Sunday September 16, 2007 Matthews Point Marina
Today began cool and refreshing – finally a break in the heat wave that set records in August and September –
The morning started with the inability to connect to the internet – this happens in about one in three trips with this Beacon WiFi. Oh well – just the motivation I need to start on the chores. After my usual breakfast I went ahead and shortened spring lines and moved fenders to move Temptation about 1 foot backwards in the slip. It looks like in real shallow water the anchor/bowsprit might hit the dock – not now. Whew – worked up a sweat early today.
Well the water system had worked flawlessly since yesterday. I was now drawing directly from the FWD tank. I reconnected the FWD tank to the selector assembly and tried it again. This is easier said than done. That damn fitting is between major hoses and no room to swing a wrench – took more than 20 minutes to reconnect.
Well it seemed to still work just fine. Not bad considering all I did was blow into the tank after emptying it – I guess this needs more study.
I was curious how much water this tank held so I tried the inverse approach to measuring the capacity. I timed the number of seconds to fill a gallon jug – about 7 seconds. WE then emptied the tank and filled it while timing – wow – 15 minutes 54 seconds. That worked out to some 119 gallons!! We thought it was another 75 gallon tank. Thus between the 2 tanks we are carrying 200 gallons of water when we thought it was only 150. Nice surprise .. Now can I reliably pump all that water??? Time will tell.
I filled the AFT tank but played no more with it today.
Another discovery today!! While waiting for the tank to run dry I was inspecting the engine and I found the alternator belt VERY LOOSE. I mean so loose I could turn the pulley under it by hand. Hmmmm this might explain why the alternator did no work when we left Wrightsville Beach a few weeks ago but then worked the next day when we left Morehead City Yacht Basin Marina… Think about it. When I left Wrightsville after spending a long day/night on the hook the batteries were deeply discharged. Thus probably why the alternator did not generate electricity – too much load for the slipping belt -- WOW great luck it was so loose it didn’t burn up!!!
Now when we went into the Marina to charge batteries all night there was virtually no load on the alternator in the morning – thus it charged some. Makes sense at least.
The belt adjuster was all the way out. Nothing left. I removed the belt and found the mounting bolts all loose!! The belt did not look very good. I found a new replacement and installed it. A new belt gives 1 inch of remaining adjustment. We fired the engine up and tested and it looked good. The belt got pretty warm so it might still be slipping a bit but man it felt tight. Something else to monitor.
I was on a roll. So I dug the silicone gasket out of the port side salon hatch and replaced with fresh clear silicon. Hopefully this will stop the leak without having to remove the entire Lexan lens.
We had a hurried lunch then packed and left the Marina just before 1pm to catch the Ferry to Oriental – need to check on Luna Sea and remove a few things. We went the back way and just as we reached the gravel rode we say a 4 wheeler stuck in the mud at the entrance. There was a huge pool of water in the road and he had tried to go around and got stuck in the mud. We turned and went the long way – rather quickly – it was going to be close. Wow we got to the Ferry at exactly 1:13pm and they had already loaded. They were just about to remove the ramp when they loaded us last. Then one minute later they left – actually a little early by my calculation.
It was a fine ride over with a beautiful clear blue sky and nice cool breeze.. We visited Luna Sea. She is doing fine but oh so lonely. I feel bad but what can you do.
We had a nice ride home and planned next weeks outing… A big Raft up at South River next Saturday to celebrate Ralph’s birthday. Hey any excuse is a good one for a raft up. We plan to play next weekend – enough work for a while.
Fair Winds You All..
Sunday, September 16, 2007
The BIG WHOOOOPS!!
September 15, 2007 -- Matthews Point Marina
If you have been following this thread you know I have been having a very pesky time with the fresh water system on Temptation. This weekend we allocated all day Saturday to resolve this issue.
I was going to take all the time I needed to fully understand what is going on and hopefully correct it. I brought a big bag of plumbing fittings and hoses with plans to isolate and test various parts of the system.
