Stinky ME

I was up early this morning -- 6:15am knowing the long day ahead. Today was HEAD day and I was planning to replace the sanitation hose in the 2 heads. I was up early but the enthusiasm wasn't there. I had a leisurely breakfast and a moderate walk before getting started. It was 7:15 am before I started.

The place to start was removing everything from the medicine cabinet to expose the "secret" panel that would expose the vent tube for the sanitation hoses. I then practiced removing the hoses from the diverter valve because I would need to preserve the holding tank hose -- I wasn't going to replace it.

I first pulled out the hose between the diverter valve and the toilet. I had a plastic bag over the end of the hose with the joker valve. Ohhh yuck it leaked and I had the mixture of CLR and baby oil all over the place. Half in a bucket and half out -- Ohh the smell!!! I got it out of the boat and breathed fresh air awhile.

I then cleaned up and tackled the hose from the vent tube to the diverter valve at the vent tube. Not too bad. I then pulled the vent tube out with the hose from it to the thru hull. It was hard work pulling these old houses out from behind the wall. Ohhh it's going to be a bear installing the new hoses!!

I then removed the holding tank hose from the diverter valve and cleaned up the end and installed a new diverter valve. I then labelled and cut to length the 3 sections of hose to replace. WOW this new hose -- Shieldsflex Poly X Sanitation hose is easy to work with. It is more flexible then most and pushed on the fittings with little difficulty.


I fought and pulled and tugged the hoses, vent tube, and diverter valve into position and double clamped everything. Whew -- all hoses installed by noon. Boy that took longer than expected!! I broke for some lunch then started again. Now I had to install the rebuilt Toilet pump and connect the hoses and test. This took me till about 2pm. the results are not impressive to look at but represented a lot of hard physical labor -- I used 16 feet of this $11 a foot hose:



I then had a beer and planned the next step -- this day is pretty much shot and I have another head to do!! Could I stay down another day?? Nope I need to be home for a conference call and test session tomorrow morning. I then looked over the aft head and tried to see what the minimum effort might be -- could I replace just one hose for now?? Hmmmm I moved the old hose to Thru hull around and found away to use the existing length to clamp on. Voila!!! 30 minutes later and all done, however I do need to replace all those hoses very soon.

Ohh the Stinky Me part... While manipulating the old thru hull hose around it looked empty but as I sat on the floor and contemplated a way to reuse it, I didn't notice a steady stream of that CLR/Oil mixture leaking out until I noticed the seat of my pants all wet!!! Yuuuuck!!

I took a long shower then packed up and left about 4pm -- a very long day but Temptation is nearly ready to splash. I left the steering cables off till they finish the work on the rudder. It should take less than 30 minutes to install and adjust.