Rebuilding the Marine Head - Part 2

After a few nights of research and some deliveries from Amazon.com, I headed up the turnpike early Friday morning with a plan.  The videos had said that replacing the pump assembly should take 15 minutes or so.  I allowed an hour... leaving early enough that I could complete it and still start my workday from Seas The Day on time for my conference calls.

I got to KYC and took the launch out.  The bay was relatively calm.

I quickly set out all the tools, parts, buckets, etc.

Shut off the seacocks under the sink...

And removed the pump assembly...

It turned out that at least one of the problems was a bad joker valve (you shouldn't see any holes in it like below.  This is an items that evidently should be changed once a year.  (We had not done that.)  Lesson learned.

This almost seemed too easy. (Read below for the rest of the story.)  The new one went on without a hitch and we were back ready to do our business!

Get your mind out of the gutter... I meant working from the boat (like doing my real job).

I work for a nice company with a great policy that allows me to "work from home" occasionally.  All I need is my laptop, a wifi hotspot (KYC is planning to install a special dockside wifi thingy this season) and with the VPN, it's just like I'm at my office without all the monitors.

So I did my prep work, emails and joined some WebEx meetings during the morning.  It started getting kind of rocky, so at lunch time I brought everything ashore where I could plug in and continue in the afternoon with a nice view from my "office".

I had only packed shorts and after a bit, Bill took pity on me and let me into the waterfront room where I could get everything out my boss needed.  Finally, all trips (even those that never leave the mooring) end up at the KYC bar and this evening was no exception.

While there, I had a wonderful conversation with Dan, a "colleague" from IFF (in quotes, because I didn't know he was a colleague at the time - we only overlapped a couple of weeks).  He's also a recent member (much younger) that enjoys photography (mostly videos).  He made a wonderful video for the club's upcoming open house.

After running some errands, I went back aboard to catch some sleep before my brother and his family came out for a sail on Saturday.

I had... easily... my WORST night on Seas The Day.  The waves were not bad... I've been out with rougher conditions, but I was really being tossed around in the V-berth.  I woke up (at 1:30 - after the launch service ended) and realized that I was actually getting seasick.  Fortunately we had a few remedies on board (I chewed some ginger gum and wore the seasick bands the rest of the night) and I was able to sleep for the night.

I'll spare you details - and certainly photos - on the next adventure.  I woke up kind of tired and forgot to put water in the bowl before doing my business... and must have used too much TP for the head and... well...  It clogged.  This time I was practiced at disassembling the pump but... um... things oozed, and well, it was a MESS.  After a LOT of swearing... some rinsing... disassembly and reassembly, a bleach wash for my hands and feet (I had to stand somewhere), the head was back looking like it did above and working properly.

Fortunately it was very calm water and after cleaning up, I had another taste test of the freeze dried food I've been storing away for an emergency.

After breakfast, things on-board started getting rocky again and I walked forward and realized that my mooring (we just had installed) was badly wound up/tangled resulting in a very short lead from the ball to the bow.  This had the effect of pulling the bow down a bit and having it move with the waves that moved the ball, and was the cause of all the motion issues I was experiencing.

I placed a call to Dan and he said it would be squared away in the next day or two.

At this point, I checked the weather and it was clear that rain was going to be the order of the day.  I checked in with my brother and we agreed to cancel the day.

So I headed back down the turnpike and passed several bands of severe rain.  Canceling was the right decision.

Later that evening John came down for a Father's Day visit.  He's starting his own Amazon business and had a sample I could use for some product photography practice.  So if I couldn't practice my one hobby (sailing), there's always another.  Happy Father's Day!

Rebuilding the Marine Head - Part 1

Seas The Day has a serviceable head (boat speak for bathroom) on board.  It's a small sink/shower combination and a marine toilet.  So far it has performed flawlessly, but this year we are having some issues.  As I noted on our last post, something happened at the end of the day an we are no longer able to pump it.  Not good.

Our marine toilet is a manual model.  You do your business in the bowl like normal toilets, but then you use the hand pump on the side to pump it out.  There's a little lever on the right (just above the T handle for the pump) that allows you to pump "wet" or "dry".  Wet means that sea water is pumped in and washes down the bowl as you pump out the waste.  Dry means that the pumping action just pumps out the waste.  Our normal practice is to pump dry and use freshwater from the sink/shower to "flush" the bowl.  That has worked pretty well so far.

But now the handle doesn't pump and I came home to hit the web and find out what my choices are.  Below is the parts diagram from Jabsco.  

As you can see, the marine toilet is a relatively simple device, but it does have a lot of rubber seals, o-rings and gaskets that can be replaced.  Interestingly, diagnosing and buying the parts individually is the most expensive way to go.  There are "rebuild" kits that are sold with all the commonly replaced parts in them.  The procedures don't seem too difficult but for only a few $$ more, you can just buy a replacement pump assembly already assembled with all new seals, gaskets and o-rings.  That seems to be the way to go as the procedure to replace the unit is fairly simple, and this all has to be done while the boat is sloshing around in the water.

So a replacement pump assembly along with an extra Joker valve (allows the shit to only flow one way - and something I should have been replacing each year) are on their way from Amazon.

Since a through-hull (boat speak for hole in the boat below the waterline) is involved, I also got a couple of plugs... just in case!

To be continued...