I was anxious to get started Saturday morning. I waited for Karen to fix her breakfast and free the galley area to use for access to the plumbing. I installed the new “lifting key” in the Main Halyard winch while waiting.
Finally – near 9am she left to get dressed. I jumped on it and planned where to start. Hmmmmm let’s just break this down in to two parts. The input side i.e. tank, piping to selection valve assembly, then to the pump, and then just a straight hose from the pump to sink, thus eliminating the entire distribution system including accumulator and water heater.
I just need to take the output hose from the pump off of the qest fitting and add my longer length of hose. I undid the clamp on the hose and pulled it from the barb fitting. Oh NO – immediately I was hit in the face with a strong stream of water!! The pump came on and the water just soaked me and sprayed in the face – but hey I’m holding the pressure hose and point towards the bilge. Everything including me is getting soaked. Hell I’m holding the hose down and I’m still sprayed in the face – I can’t see!! What to do? Run and shut the pump down?? Call for help – Karen?? I’m confused. Finally the water stream stops hitting me in the face and my vision clears – the water is pumping out the hose I’m still holding and is directed behind the engine to the bilge -- Ohhh the barb I pulled the hose off of – still pointing towards me --- ahhhh the system was not discharged – me BAD – thus when I pulled the hose off the entire 2 gallon contents of the accumulator had to discharge – into my face and under 20 – 40 PSI!!! Me Bad!! Embarrassed and soak and wet too – Ohh and that engine compartment – everything soak and wet. But hey I may have stumbled across an emergency fire extinguisher for the engine compartment???
Ohhh well dry off, cleanup and now BEGIN..
I first pumped out the Aft tank. I wanted to measure how much water it had so I timed a one gallon delivery in the sink – it was about 14 seconds. I topped off the tank and pumped it out. It all went – i.e. no problem on the input side of this tank. Oh – and the capacity is about 77 gallons. I then did the same for the Fwd tank – just like all along – nothing adds up or behaves the same. This tank pumped very slow. One gallon took 1 minute 22 seconds. The water came out with air bubbles too – what’s going on here??. It took better than 2 hours to pump it out but it all came out.
I thought the problem might be with the selector valve assembly so I cut some cable ties and disconnected the pipe from the valve assembly. I then went directly from tank to pump. I put about 10 gallons in the tank and tried to pump it out. No difference!! Once the tank was empty I then tried to blow back through the pick up tube – WOW it was hard .. There must be an obstruction… I blew again and again and finally I could blow through. It got easier too.. I put another 10 gallons in the tank and pumped it out – this time it took about 23 seconds – slower than the Aft but acceptable and no bubbles. I then connected the output of the pump to the distribution system and tried it -- Hey worked pretty well. I then filled about 40 gallons into the tank and we will just use it today and see what happens.
Long story short – it worked fine all day and never failed to pump. Now what does this say!!
This took us to lunch. We had a nice one – home made Tuna Salad. The rain stopped so we went topsides and used my little webbing invention to grease the sail track -- actually a Dry lubricant called Sail Kote. Once we had it lubed we thought, “Lets take the main up”… Well it was still hard and with the new part in the winch -- it still doesn’t feel right. The winch has a binding feel to it and the line stripper is not working right. Damn
Well with the sail up we then investigated the Dutchman control lines. There was little wind so we decided to just jump in and change all the control lines. Well it’s done but it was a bigger job than expected. We had to raise and lower the pennant several times and it was hot – we worked till after 4pm. We had all the lines installed but they need adjustment. We will wait till on anchor and in a gentle breeze to do that.
We showered and relaxed a bit then Buck joined us a little after 6pm and I drove to the Sanitary Seafood Restaurant in Morehead for dinner.
A fine dinner then back on the boat for an evening of reading and relaxing. The “Big Whooops” nearly forgotten.
If you have been following this thread you know I have been having a very pesky time with the fresh water system on Temptation. This weekend we allocated all day Saturday to resolve this issue.
