How many parts does a water foot pump have? Way too many.
There it is, ready for operation. I discovered a sliver of wood in one of the valves, which explains why it went from working perfectly to suddenly being hard to pump and producing tiny squirts of water. How a small sliver of wood got into the water tank is a mystery.
Now it pumps great, but leaks like the devil. Either I didn't tighten it enough or a seal didn't seat the way it should. The good news is that I can now take it apart and reassemble it in a flash, compared with the 2.5-hour struggle the first time around.
Finished just in time for lunch. Cooked up my famous vegetable stew over pasta. No meat, no fish, no wine, just hunger and food. I've gone from 94 kg to 87 kg in 2 years. Slowly but surely. No magic trick, merely a bit less food and more exercise. The finish line is 85 kg. At 1.85 m tall, that sounds reasonable to me.
Still steaming and mighty delicious!
Plus, I forgot to take pictures during the disassembly process and got confused about how the four valves are set up. Staring at the pump's schematic drawing in Nigel Calder's boat maintenance book only made me more befuddled. Finally, I applied some basic logic and even laughed out loud on realising how simple it really was.
There it is, ready for operation. I discovered a sliver of wood in one of the valves, which explains why it went from working perfectly to suddenly being hard to pump and producing tiny squirts of water. How a small sliver of wood got into the water tank is a mystery.
Now it pumps great, but leaks like the devil. Either I didn't tighten it enough or a seal didn't seat the way it should. The good news is that I can now take it apart and reassemble it in a flash, compared with the 2.5-hour struggle the first time around.
Finished just in time for lunch. Cooked up my famous vegetable stew over pasta. No meat, no fish, no wine, just hunger and food. I've gone from 94 kg to 87 kg in 2 years. Slowly but surely. No magic trick, merely a bit less food and more exercise. The finish line is 85 kg. At 1.85 m tall, that sounds reasonable to me.
Still steaming and mighty delicious!
After walking around the marina with a big cup of coffee talking to other boaters, I tackled the battery project. My big Varta 180 AH (200 euros) house battery died last year at anchor in Culatra (after 8 years in service and one successful resuscitation). It was paralleled with the old engine battery which, in addition to being old, only has about 75 amp hours. Since my jeep died a couple of weeks ago (overheated), I decided to add its battery to the bank. I also recovered the battery boxes from my ocean-crossing days that used to contain expensive deep cycle batteries, which died early anyway.
When you have a wind generator or solar panel - especially with a modern regulator that will keep batteries ship-shape through an equalising, float and boost program - there's no need for expensive deep cycle batteries. Any run-of-the-mill battery will last a long time if you don't overload it.
Time is flying. Another two months or so and I'll be sailing south again. I still need to:
1. Redo the quarter berth in komacel
2. Rearrange/rebuild the boarding ladder system
3. Sew two small rips in the mainsail cover
4. Scrape the paint from the boom (maybe even scrape the mast paint some more)
5. Dive in and scrape the propeller clean
And a few other minor chores. Basically, a strong naked boat is always ready to go, as long as the skipper is also ready. Here's my list of essentials, the rest is frills:
1. A good autopilot
2. A GPS/chartplotter
3. A good engine
4. Sails
5. Desire
1. Redo the quarter berth in komacel
2. Rearrange/rebuild the boarding ladder system
3. Sew two small rips in the mainsail cover
4. Scrape the paint from the boom (maybe even scrape the mast paint some more)
5. Dive in and scrape the propeller clean
And a few other minor chores. Basically, a strong naked boat is always ready to go, as long as the skipper is also ready. Here's my list of essentials, the rest is frills:
1. A good autopilot
2. A GPS/chartplotter
3. A good engine
4. Sails
5. Desire
"Some people love to spend money on stuff. I'd rather spend mine buying free time. But if you own a sailboat, the conflict between time and money can get ugly. What's the purpose of free time without a boat, and what's the use of having a boat if you don't have free time?" ~ Martello Mateus
My Groco's raw water strainer basket fell victim to galvanic / electrolytic corrosion or maybe the thin metal screen simply wore out during the last 15 years.
This is what it should look like.
The basket is inserted in the hole shown below. It's ingenious in a simple sort of way: the incoming water flows into the basket in which debris is trapped and prevented from reaching the lower outflow hole.
This is Jakatar's only underwater thru-hull. Seawater is filtered by the Groco and then flows into a stainless steel distribution tank. I'm using only 2 outlets from the tank - one for the engine cooling and the other for the Lavac toilet.
I stopped using the salt water kitchen faucet a long time ago. If I ever cross another ocean, I'll hook it up again. In the meantime, I'm not too keen on washing dishes with salt water in anchorages where my neighbors are flushing their toilets.
So I spent nearly an hour enthusiastically making a basket from plastic mesh, white zip ties and very thin plastic-coated wire. It didn't fit. Frustrated, I took it apart, wound the plastic into a smaller diameter and shoved it into the hole, and that's that.
It looks like I've reached a compromise: I'm using my free time to spend money on the boat!!
My Groco's raw water strainer basket fell victim to galvanic / electrolytic corrosion or maybe the thin metal screen simply wore out during the last 15 years.
This is what it should look like.
This is Jakatar's only underwater thru-hull. Seawater is filtered by the Groco and then flows into a stainless steel distribution tank. I'm using only 2 outlets from the tank - one for the engine cooling and the other for the Lavac toilet.
I stopped using the salt water kitchen faucet a long time ago. If I ever cross another ocean, I'll hook it up again. In the meantime, I'm not too keen on washing dishes with salt water in anchorages where my neighbors are flushing their toilets.
Seeing as I'm still recovering from the shock of spending 486 euros on a raw water engine pump shipped from the US, I decided I'd make my own filter basket. Also, I can't seem to find baskets for sale in Europe, and I'm not too keen on spending a fortune on shipping and import VAT/customs like I did with the water pump.
So I spent nearly an hour enthusiastically making a basket from plastic mesh, white zip ties and very thin plastic-coated wire. It didn't fit. Frustrated, I took it apart, wound the plastic into a smaller diameter and shoved it into the hole, and that's that.
It looks like I've reached a compromise: I'm using my free time to spend money on the boat!!
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