2017 Bill Volk Regatta

This is Regatta weekend.  Keyport Yacht Club hosts a series of races each June partly as their contribution to the local sailing racing organization and they've also turned it into a nice altruism effort by using the event to raise money for RAINE (a local charity aimed at helping struggling families).

I've been the official photographer for this event in the past, but schedules this week meant I could only do a day trip on Saturday.  I got up early and hit the turnpike, getting to the club in time for one of the early runs.

I arrived to find a gift so to speak.  Two weird eggs just sitting in the cockpit.  There was no other sign of a nest, so they weren't viable eggs and either they were brought here by a predator (??) or it was a bird abortion of sorts.  I hope the fish don't get too high of cholesterol levels because they accidentally rolled overboard shortly afterward once the boat started sloshing around from my movement.

I then started with a few "boat chores" - little things needed to keep up/improve Seas The Day.  I wanted to start being able to easily take down the burgee as we finally replaced the flag line.  I added a simple plastic cleat to the shroud to make this go a bit smoother.

We've had several split rings fall off our lifelines, so I bought a bunch and replaced two of them.  Not big chores, but something to do while I'm waiting.

As I waited for John to arrive I tested the equipment with some test shots.  I caught my neighbor, Joe, on Sugar picking up his mooring, and diver Dan at work in the mooring field.

Eventually the launch delivered John and we could get started.

Today we weren't sailing... just motoring around so I could get photos.  John was the helmsman.  I had two cameras, telephoto lenses, extenders, etc. to keep track of and didn't want to miss any photographic opportunities or shirk my skipper duties.

We motored out to find Observer (the race committee boat) and found everyone sitting in the middle of a dead calm bay.  God was NOT cooperating with the sailboat race plans.  While we waited a couple of boats came by for boat photos.

After about an hour we all headed back to the starting location (the whole group of us had drifted with the current) and we found wind.  So the race was on!

Here are a couple of shots.  A full set can be found on my SmugMug site.

After the first race, my card was almost full and my knee started aching, so we headed back.

John used the head right before we headed in and mentioned that he had trouble pumping.  Once we tied up, I checked it and sure enough we can't pump it without an unusual amount of effort.  We closed up and I came home to work up photos and research marine toilets.  Look for a shitty blog post coming up soon!

Combining Work and Fun

We headed up to Keyport Saturday for a combination work/fun trip.  There were a few punch list items that needed to get done to get the season underway.

The most concerting was a weird gurgling sound we experienced in the head while flushing right before we left last weekend.  I still vividly recall the Sh!t fountain we experienced when the head over pressurized back in our first season, so I was a little timid about getting it pumped out.  We decided to sail out 3 miles and test the macerator for this year.

So we had a nice sail out and then motored back to charge the batteries.  The head continued to work fine the rest of the weekend and my conclusion is that it just needed to get properly hydrated to pump it's best.  I will, however, order some of the servicing kits (seals, etc.) for the head so I'm ready.

We saw some nice boats on our way out across the bay.

Although the head seemed OK, I wanted to find the access port for the vent if needed in the future, and we eventually found it hidden in a galley cabinet.  We'll try and clean it from the outside, but it's nice to know where to get to it if needed.

Upon returning, we did some cleaning and straightening up before heading over to Nemo's with the Miller's

We then spent the evening lounging in the salon catching up on social media.

After a full night's rest, I awoke to the sounds and bumps from the fishermen heading out at sunrise.  Our mooring is right on the channel and even if people mind the "no wake zone" (they don't), we get sloshed around a bit when the larger boats go out.  Since I was awake, I got up and grabbed a few shots of the sunrise.

Following that I went back to bed until we heard some of the other boaters heading off in their dinghy's for the morning coffee run.

Breakfast this morning was some instant coffee and instant oatmeal (sorry, it was a work weekend).  Before I could do that, I needed to do the pressure test of our LPG system.  Two readings 15 minutes apart with a charged, but shut off line, told me we could safely use the system this season.

The other quick job this morning was to sanitize the water system.  We use bottled water to drink and cook, but tank water for cleaning.  That allows us to slightly increase the bleach dosage and ensure there's nothing growing in the tank - even if left for a few weeks.  When Vicky's here, we go through a whole tank (30 gal) every other weekend.  Once she leaves, a tank will last me a number of weekends.  (but the boat sparkles better when she's here!)

Our final job this weekend was to get the anchor set up.  I AM going to learn (& get comfortable with) anchoring this year.  So I pulled all the rode out of the anchor locker and inserted woven markers we had purchased from West Marine last year.  We went out and were able to successfully anchor for lunch (just beyond the harbor).  I'm still plagued by how to control the three-strand rode (it seems to always want to kink), but I was able to do the basics without too much help from Vicky.

While at anchor, we ate lunch - Mountain House freeze dried Beef Stroganoff (from my prepping activities) and a nice fruit spread that Vicky prepared.  

(Full disclosure... I've completely lost faith in our government's competence over the past few months and decided to lay in some supplies (mostly water, freeze dried food and some other sundry items), just in case of a Katrina or Sandy type of event.  I figure I can use these on the boat from time to time.)

The taste test of the freeze dried stroganoff wasn't too bad.  It was tasty, gave me some energy... not sure I'd call it nutrition, but as a supplement or something to keep on board for those times when we're too dirty to go out to eat and too lazy to cook, it won't be bad.  

After lunch, we motored back, cleaned up and stowed everything and got ready for me to single hand for the next few weeks. (my first mate is heading back to China for a while).