22nd February 2012 – Rodney Bay,
St
Lucia
Well, it’s been a peaceful and productive interlude in Rodney Bay.
We had planned to depart for Martinique
today to collect the new dinghy but, of course, it is Mardi Gras carnival time
and, and, and . . . So the dinghy will not be ready for us until Friday morning.
Amongst all the maintenance and snag fixing, we have had time to get
together with our ARC friends. Geoff and Ann (Nyda) very kindly asked us to
celebrate Ann’s birthday at the St Lucia Yacht Club. We had a lovely lunch in a blissfully
breezy first floor restaurant overlooking Reduit beach with Pigeon Island in the distance. Geoff and Ann are also making their way
south before flying home to Cowes for the summer.
Chiscos (the boat with the most serious party crew on the
ARC and including skipper John Simpson – trumpeter/guitarist and player of the
‘Last Posts’ as our ensign came down in Las Palmas – plus Michaela, a professional
musician who plays the violin, amongst other instruments) arrived on the evening
of Monday 20th. They
have had a great time playing in the Windward Islands (south Caribbean) and are
now on their way north, back to UK. So, this will, shortly, be
Sayonara. That will be a sad
parting. They invited us round for
a sundowner along with Geoff and
Ann – which we kinda knew would go on rather after sundown. It was a great evening during which John
and Michaela gave us an excellent violin and guitar rendition of 3 tunes they’d
played at the Bequia music festival recently. Subsequent conversation about what
musical instruments either of us played revealed little of interest apart from
the fact that Jon had a passing knowledge of the ukulele. Safe enough, one would have though. Not so. Michaela produced one in a trice having
stowed it aboard with the intention of learning how to play it. But, she hadn’t quite got around to
it. Despite howls of protest from
Jon, a rendition of “Ain’t She Sweet” was extracted from him followed by feeble
excuses about not being able to remember anything else. But, he was let off for good
behaviour.
Monday had seen the pressurized water system electric pump burn out
again. Hang on, chaps, we replaced
this at sea - with our last spare - not 3 weeks ago. And they cost about £100 a throw. Luckily, as result of earlier enquiries,
Ian Cowan of Island Water World in St Lucia had ordered one on spec – at
an eye-watering US $250. So, a fix
it might be and Bob Raley was due to bring out a complete new pump, but this is
ridiculous. Jon had long
conversations with Jabsco Shop which established that the type of pump we have
is precisely what we need - notwithstanding that you can buy much newer designs
for a third of the price. These
have a design life of 5-7 years in normal use. That doesn’t mean use every day or
anything remotely like it. Most
boats are probably lucky to see 40 or 50 days a year of use. And, their freshwater systems will be
used extensively for, perhaps, a fortnight of that. Our pump was designed in the days before
anyone thought about built-in obsolescence and was fitted more than 20 years
ago. It’s still made, but you won’t
find it on the Jabsco web site.
But, £100 is one thing for an electric motor; $250 is
something else. Nobody could
provide any clues as to the cause of what appeared to be an electrical
fault. So, having replaced the
motor once more, Jon ripped the whole pump out again and pulled it apart. Dicey thing to do – at the time in
question we had fresh water – however temporarily - and he was likely to be in
big trouble if meddling meant that we no longer had. The reason for repeated failure on the
part of the electric motor became instantly obvious and it was entirely
mechanical (for the technically minded, the jack shaft was shot – seriously
so. The result was an eccentric
motion of the big pulley wheel on this belt-driven system resulting in a rapidly
oscillating load on the electric motor and its shaft. It didn’t like that one bit.). Off to Island Water World to see the
inestimable Ian Cowan. He dug
around in the shop’s attic and appeared with a dust-encrusted box containing a
replacement part for a similar sort of pump but designed for bilge pumping. Crucially, the jack shaft assembly and
bearings were identical. The
housing and the rest of it was not.
It was now 1500. The local
machine shop is half a mile away, closes at 1600 and the following day (today)
is Independence Day. All gonna be
on de rom ponch. No wokin’ fo’
shuh. Ian produced a bag of tools
from his desk, gave them to Jon, told him precisely what to do (“You may think
you’ve taken it apart – I’m talking about really taking it apart and here’s a
shoebox for all the bits”) and despatched him to said machine shop. Stand on veranda, strip it right down,
hope to God you can remember how it all goes back together again, double down to
machine shop, use Ian’s name in vain, beg, plead, assure them it’s a 5 minute
job (as if Jon’d know) and get them to drive out the bearings from both
assemblies and replace the new bearings in the old housing. They were stars. They managed to do it and we now have a
pressurized water system that has never been quieter or more well-mannered.
On to the saga of the auxiliary generator. As last reported, we’ve done everything
sensible to ensure that the water flow from the inlet seacock to the generator
is as friction-free as possible.
We’ve had it suggested that we replace the ½” seacock with a bigger one
(big hole in wallet given need to lift boat out of water). Makes little sense to us given that the
incoming water travels a matter of inches within a seacock and still ends up
having to travel a couple of feet in ½” tubing to get to the raw water pump
having got to the boundary of the generator capsule. Everything between that (around 5m of
tube) is now ¾” tube (in place of the original ½” tube) and fitting it has made
no appreciable difference to the flow rate anyway. So, what’s next? The obvious answer is that there may be
an obstruction between the raw water pump and the exhaust. So, maybe the heat exchanger. All sorts of opinions about how to
tackle this. The mechanics say “Put
it on a bench”. We say “Come and
look at this thing and tell us how you get it out of that hole in the first
place”. OK, it got in there but
you’d try awfully hard to avoid getting it out again. And, you certainly cannot get at the
heat exchanger without getting the whole thing out. The mechanics say, when asked “Oh, no,
we certainly would not recommend using any chemical solution to get any crud out
of it”. Ian Cowan is rather more
right wing (but, then, he’s a chandler) and suggests using hydrochloric acid
(which, extraordinarily, you can buy in gallon containers in any chandlery worth
the name hereabouts). At a bit of a
loss, we spoke to Mastervolt in Holland.
They suggested using vinaigrette.
After a brief and somewhat confused conversation about the particular
flavour of vinaigrette that might be favoured by Mastervolt generators it was
established that what was really required was white vinegar.
Engines and all that is generally accepted here as being Jon’s
business. However the procuring of
white vinegar is definitely pusser stuff.
Administering the substance to the patient is Dr Jon’s business. So, Carol returned a little later with a
gallon of the stuff. Jon
administered the treatment after a bit of puzzling about how to do it without
cocking it up. It is now quietly
doing its business in the guts of the machine and will be expelled tomorrow
morning. We hope that the patient
feels up to passing more water than hitherto.
So, a quick dash to Martinique tomorrow to pick up our shiny new dinghy
before heading south to Grenada.
