2022-12-09 Rolling Friday

Wee Hours

Rolling around on a Friday. I’m getting a bit more accustomed to the rolling, unlike on a neighboring boat where I saw a crewmember feeding the fish last night. I did scrounge around my toiletry kit for earplugs sometime after midnight as one particularly loud creaking noise was bothersome.

I woke up early and was working at my virtual office before the sun rose. When it did, I snapped some pictures and ran the engine to charge the batteries. I’ll have to put up the additional solar panels to keep up with the power drain from using the computer all day. My next project will be the generator repair so that I can start using that for charging the battery bank. Once the generator is running, I’ll recommission the water maker. The task list just keeps on growing.

Morning

I’m going to make breakfast aboard a little later, when I run the engine (again) to get the battery bank charged further. The rolling motion aboard is changing with the new swell. Now there are long periods of relative stillness and then a minute of increasing rolls; somewhat like a harmonic that builds toward a climax and then suddenly stops. It is sufficient for loose items in the galley to slide around a bit but not enough to knock over glasses. The normal trades should resume by early next week and make life at anchor more comfortable again.

I checked the repaired toilet and didn’t find any leakage. I’d further tightened the base-to-bowl bolts yesterday and fill the bowl with water overnight. Perhaps that was the source of the slow leak; I’ll continue to monitor the situation during the morning.  Update: it seems that the vibration from the flush motor/macerator is causing a bit of leaking. The gasket seal for the motor shaft is new and I checked for a drip, but that section remains dry. Perhaps I didn’t do a good job on the O-Ring and will have to unmount the whole base again for access.

Lunch

What a lunch break, fixing the Jabsco toilet, or at least trying to. I disconnected the hoses and drained the water out and the initial visual inspection gave no indication of where the leak is coming from this time around. The bottom of the electric macerator pump is rusted from a previously leaking pump gasket and is, fortunately, only a cosmetic and not a structural issue.

Afternoon

I took the toilet apart again and very carefully reassembled everything and the initial test with 2 cups of water standing showed no leakage. After mounting it again I did one last test and the toilet leaked slightly. I’ve located the cause but don’t know how I am going to fix it. It is the seal around the gasket on the pump rotor; but I’ve just replaced it with a new one, so I fear that the shaft of the rotor is smaller than the seal and allows a bit of leakage. Regardless, I’m going to live with this for the moment as I’m sick and tired of all this time spent on this one maintenance item.

It’s still a rolling Friday. I got into the dinghy to go ashore, untying the line and pulling the starter as I drifted from the boat. It wouldn’t start and I realized that the kill was still removed. I couldn’t find it, presumably it went overboard during the lifting process the night before. This switch works differently from the standard one, which uses a plastic insert to pull out and disengage the kill mechanism. This works the other way and needs to be depressed in order for the engine to run. But it is harder to hot-wire, and I couldn’t MacGyver it. Ultimately, I had to open up the outboard and disconnect the kill mechanism.

I dinghied ashore to have an early afternoon snack at Jambe de Bois. Sated with an early weekend Heineken and a cheese baguette I decided to walk up the hill to Fort Rodney and the pictures below document this.