It took me three half days of work to take apart the two heads to solve the flowback problem (brown water, when fully pumped out, becomes tan water rather than pure clean sea water). On the first day of this project I removed the porcelain bowls that are fastened with gaskets, each atop a pump. Each bowl is held in place with four brass bolts and I broke two of the eight: One needed me to use vise grips to screw it out and as a result, the soft bronze hex head is too chewed up to be reused. The other broke off flush in the threaded hole through the top of the pump. It will have to be drilled out -- a spring project for my trusty expert friend Ed Spallina. Then the flowback, according to Groco's expert, Patrick, is caused because the two white plastic piston rings that fit into grooves on the outside of the each piston are letting fluids back in. Solution: remove them, hammer gently on the top side of each to flatten them out a bit, thereby increasing their outside diameter to get a flusher fit against the inside of the cylinder in which they ride and reinstall. I broke one ring with the hammering (not gentle enough) but the replacements have already arrived. Removing and reinstalling the pistons that are held in place with a bolt through their center into the rod that pushes them up and down when the pump's handle is used, is quite an ingenious trick involving a threaded rod. I used a bolt of the correct diameter and thread that I had on hand to pull them up and out but I will have to cut off the bolt's head to get the pistons back in. So I'm continuing to learn. Groco should do a video showing how this is to be done. If anyone wants to know more (and assuming I can get it to work) let me know and I'll try to help. When It gets warm again, I'll put them back together and hope for the best.
Rounding out the year were two delicious dinners at the home of Bennett and Harriet. For New Year's Eve they also invited, among others, Sheila, so it was five sailors in attendance and, by the way, we were all happy to end the party, though it was great fun, before midnight.
And the recap of 2017
I've divided the year into three parts and looked at my boating participation of various kinds, in each of these segments: PART ONE, Before the May 8 launch; PART TWO, May 8 to hauling on October 15; and PART THREE, October 16 to Year End.
(Some definitions are needed to understand the table below. Any day on which I sailed on any boat and/or lived on ILENE is characterized as a "sailing day", even if I worked part or all of the day as well. Any day which is not a sailing day is called a work day if I worked aboard (or, at home, for) the boat, even if part of the day was a social day with fellow boaters, a club function or a boating museum experience.
Part One Part Two Part Three Total
Total Days in
This Segment 129 159 77 360
Work Days 39 16 15 70
"Other" Days 21 13 06 40
Sail and/or
"Liveaboard" Days 0 118 01 118
Total Boat
Days 60 147 21 228
Non Boating
Related Days 69 12 56 132
What this shows is rather obvious: That boating activity during the part of the year in which the boat floats is wonderfully intense compared to the early and late parts of the year when it is more work and no play except for the "Other"
days.
Drilling down to the fun part of the year, the 118 sailing days, these included the 87 days of the Nova Scotia cruise plus 11 days before it started and 20 after we got back.
How many of the 118 were days of actual underway sailing as compared to mere living aboard while attached by the dock lines, anchor or mooring? Alas, only 78: ten before the cruise started, 63 during the cruise, and five more after we returned.
Seventy three of those 78 underway days were aboard ILENE with the remaining five on other peoples' boats: two on Ohana, and one each on Deuce of Hearts, Leeds the Way and Jazz Sail.
And how many friends sailed aboard ILENE on her 73 different sailing days?
Well four of the days were Old Salt sails, (plus three other Old Salt sails on other peoples' boats, and the folks who I sailed with on other peoples' boats are not included in this next statistic unless they also sailed aboard ILENE. Including my loyal mate, who was with me the entire 87 days of the Nova Scotia cruise plus three of the fifteen day sails, 37 different souls entrusted their lives to my hand, several of them two or three times.
So all told, another great year of sailing though only 5.3 months long.
If you conclude that I have a bit of compulsive obsessive disorder. and this posting is your evidence, well, you are right. But it is harmless, right?
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