workshop moves indoors. First, on the salon floor where Glen tries to figure out the part numbers for the watermaker feed pump. He has the diagram, and after a bit of internet research, despite this being a 220VAC pump made in Italy, he finds a supplier in the USA. How can we not love America? One can find absolutely anything here.
So that’s decided: the pump gets partially assembled and packed away in a box, waiting for the spare part. Hm, this pump has been trouble each time Glen took it apart. Maybe we should just buy a new one? But at $650 new vs $50 for a seal repair kit, we decide on the latter. Hope we don’t regret this ½ way across the Pacific, or we will be having to catch rain water to survive on!
Glen and his mobile workshop then move into the engine room for the third mission of the day, where 5200 is out to seal yet more elbows and fittings. The manifold and its joining parts being the most important one. No more teflon plumbers tape or the multitudes of useless pipe sealants we tried in the past. 5200 all the way from now on. One by one all the pieces are fit together and they’d better not leak again this time, not after Glen painted and cleaned them all so nicely. Jokingly he comments “maybe I should epoxy them, at least they won’t change color if they leak”.
Late evening, the engine room floor board goes back on and it won’t come off again till the feedwater pump is ready to be re-installed.
As for my own mission, cleaning and tidying, I have moved on to the middle cabin and bathroom despite the pile of stuff which we have lying in there. Still a lot to do.
We go to bed exhausted as usual.
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