I thought you'd appreciate the effort to reduce the smell from the
head. Well - I tried. I pulled apart the holding tank (YUK) and reset
the gaskets and added Sikaflex. That didn't really solve it so I've
checked all the joints and nary a leak. I did discover that you do not
put a valve on two sides of the hand discharge pump - anything organic
in solution grows and gases - and the pump diaphram bulges and it's a
bit permeable - but a wipe with bleach once and awhile (and leaving the
isolation valve open) deals with that.
I went to the store and got a bottle of red food
coloring and dump the works in the toilet. I then pumped the holding
tank full so I could see the red water in the vent pipe - the whole
system presurized to about 1.5 psi at the top. Left it. Two things -
the level didn't h old and there were no leaks in the pipe work. It's
back flowing into the bowl This means that the flapper valve in the
head pump doesn't seal all that well. I could replace / rebuild it but
they're not that great a check valve anyway - I'm thinking I just might
cut in another ball valve into the pipe work and use that It's
'positive' and doesn't depend on gravity or a flap of rubber etc. It
will add a complication to using the head but so be it.
In coral, you anchor with chain, minimum 2.5:1 scope. (5:1 with rode
(rope) and a short piece of chain) The anchor locker under the windlass
will only take 80' chain, so at best, the depth is limited to a bit
over 30'. Problem is most of the anchorages are at least 40 and
typically more like 80'. You can use a combination of chain and rode
but you have to be careful that the rode never gets near the bottom
where it can snag on a coral head, chafe and then cut you loose - so
floats are used, which are a pain, and the scope ratio goes up towards
the 5:1 range depending on how much chain is down - there's no fixed
rule. So, I opened up the chain locker and found that the space
for the spare chain is a piece of 6' plastic pipe, which expains why
it only holds about 20', and the main locker is limited by the geometry.
The solution is two fold. First to remove the pipe and now the
current locker becomes the "spare" and can handle 100+' no problem - but
is not easily served by the windlass that is placed to feed the chain
down the hawse underneath it, that goes to a pipe on a slope that
delivers the chain forward. That pipe and the slope are a problem.
Second, a new chain locker is build as a closed box that extends into
the forepeak a bit. Now the chain will drop straight down into that. the
box will be attached to the deck above and the bulkhead forward,
leaving "foot room" under it for anyone sleeping in the forepeak. It
means losing 60% of the shelf space across the bow. Anyway, I spent a good
chunk of the morning sketching and finally drawing it up - I'm going to
get a price from a local boat carpenter to do it - I just don't have the
tools here to work with. Anyway, that problem should be solved.
A minor crisis and my own fault. Yesterday there
were a couple of the local native (Maori) chaps on the dock and the one
asked to borrow a screw driver. I didn't think and lent it to him, and
he proceeded to harvest oysters from the dock floats - until he dropped
the driver. To him it was nothing - just walked away - to me it was a
pain because it was my good one, the only large one I have (you dropped
the other one at the NYC mast tower) and there's no place handy to
replace it.
Sigh. My own fault.
Take Care
Love
Dad
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