Filed under “It’s not all sunsets and rum drinks”, or more accurately of late, “It’s not all lighthouses and gin & tonics” …
Planned projects, big or small, are one thing. We decide what needs tackled, do some planning, order/purchase parts and get started. We generally try to do these planned projects when we have 1) an address and 2) access to marine supply and/or hardware stores, because despite our preparation, there are often last minute bits that are needed.
Then there are the unplanned projects, the ones that present themselves on their own schedule, whether you’re up for a major project or not. Such has been our recent adventure with plumbing.
I’ve written before about the sounds of living on a boat. There are the “outside” sounds… the sounds of nature, a neighbor’s halyard slapping in the wind, a fellow cruiser dropping or hauling in their anchor chain, among them. Then there are the “inside” noises… the quiet hum of one of our refrigerators cycling on/off, the whirr or sometimes rattle of one of the fans that are often running, and the quiet sound of the water pump cycling on/off when doing dishes or brushing our teeth. Our brains learn to make an unconscious note of the normal noises (described above), distinguished from noises that indicate a problem (i.e. the smoke detector, carbon monoxide detector or bilge alarm).
So, one night maybe 6 weeks or so ago, we’re on the hook in a quiet anchorage, dinner is over, dishes have been done and stashed away. As is often our habit in the evening, we’re sitting on opposite sides of the settee reading. It’s peaceful. It’s quiet. Then we hear the muffled sound of the water pump cycling on, then quickly back off…. which is a familiar/normal sound, except that neither of us is running water. That means that we’ve got a leak somewhere in the system. Air is getting in, and/or water is getting out. A day later we discovered the tiniest of drips from the galley faucet. Mike disassembled the faucet, cleaned it up, put it back together… still, it dripped. Add that to the list of things to tend to the next time we’re at a dock for a while and have an address.
Except the drip got worse, so much so that we parked a qt-sized bottle under the faucet to catch the water for reuse… every drop is precious on a boat. Eventually it became a steady stream so bad that we resorted to turning the water pressure off when we weren’t actively using water, which was a bit of a pain, but was at least less wasteful. In the meantime, Mike researched replacement faucets, and ordered one to be shipped to Duncan/Daniela’s address on the Vineyard.
A few days after our arrival, we collected the new faucet and Mike installed it. Have I mentioned that he hates plumbing projects? He loves the electrical stuff, doesn’t mind working with wood though often laments having given up his “proper tools”, but he hates plumbing. There was much swearing. For starters, unlike on dirt, there is no cabinet under the sink to access the plumbing. The sink had to come out. There were references to things not fitting… something about British threads, things being more complicated than they needed to be, things crammed into too-small spaces… much swearing. Long story short, he got the new faucet installed while I cleaned all of the old silicone off the sink, then we reinstalled it. New improved faucet, a shiny clean sink, problem solved. Except that it wasn’t…
Within 24 hrs, really, like the silicone hadn’t even completely dried, we were hearing the water pump cycle on/off again. Except that this time the faucet wasn’t dripping. No, now we’re leaking from the connections between the faucet and the hoses, an ever so slight seeping, where you can’t so much stick a bottle under it until you get around to a real fix. A small leak wanting to turn into a bigger leak. This was definitely turning into a more major project. We decided to temporarily turn the pressure system off and use the manual foot pump in the galley (which we almost never use), which stopped the leak, but also meant we had no water in the head sink. It was a temporary fix until we were ready to tear the galley sink out again; turns out it would be even more temporary than we thought.
The foot pump solution worked for a couple of days, until it didn’t. I was doing dishes, using the foot pump, when the water coming out of the pretty new faucet suddenly got really nasty… cloudy, brownish-red colored and with all kinds of scummy crap floating around in it, and then the foot pump started sucking air and died. Died! Our plumbing problem just got worse. Now we had no running water, and even if we could access it, it’s compromised. Thankfully a few days prior, Mike had located a local plumbing supply place where he picked up a pint jar of PTFE thread compound (of which he needed a few teaspoons). We proceeded to tear the sink out again, took apart and reassembled the connections, removed/bypassed the foot pump, but this time left the sink out overnight to be sure the leak was resolved. Finally, it was.
Meanwhile, back to the foot pump failure and the nasty water. After much pondering, we decided we don’t know for sure what caused the pump failure, but we have two theories. Either the original-to-the-boat foot pump, now 14 years old though not often used, when pressed into heavy service just gave it up, or it was somehow compromised by the nasty water suddenly being forced through its guts. But why the nasty water, you might ask.
Let’s back up to how fresh water gets into the boat to start with. As I’ve detailed before, we have two fresh water tanks, one under each aft bunk. Each has a fill location/cap at the stern, virtually inaccessible lengths of fill hose that run into the guts of the boat and into the fresh water tanks. Each tank also has a smaller vent hose that runs from the tank and tees BACK INTO THE FILL HOSE just a few inches below the fill opening. Stay with me here… What that means is that when we fill the water tanks, either by hose, by jerry can, or off the solar panel/rain gutter system, we need an 18″ length of hose long enough to bypass the vent so as not to fill it with water. Pain in the ass, but once you know how it works, not such a big deal.
OK, so back to the nasty water. While we pondered the possibilities, Mike confessed. While preparing to collect some rainwater the previous day, he had forced the collection hose way way way deeper than necessary to bypass the vent (instead of using the shorter length of hose sized for that purpose), through a curve in the fill hose, and in the process likely scraped 14 years worth of accumulated growth and scum from the inside of the fill hose, which then got flushed into the port tank. Yes, it’s as gross as it sounds. (Note: I regularly purge and clean the fresh water tanks, and we have a system for purging the pressurized parts of the water system, but we’d not yet figured out how to deal with the fill hoses. We’re now puzzling how to clean or replace them, but that will definitely wait until we’re at a dock.) The starboard tank seems to have been unaffected, which argues that our theory is in fact what likely happened.
Needless to say my next task was to purge and clean the port tank, which is now sparkling clean and full of fresh clean water. The shiny new galley faucet is working beautifully and a replacement foot pump has been ordered/received…. though I suspect it will be quite some time before the Captain is motivated to install it.
Plumbing project complete… or close enough. Check.
Now, about that transmission oil leak…
Leave a comment