Thursday, June 25, 2020

Leak from Engine's Raw Water Filter

Leak from Engine's Raw Water Filter


During our Father's Day Weekend Cruisette, when we arrived at the Bahia Mar, we realized that the Bilge Pump had run twice and the Bilge had a couple of inches of water.

Peggy is always good at finding leaks, so while I was out chatting to boat buddies, Peggy was hunting down the leak. Turned out it was from the Engine's Raw Water Filter.

When I looked at it, water could be seen dripping out of the clear plastic cup that holds the filter.

I checked it was screwed onto the housing securely, it was, so I closed the Raw Water Thru hull and unscrewed the filter cup.

The cup has a seal and that seal appeared to have a split in it's surface. Upon removing the seal, I noticed that it was way to big for it's location, probably swollen for some reason. It was certainly not going to go back in place without a struggle which would probably worsen the split.

I had installed that new filter in 2018, and had also replaced the AC Raw Water Strainer with the same type of filter, figuring out that if ever the Engine Raw Water filter had an issue, I had a spare that I could steal from the AC unit.

I considered using the AC Raw Water strainer cup and seal to get us back home. After an extensive online search, I could not find a replacement seal, so I ordered two new Filter assemblies, one to fix the current issue and a spare. As the old filter cup was going to be replaced, I decided to replace the Seal with a ring of Silicone Sealant. After cleaning the Filter Cup and making sure it was totally dry, I applied a healthy coat of sealant in the grove where the seal should be. Then I let it cure for 24 hours.
Sunday afternoon an inspection of the silicone showed it was fully cured. I installed, the now repaired, filter cup and we did a test run of the engine. No leaks. WooHoo!

When we got home on Monday, the new filters were waiting on my doorstep.

Life is good.

See you on the water.

Father's Day Weekend 2020

Celebrating Father's Day with the HISC

Father's Day fell on Sunday June 21st 2020 (last weekend) right in the middle of the Pandemic which has caused most of us to be in some form of quarantine since the middle of March.

We joined other club members at the Bahia Mar Marina in Fort Lauderdale, there were 6 boats in attendance from the club with a total of about 20+ crew.  The event was held after the Nederlanden Coastal Race from Hillsboro Inlet down to Port Everglades, but we (Eximius) did not race, we just went directly to the Bahia Mar from our Dock an hour away.

The Bahia Mar Crew were happy to see us, their business is picking up as Broward County Opens up, but they are still, correctly, practicing Social Distancing and every staff member that we interacted with were wearing Face Masks, both outside and inside their offices.

The Pool was open, and some of the HISC crew cooled off from the 90ยบ+F  Temperature and commented that it was not too crowded, compared to normally there being probably a hundred folks swimming and dining up there. Peggy & I did not go up to the Pool, we're being a bit more aggressive about maintaining Social Distancing - at least we're trying.

The Celebrations really consisted of the club members sharing Pizza, Fish, Water Melon, Klondike Bars while staying, mostly 6' apart and wearing Face masks when getting any closer. It sure was nice being able to chat and share stories with our friends after being away from club activities for so long. True, we've had Virtual meetings and Happy Hours online, but there's really nothing better than meeting with good people.

We stayed at Bahia Mar Saturday & Sunday, departing on Monday, Affection was there on Friday & Saturday nights, everyone else arrived on Saturday and departed on Sunday. Weather was glorious except for the storms on Friday Evening, the rest of the weekend we barely got wet - well, except for the results of the very high temperatures. Luckily, our AC on the boat worked just fine, we do need to consider a Sun Shade over part of the hull, the underside, in the cabin, gets surprisingly hot.

Sunday morning there was a huge boat parade on the ICW, we saw at least 50 boats dressed up and celebrating Gay Pride, they were certainly having fun. 

We departed Bahia Mar on Monday at about 10:30am just as the tide was reaching slack and had an easy motor up the New River, no crazies around, I guess most folks are getting back to work. A couple of big yachts were heading up river under their own power, in fact we didn't see a single boat under tow, a rarity. 

Because of the time we planned to leave Bahia Mar, we had plenty of time to prep the boat for unloading, it's surprising how much we take on the boat considering how much we keep onboard at all times. But preparing for the unload that way really reduces the time from arrival at the dock to being on the road for the drive home. We called the local Thai Restaurant and ordered take out so that we didn't have to prepare lunch. By 13:40 we were settled in at home eating Thai Chicken Red Curry and Chicken Lo Mein. 

Great weekend with some great people. 

Hope to see them again on the Independence Day.

See you on the water!

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Stuck KNOT Transducer

Our Speed Transducer stopped working

Not the first time and it's typically due to getting a piece of floating grass or the ilk caught in the paddle wheel. Still, it's a pain as we compare our GPS speed to our 'through the water' speed in order to determine the water's current & direction. ie. GPS speed of 5 knots and Water speed of 3 knots means we have 2 knots of current on the stern, or GPS speed of 3 knots and Water speed of 5 knots means we have 2 knots of current on our Bow. That helps us plan for going alongside or as we are approaching a bridge that needs to open.


