Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor, Honolulu, HI, 25-Nov-2019 — Ever since Jennifer learned that the failures on Caro Babbo are not unusual, she has been reading more about equipment failures while cruising.
The idea of cascading failures has grabbed hold of her and sometimes awakens her from sleep.
Cruising in open waters subjects one’s vessel to rocking, rolling, shaking, and thumping beyond what one sees in most coastal sailing. The boat doesn’t get cleaned at the end of any day and hidden failures are not discovered until they make themselves visible through the failure that cascades from them, or when one finally gets to the cleaning and then moving something or other discovers something broken.
A lard container* makes a great container for couscous. It’s size, about two quarts, will hold enough couscous to last quite a while, and the lid is very easily removed and reinstalled. However, the container is not structurally strong and will easily deform, popping off the lid.
A mono hull on its side reaching through confused water experiences a lot of sudden and unexpected torsional force. Containers stored in close proximity bear upon each other. The weak give.
Couscous is very hydrophilic, and would probably make a good short-term patch in any vessel that’s leaking. It will, and did on Caro Babbo, flow with the forces of gravity downward towards water, making its way through unexpectedly tiny openings into the bilge, where it expanded in truly impressive multiples.
We scooped up all of the spilt couscous, including that that had gotten wet in the basement where it was stored, never considering the small amount that could have gotten into the bilge was anything that wouldn’t have been pumped out by the bilge pump in short order.
Earlier in the a San Diego to Hilo leg of our trip, we found that our bilge pump had stopped working. When it came time to fix it I found that there was water intrusion into some of the wiring connections; the resistance had risen and blown a fuse. I rewired all of the connections using heat shrink connectors and everything was fine.
Here in Honolulu, the dripless propeller shaft seal continues to slowly leak. Every so often the bilge pump fires, drains the bilge and shuts off. At some point I will clean and readjust the seal, and if that doesn’t work I will need to pull the propeller shaft and replace the seal.
In the middle of the night, here in Honolulu Jennifer and I were up. We went into the cockpit to look at the lights of the city around us. When we came back and I could hear a buzzing sound. I said out loud, “what is that sound?” I walked around the cabin putting my ear against things that might be buzzing, and eventually was on my hands and knees on the cockpit sole listening to what had to be the bilge pump making a much louder and raspier noise.
I lifted the cockpit sole, the bilge was empty and the bilge pump was very hot to the touch because it was not immersed in water that provides the normal cooling.
Wedged under the float switch was a glob of black decomposing couscous. The bilge pump continued to work, louder and raspier. The question was weather it would work for two months while we were back on the mainland.
Yesterday morning while I lay in bed in the dark, I realized I hadn’t heard the bilge pump run recently. I lifted the sole and found that the bilge was full.
On Caro Babbo, the bilge pump cannot be removed without removing the propeller shaft. Removing the propeller shaft requires, except when performed by crazies and people with skills well beyond mine, hauling a boat out of the water.
A trip to West Marine allowed me to return home with two bilge pumps one 2.5 inches wide, and the other 2.4 inches wide. My measurement with a tape measure said that there was slightly less than 2.5 inches between the propeller shaft and the wall of the bilge. The 2.5″ bilge pump would not fit, the 2.4″ would. The old bilge pump can not be removed and is still in the bilge.
The new pump is connected to the float switch and so far works well. It is not the permanent installation I want, but to get halfway there will require removing a 3 inch-diameter wet exhaust hose and I’m not sure what else. I am wondering whether to take a hammer and a very large screwdriver and try to bust the old Rule-brand bilge pump into small pieces to pull out of the bilge or just leave it there.
Thoughts?
* When I moved to Atlanta in 1984, supermarkets would routinely have pyramids of 5 gallon buckets of lard at the end of aisles. Now in the same supermarket where I still shop, the small 2 lb containers are turned on the shelf so that the word lard does not show, only the Spanish word Manteca. It may be the times and diet changes, or that my neighborhood has been taking over by Yankees like myself. I should mentioned that we no longer eat fats that don’t melt at body temperature. Yes, we use lard, and butter, and canola oil and olive oil.
I personally never break Rules – unless I know the outcome. Brion adds: “In my experience Rules are made to be broken.”
Wishing you a worry free holiday and a nice someone to look in on your boat for that period of time…
Look forward to seeing you both. All good here. Do give a call – we start a new adventure in Seattle over the next 6 weeks and will be home on the weekends into January – hope to be on your dinner party list – especially when it includes our dear Scott Wilson. Be well and enjoy the next adventure – where ever – whenever!
Fondly – Christian & Brion
Christian, We’ll be in for five days in December starting December 6th, no time for a dinner, but what does a small breakfast Sunday (the 9th) look like?
We will be back for a few weeks in January; we’ll have a dinner. We’ll count on you both being there and will work dates with you to be sure.
We can’t wait to hear about the new adventure.
––> For everyone else, if you’ll be near Port Townsend the last three weeks in January, let us know and come to dinner.
–john
Regarding Rules, we’ve never had one of their bilge pumps fail before. The next post will be about the Mitsubishi starter that self-destructed — literally — at the dock yesterday.
what you’re doing, is like space flight.
i’ve been reading michael collins, neil armstrong, buzz aldrin’s books about the moon landing.
NASA used 400,000 people to get that done.
maybe a boat like yours could use 40, to keep with all rampant lard and couscous? just saying. what an adventure!
the best book was collins – carrying the fire, something like that.
good boat reading.
when the bilge pump isn’t buzzing . 🙂
wle
As you know most modern bilge pumps want to live in the bilge and push water out the discharge hose. An alternative to consider is a Jabsco diaphragm pump that can live above the bilge and pull water up an intake hose… the idea being that you could just have the hose with a strainer on the end dip down into your bilge while the pump lives in splendor higher up.
These pumps tend to be very reliable (can run dry) and are rebuild-able but are expensive and not super high capacity. To solve that you could have a bigger crash pump above the bilge that would kick on if the Jabsco became overwhelmed.
Kinda hard to say what would work without seeing your bilge but food for thought.
Actually, we flew one out from Seattle with us. I will be installing it over the next few days. I will also be upgrading the hose on the submersible pump that lives in the bilge from 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch.
The main problem is finding a place to put the diaphragm pump on a 31-foot boat. We have tons of under-cockpit storage but we use that storage for provisions — We can go for several months without shopping — and for such things as a hot water heater, water maker and a lot of electronics.