Zen and the art of plumbing

'Sarf & West mate, Sarf & West'
Pete Bernfeld
Mon 16 Nov 2009 23:09

Today was the day i was going to get to grips with my watermaker. It works
just fine, delivering around about 45 litres per hour in salt water BUT
when I divert the output from the cockpit 'sampling' station to the tank I
get a lot of water exiting via a drain.
Previous investigation had disclosed that the watermaker to tank line had
been plumbed into the tank vent line. According to the makers this is OK,
except that obviously it isn't, otherwise all the water would be going
into the tank and not overboard via the vent line (and YES, Virginia, I
did check the tank contents and it wasn't full!).
So, having crawled (yet again) into the small, cramped and sweaty place
known as the small, cramped and sweaty place between the bulkhead forward
of the sofa and the water tank, I reckoned that the answer would be to
plumb the output line into the tank filler line. This would involve
cutting a hole in the filler-line fitting and caulking an inlet fitting
into the filler line fitting (well, it makes sense to me, but maybe you
had to be there).
So, I put the drill battery on charge, went ashore and brought a suitable
fitting, a plug attachment for the drill (otherwise known as an attachment
for making a suitable sized 'ole in the filler fitting), several clamps
and a book on splicing (don't ask).
Got back to the boat and found that the drill battery was still dead. OK,
let's crawl into that small, sweaty cramped space (hereafter known as
SSCP) and see if there might be another solution.
AHA, when the new fridge was fitted, an in-line filter was fitted to one
of the new lines going into the tank-vent fitting. Remove said filter
(which was fitted the wrong way round) and let's see what happens (not
forgetting to re-connect the wires to the fridge water pump which during
the course of wriggling around I seemed to have inexplicably
disconnected).
Right, so after about 1.50 hours in the SSCP we (OK, I)....started the
engine, fired up the water maker and.......yup, a healthy trickle was
exiting the boat, via the vent drain. Now this was doubly interesting (?)
because the vent from the tank exits into the chain locker, it is
obviously designed as an air vent as opposed to a water vent because there
is no apparent line from the (air) vent to the outside of the boat???
Needless to say the owners handbook was steadfastly silent on the subject
(as indeed it was on the subject of why when running the starboard engine
[Hokum] not only do I have exhaust water exiting on the starboard aft side
as expected and indicated by a diagram but there was also an outflow of
warm water on the port side, froma fitting just by the heads. Hmmm???
Never mind, the battery will be charged by now, so I'll revert to plan 1
(A1/1)...oh no I won't, the drill battery is still in Dodo mode. Now, at
vast expense and some linguistic difficulty, I had purchased a new charger
for the drill battery in the Canary Isles after the original one gave up
the ghost. I know the new charger works because I've charged the battery
several times, so perhaps I now need a new drill battery......the chances
of obtaining such a battery in Grenada are ??????????
Never mind, I went to Happy Hour at Spice Island and managed to find the
boat first time on my return.
PS
I have found where the dingy leaks from.... about 0.5mm above one of the
patches I put on a week ago. Life, don't talk to me about life :)