Sailing is not entirely a bed of roses.
Take leaks for example.
When we bought our
Albatross nine happy years ago, she did have the odd leak (water through the deck, and from the engine, and diesel from the fuel tank, for example). As time went by, leaks came and went.
Some leaks can be quite exciting.
In April 2012 we had an exciting leak.
Because the main sewage tap from our holding tank was rather stiff and difficult to open and close, I decided to give it a "jolly good waggle". (We were berthed in Stromness in Orkney at the time). While giving it its waggle, something unintended came loose and well-liquefied poo flooded out of the tap. Thinking quickly and using the skills and authority that I had acquired over more than 30 years of sailing and marriage, I instructed my wife and deputy skipper to insert her right index finger firmly into the leaking tap, whilst I assessed the situation.
Basically, we had a leak of stored sewage from a brass fitting below sea level. If the deputy skipper were to remove her finger, the boat would first fill with sewage and then with seawater from Stromness harbour. Then we would sink.
What should we do?
Call a plumber?
Call the RNLI?
Moor the boat against the dock wall, wait for the tide to go out, remove the deputy skippers finger and then call a plumber?
A difficult seacock
In the event, I found the bolt that had fallen out of the tap. My beloved extracted her finger, I screwed the bolt back in and we both washed our hands. We had survived.
But back to leaks. Engine water leaks. We had one that took 9 years to fix and this is the story.
Soon after buying the boat, I noticed a little puddle of water under and behind the engine. It only appeared after a voyage and was sometimes probably seawater but also sometimes green in colour (and therefore possibly engine coolant). The coolant filler cap was rusty.
A slightly corroded filler cap
Diagnosis 1: Leaking coolant filler cap.
Treatment: New filler cap
Result Still leaking
The engine's heat exchanger has a drain valve. This was wet.
A drain valve
Diagnosis 2: Leaking drain valve
Treatment: Properly tightened
Result No better
One happy spring morning, whilst motoring across the Pentland Firth en route for Orkney, I decided to have a quick look at my engine. To my horror water was pouring out of the exhaust mixing elbow, which was cracked. We survived the journey and a nice young man in a shed in Stromness not only welded it up beautifully while we waited but also refused any payment for his work. Obviously, I thought, this had been the cause of the leak from the start; it had just been too slight at first to spot.
A (perfect) exhaust elbow
Diagnosis 3: Cracked exhaust mixing elbow
Treatment: Repaired
Result: No better
Unfortunately, despite finding and fixing a real leak, the engine was still wet.
The stern gland (that is supposed to stop water coming up around the prop shaft and into the boat) was always a bit wet after motoring, and a puddle of water collected under it.
A stern gland
Diagnosis 4: Leaking stern gland
Treatment: New rubber gland fitted
Result: No better
The engine always seemed to wobble a lot when it stopped and started and I concluded that that was when and why the stern gland was leaking. So after a lot more research and a trip to The Boat Show, I purchased and installed a very nice "PSS Shaft Seal". The salesman assured me that this wouldn't leak even when the engine was wobbling.
Diagnosis 5: Leaking stern gland
Treatment: Different type of stern gland fitted
Result: You guessed it.
A very nice new stern gland (with breather tube)
Anyway, we now had the best of stern glands, which even had a specially long and meticulously fitted breather tube to make sure it vented properly.
Quite often the puddle under the engine was green (like the coolant). When it came to a changing the coolant that winter, I refilled with the recommended brand which is pink. Sure enough, the puddle under the engine was now pink. The leaking water was definitely coolant and now I could see that it was coming out from under the filler cap. Obviously the cheap replacement filler cap that I'd bought off ebay was leaking. I bought a pucker one from Yanmar.
Diagnosis 6: Defective filler cap
Treatment: Expensive new one
Result: Need I really tell you.
A brand new filler cap
With a bright light, when the engine was nice and hot, I eventually found tiny leak from the joint between the filler neck and the cooler tank. "Hurray", I'd found it. On ebay, I found a packet of "AbroSteel". This magic putty, would stick to almost anything, set like steel and block the leak. It did work for about 3 hours, but halfway between Dartmouth and Alderney there was once more a pink puddle under the engine.
