July 2, 2015

It’s been a very frustrating week.  While I got the watermaker working briefly, it failed again a couple of days later.  It would not come up to full pressure and there were air bubbles in the flow meter.  Another conference with Rich (who was vacationing in Italy and still called me back!) led me to rechecking for leaks on the intake side of the boost pump.  Sure enough, there were some small leaks I hadn’t seen before.  Several days of swapping fittings, cranking down hose clamps with a wrench, double clamping, trying better pipe tape, replacing an o-ring in the strainer, and even reconfiguring the hoses a bit failed to stop the leaks.  They sometimes got better or moved from one place to another, but they never stopped completely.  About all that’s left to try is checking the ¾ in. hose on various other barb fittings, seeing if 5/8 in. hose will fit on the 3/4 barbs after warming the hose with the heat gun,  replacing some of the plastic fittings with bronze, and getting an expensive bronze strainer.  I’ll try the simpler/cheaper fixes first.  Not much choice at this point.  Air sucked in through these little leaks can cause the pressure release valve to remain open even at normal pressures, so I’ll need to check that too once I get the leaks stopped.  In the meantime, I’ll have to keep freshwater flushing the system every few days because I can’t pickle the system without watermaker quality water.  Catch 22!!  If I get desperate, I’ll buy 5 gallons of distilled water.

While waiting for high tide to test the system at various times this week, I made a bit of progress in finding new places for things displaced from the engine room by the watermaker.  The flopper stoppers got moved to the opposite side of the engine room and are now strapped against the holding tank.  The spare anchor is now stowed on deck on the port quarter.  I opened up the old stuck fuel transfer pump that came with the boat and found it too rusted up to be worth working on, so it got dumped.  I also dug out an ancient Oberdorfer water pump that might have been for the old generator that I got rid of years ago.  That pump got dumped too, as I couldn't even give it away.

My one small victory was getting the manual bilge pump to work.  I hope next week is better!!

May 7, 2015

It was a hectic week filled with multi-tasking, runs back and forth between vendors and painful bouts of boat yoga.  A couple of major milestones were reached, however, and one narrowly missed.  I had to go to the battery distributor twice to get the new batteries because they screwed up the paperwork (but I got a $16 discount for my trouble).  I also had to make a return trip via the bank to a local chandlery that was selling off inventory at half price  because they were only taking cash.  I spent a fruitless afternoon preparing for the welding of my watermaker pump bracket and making trips to the yacht club where my friend Jonathan was doing some welding.  Turned out that without 220 volt power, his welder didn’t have enough oomph for the ¼ inch stock.  We’re still looking for a source of 220.

I did manage to get the batteries installed (thanks to my friend Kevin) and wired up, and the new bilge pump and switch installation was completed and tested successfully.  The new battery cables were terribly costly, but they needed to be precise lengths and I didn't want the delay that goes with ordering them from genuinedealz.com.  Tomorrow I drive down to the San Diego area to pick up the watermaker kit and participate in the first outrigger canoe race of the season.  No rest for the weary!

April 30, 2015

I worked myself to exhaustion trying to make sure everything was ready for the scheduled installation of the new batteries and for the scheduled welding of the steel for the watermaker’s high pressure pump mounting bracket.   I almost made it.  It was ironically fortunate that both the welding and the batteries were delayed.  I’m still exhausted, though.  On the bright side, quite a bit was accomplished.  The steel is ready for welding, the house battery side of the wiring has been upgraded and the new high capacity bilge pump has been mounted and plumbed.  I still need to complete the wiring for the bilge pump and make and install new cables for the new batteries to complete phase one of the revamped primary electrical system.  (Phase two will be the starter battery/port side.)  With luck, the welding will happen next week in time for the arrival of the watermaker parts.  I’m hoping I’ll get all these major projects done about the end of the “iron” outrigger racing season at the end of June so I can take off for a while.  Wish me luck!