I was going to take all the time I needed to fully understand what is going on and hopefully correct it. I brought a big bag of plumbing fittings and hoses with plans to isolate and test various parts of the system.
I was anxious to get started Saturday morning. I waited for Karen to fix her breakfast and free the galley area to use for access to the plumbing. I installed the new “lifting key” in the Main Halyard winch while waiting.
Finally – near 9am she left to get dressed. I jumped on it and planned where to start. Hmmmmm let’s just break this down in to two parts. The input side i.e. tank, piping to selection valve assembly, then to the pump, and then just a straight hose from the pump to sink, thus eliminating the entire distribution system including accumulator and water heater.
I just need to take the output hose from the pump off of the qest fitting and add my longer length of hose. I undid the clamp on the hose and pulled it from the barb fitting. Oh NO – immediately I was hit in the face with a strong stream of water!! The pump came on and the water just soaked me and sprayed in the face – but hey I’m holding the pressure hose and point towards the bilge. Everything including me is getting soaked. Hell I’m holding the hose down and I’m still sprayed in the face – I can’t see!! What to do? Run and shut the pump down?? Call for help – Karen?? I’m confused. Finally the water stream stops hitting me in the face and my vision clears – the water is pumping out the hose I’m still holding and is directed behind the engine to the bilge -- Ohhh the barb I pulled the hose off of – still pointing towards me --- ahhhh the system was not discharged – me BAD – thus when I pulled the hose off the entire 2 gallon contents of the accumulator had to discharge – into my face and under 20 – 40 PSI!!! Me Bad!! Embarrassed and soak and wet too – Ohh and that engine compartment – everything soak and wet. But hey I may have stumbled across an emergency fire extinguisher for the engine compartment???
Ohhh well dry off, cleanup and now BEGIN..
I first pumped out the Aft tank. I wanted to measure how much water it had so I timed a one gallon delivery in the sink – it was about 14 seconds. I topped off the tank and pumped it out. It all went – i.e. no problem on the input side of this tank. Oh – and the capacity is about 77 gallons. I then did the same for the Fwd tank – just like all along – nothing adds up or behaves the same. This tank pumped very slow. One gallon took 1 minute 22 seconds. The water came out with air bubbles too – what’s going on here??. It took better than 2 hours to pump it out but it all came out.
I thought the problem might be with the selector valve assembly so I cut some cable ties and disconnected the pipe from the valve assembly. I then went directly from tank to pump. I put about 10 gallons in the tank and tried to pump it out. No difference!! Once the tank was empty I then tried to blow back through the pick up tube – WOW it was hard .. There must be an obstruction… I blew again and again and finally I could blow through. It got easier too.. I put another 10 gallons in the tank and pumped it out – this time it took about 23 seconds – slower than the Aft but acceptable and no bubbles. I then connected the output of the pump to the distribution system and tried it -- Hey worked pretty well. I then filled about 40 gallons into the tank and we will just use it today and see what happens.
Long story short – it worked fine all day and never failed to pump. Now what does this say!!
This took us to lunch. We had a nice one – home made Tuna Salad. The rain stopped so we went topsides and used my little webbing invention to grease the sail track -- actually a Dry lubricant called Sail Kote. Once we had it lubed we thought, “Lets take the main up”… Well it was still hard and with the new part in the winch -- it still doesn’t feel right. The winch has a binding feel to it and the line stripper is not working right. Damn
Well with the sail up we then investigated the Dutchman control lines. There was little wind so we decided to just jump in and change all the control lines. Well it’s done but it was a bigger job than expected. We had to raise and lower the pennant several times and it was hot – we worked till after 4pm. We had all the lines installed but they need adjustment. We will wait till on anchor and in a gentle breeze to do that.
We showered and relaxed a bit then Buck joined us a little after 6pm and I drove to the Sanitary Seafood Restaurant in Morehead for dinner.
A fine dinner then back on the boat for an evening of reading and relaxing. The “Big Whooops” nearly forgotten.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
