Saturday 27 October: Herrington Harbor North, yard day #10 – re-plumbing water connection to the stern gland, re-plumb hot water pipes into the water heater, clean brass fittings on the generator water intake and replace the flexible rubber pipe that connect the bilge pump to the boat piping.
We woke up several times throughout the night with wind howling in the rigging and the boat creaking on the stands. And to check if we have a paddling pool on/by the bed. Rain is still leaking under the rear window, and we soak it with towels. That window will have to come off and get a new seal. We’ve never had a leak here before. Is it because the boat is twisted on the stands, and the window got an unusual torque? And it’d better stop raining soon, otherwise I’ll sleep wearing the wet suit tonight!
Indoors activities today, as it continues to rain heavily. We are happy and warm, but just as we have breakfast we no longer feel the heat coming over our feet from the bow heater. Hm, what were we saying last evening about more things breaking or needing attention? So Glen goes into the engine room to investigate why this part of the heater stopped. The main hot-air ducting from the bow Webasto heater had fallen off. Quickly put back on, and we have both bow and stern heating working again. Phew, that was an easy one!
While in the engine room, Glen starts to play with his mechanical toys. The raw water connection to the stern gland is leaking and also clogged with calcium deposits. And when he tried to take it off, the small 1/4” tap fitting broke in half. Hm, more spares to buy, and these small valves are hard to find. Seeing the calcium build up, a RidLime flush is definitely needed.
Then the other problem in the engine room: the hot water pipes from the engine into the water heater seem to have come loose where they connect to the heater tank. And in the small gap under this tank is a jumble of pipes, valves, wires etc. hardly leaving room to squeeze a hand let alone tools. Last night he had tightened the fitting the best possible, but this morning they are still dripping green coolant fluid. So we’ll have to somehow get in there and re-do the connections.
Enough projects to work on today, we go shopping for parts. The full round: West Marine, Do it Best and then Home Depot. It wasn’t easy to find the threads or dimensions we needed, but few hours later we are back at Cloudy Bay, with more than we actually needed or had on the shopping list. As usual. Good news is that we did find the small 1/4” valves in Home Depot.
So it’s back in the engine room. The water feed to the stern gland is soon all back together with new valve and elbow. Job 1 done.
Then dry run to figure out how we can make the water circuit to flush the generator and engine with RidLime. We’ve been told not to just flush the chemical through the engine, but instead to circulate it around the entire raw water system for a few hours. So with the impeller removed and hoses in a large bucket, one with a small bilge pump on the end, we have our circulation system. This is a job that can be done when we are back in the water.
For the next project, the water heater pipes, we need some space to actually maneuver tools under the boiler. And the AC cooling pipe is in the way. It gets disconnected and rerouted, under all the other pipes, as it should have been installed to begin with. Then the power cable for the AC water pump suffers the same treatment: out of the way. With the engine room floor board off, it feels like there is slightly better place to move hands around, although far more uncomfortable to physically sit without it there. Tools…nope, impossible to fit them under the boiler. Everything has to be finger tightened using a plumbing paste to seal the connections. After some puffing and cursing, the pipes are reconnected. Fingers crossed they are nicely sealed this time.
After a bit of tidying up, next job is to tackle some very oxidized brass fittings on the generator water intake. Why is it that some through-hull fittings suffer this “oxidation” and others remain looking like new. Is there some electrolysis going on here? Once off, the fittings are thoroughly cleaned and looking new again. Only there is some discoloration making them a pink color. Are they turning from brass to cooper? Will have to research that one. But for now they are refitted and all looking nice again.
Final job is the long pending – replacing the flexible rubber pipes that connect the bilge pump to the boat piping. The hose we have looks OK, but the metal spiral internally has corroded and the pipe now flattens in its tight bend. The challenge is that the bilge pump has 29mm to connect to and the boat piping is 35mm. The existing rubber hose accommodated both these diameters, but the only pipe we could find that can cope with this sharp bend, won’t cope with the different pipe diameters. So the replacement hose plus adapter looks a bit of a mickey-mouse set up!
By 11pm we call it quits and head for showers. Looks like another heavy working weekend. That’s the trouble with retirement, you lose your weekends …. and public holidays, and vacation days! It’s just all 24/7/365 work 🙂