A botched up filler neck
Diagnosis 7: Filler neck leak
Treatment: Special putty pending proper fix that winter
Result: Guess.
Although this explained the "pink" water leak, seawater was also getting in somewhere. I scoured the internet again. The cooling system has an "anti-syphon loop". This is supposed to stop seawater from syphoning into the exhaust. Its mechanism involves a tiny spring-operated valve that lets air in to interrupt any water column that might turn into a syphon. The spring is prone to blockage with salt. The valve would then drip water. I cleaned the salt-caked spring and reassembled everything but added a special long drainage tube, so that if the spring failed again and water would go into the sea.
Diagnosis 8: Anti-syphon valve blocked and leaking
Treatment: Cleaned and modified
Result: Engine still wet after running
Anti-syphon loop
Eight seasons had passed. My engine had been mysteriously wet for much of this time. So now it was also very rusty. Dripping seawater had ruined the engine mounts, the alternator was corroding, some of the wiring was beginning to fail. I consulted a Proper Engineer. We needed to have the engine taken out of the boat just to replace the its mounts. The heat exchanger needed to be repaired or replaced, the gearbox had cause trouble, the whole engine needed cleaning and painting. And of course, something was leaking.
Rusty
How did we feel about a new engine?
We did the sums and our very nice engineer installed a brand new shiny clean dry engine.
Diagnosis 9: Engine condition terminal
Treatment: A new engine and gearbox.
The new season was with us. The boat was launched. The engine started instantly We left the quayside and headed for our mooring. We secured the boat and stopped the engine.
THERE WAS A PUDDLE OF WATER UNDER OUR NEW ENGINE.
Well obviously there must be a minor leak from one of the old cooling pipes that had been re-used with the new engine. We'd find out exactly which pipe it was on our cruise to Brittany.
Usually when we stopped in a berth each evening there was a small puddle of fresh seawater under the engine. But not always. I decided that it had to be coming from one of the re-inforced polythene seawater cooling pipes and spent much of each day examining them.
It is very important when doing this not to insert your finger in the engine's electric cooling fan when the engine is running. I did.
The first thing I noticed was that the cooling fan was making a funny noise, then that there was blood under then engine and finally that my left little finger wasn't entirely happy. I mended my finger with sticking plaster. The fan was missing one of its six blades and making a din because it was now unbalanced. I broke off the blade opposite the missing one and it now runs happily again.
Modified fan
Back to the leak. The pipework under the raw water strainer was wet. This was obviously where the leak was coming from. One of the pipes was quite worn and had probably been leaking. I unbolted and re-positioned the water strainer so that I could shorten and tidy up the pipework. And next day there wasn't a puddle under the engine!
Raw water strainer
But a day later the puddle returned.
"OK, I will replace all the polythene pipes." I muttered defiantly.
I went into a chandlery across the river in Benodet and bought some new tubing and several shiny new hose clamps. On returning to the boat, I found that the pipe I'd bought was the wrong size. Returning by ferry to the chandlery, I found that it had just shut for the weekend.
I spent the evening in a downward cycle, checking pipes, worrying and drinking wine.
Next day, I realised that it was time that my nice new shiny (but wet engine) had its first oil change.
I dried everything up with surgical precision. Prepared my tools and a couple of nappies to catch any oils drips and then I ran the engine (in gear)
in reverse for ten minutes (with the boat firmly warped on to the pontoon). I wanted the engine and its oil warm for the oil change.
I stopped the engine and opened the engine hatch. The engine was awash with at least 10 litres of fresh seawater underneath it. Water had been pouring from the stern gland breather tube when the engine was in reverse.
The reverse spinning propeller had been forcing a jet of water under the boat, up the stern tube, out through its breather pipe and all over the engine.
I've fixed this now with a £5 non-return valve from Screwfix and a roll of sticky tape.
Alors?!