Our Speed/Depth/Temperature transducer is mounted in a through hull that is inside the Bathroom cabinet, along with 3 other thru-hulls (Engine Raw Water, Sink Drain and Shower Sump) and despite my recent update to the Fresh water plumbing, the Transducer is a bit awkward to reach (it's a boat!), however, not to difficult. 

To clean off the transducer, we can reach over the side from the dinghy with the boat brush and wipe off the surface which is just in reach underwater, it takes a while if we don't have out dink in the water already, so the alternative is to pull the transducer from it's thru-hull and plug it until we have chance to clean the transducer. Doing this does put some water in the bilge, typically about a 1/2 gallon, more or less.

This weekend we were at the Bahia Mar Marina in Fort Lauderdale and met with a friend on his boat 'Cookie Monster' among other things, we discussed the transducer issue. He explained that he normally takes out the transducer when the boat is at the dock and replaces it prior to departure. What a Great Idea!

 On Sunday morning, I pulled the transducer and plugged the hole with our new True Plug Mini just to check out the plug.
It worked great, cut the water flow from the open thru-hull completely.

The Transducer Thru-Hull is an older version and does not have the internal water trap hinge that a modern Tranducers Thru-hull does, I've got one and might change it out later this year when we plan on a haul out.

To make sure I had the correct Thru Hull plug, I pulled the True Plug Mini out (more water) and inserted the spare Airmar plug. Again, it fit just fine and no water flow. 

Cleaned the transducer and spun the paddle wheel to check all was well, Peggy confirmed that we had apparent water speed on our GPS display.

One more time, pulled the plug and inserted the Transducer into the thru-hull. We should be good to go now.

When we left the dock, it was nice to see that the Water speed was now working fine.

Normally we take about an hour to unload the boat back at our dock and we're typically exhausted, today was no different. We're going back down to the boat on Wednesday and at that time I'll pull the Transducer and insert the Airmar Plug (keeping the mini plug in place when not needed is not a good idea.)

See you on the water!

Friday, June 12, 2020

Re-plumbing Catalina 34 Mk 1 - part 3

Success - New Plumbing finally passed the Pressure Test.

Tuesday May 26th 2020.

What was intended to be a quick trip to the boat turned out longer because things came together so well.

On Saturday, we completed the install with the exception of a leak where the new plumbing connected to the old Shower Thermostat. Turns out that was caused by a sloppy removal of the old hose in which I had to cut a slit in order to get the tube off of the fitting. The knife blade not only cut through the hose, which was the plan, but it also cut s slit in the surface of the fitting. That slit was the source of the leak.

So today I went armed with a replacement fitting and new hose. Replacement complete, I did another pressure test before re-securing the Shower Thermostat in place. All of that took about an hour.
With everything working, it was time to start putting the boat back together again. Bathroom Cabinet replaced and Under Sink Cabinet door replaced. 




In the Galley, I tidied up the electrical wiring that I had relieved in order to run the new piping. That included repositioning the Drinking Water Filter System UV Lamp power unit. In order to disentangle the wire from the lamp to the power supply where it was twisted around the sink drain pipe and the Pump housing, I had to remove the lamp from it's housing - Grrrrr! I could hear the inner glass of the housing snap as I pulled out the lamp! Note to self - next time remove the entire UV Lamp housing from the filter assembly before extracting the lamp. I bypassed the UV lamp system for the time being. and then replaced the Galley under sink cabinet and cutlery draw. 

With the water pressure turned on, a last check of all joints to inspect for leaks. I was certain there were none as the pump automatically turned off when it got up to pressure and it stayed that way while I put all of the cabinets back in place.

Other than having to replace the quartz glass sleeve for the UV Lamp housing, the job is finished. Oh, one more thing to do. Print out nice labels for the Water Selector Valve - Mid Ships  -- Aft -- Off





Hardly a big HuRaaa! but sure feels good to know that the new pipe joints are solid. As expected, water pressure at all faucets and the shower is still plenty high and I could hardly notice if there was any drop in the pressure compared to the previous hose piping system.


Here's the Re-positioned Water Pump and the UV lamp power source.

Much neater and I anticipate that it will be easy to change out the pump when it eventually fails.

I had broken the UV Lamp housing glass tube: That's the tube in which the lamp is inserted and allows the UV light to pass through into the water chamber.

I was able to get a replacement tube and a spare lamp from Atlantic UV online. It took all of 5 minutes to replace the lamp tube and put it back together.

In this pic, the galley drawers are removed for access.




This is the inside of the galley unit showing the Three Way Ball Valve. 

It's held in place by two SS screws from the outside face.

Not so clear but it also shows that the access to the Galley Sink Drain Thru-hull, so it's a lot easier to operate the Thru-Hull.












And, Finally! the new Fresh Water Tank Selector valve is complete with natty little labels to avoid confusion.

Having finished the job, we spent a couple of hours cleaning up the cabin, stowing everything that was removed or relocated to access the hidden areas of plumbing.

We have already booked a weekend at a Marina for our first trip since the pandemic hit. We'll be practicing safe distancing, and meeting with sailing buddies. 


Time for the next projects - new Spinnaker, Sock and running rigging. And fix the ding that we put in the port side 3 months ago (March)

Now to pull from these posts for a Magazine Article.

Stay Safe and we'll see you on the water.