Ah! Summer!

SHIP'S LOG:

     Repairs and maintenance on a boat are never ending. I have plugged four holds in the aft bilge area that is covering a void, but water still keeps hydro-statically coming up into the bilge. So today, I will be looking for hole five and sealing that. It must be small for the amount of water it is bring in is small. Possibly I was able to drain most of the water fixing the last holes and perhaps. just perhaps, I will seal it completely this time. Then again, perhaps one of the fixes will pop and it will all start again.

     I reposition the bilge pump. The main bilge has a deep section about two feet below the inside deck. There is a shelf near the top on which sat the bilge pump and sensor.  this meant that there was always a foot or so of water in the deeper section. At the suggestion of pump-expert Fred, I put the bilge pump/sensor in the deepest part of the bilge. I had to lengthen a wire so that the pump could go that extra foot or so, but when I switched it on, it didn't work.  i checked with Bill Turner and he suggested I look first at the wiring. As with all things British and electrical, it was the work of Lucas, Prince of Darkness, which meant that not only was it a poor arrangement, it was all but indecipherable. It was also corroded at the buss bar so it necessitated a trip to Defenders for a new buss bar, new heat-shrink butt connectors and a package of ring connectors. In other words, $40.37! After drawing a diagram on how the old connections to the buss bar were made, I disconnected them and reattached them to the new buss bar. In doing so, I found that one of the connections to the old buss bar had two ring connectors on it but only one with a wire still attached. IT was them a case of look for a disconnected wire. It took a bit of time as the bilge is a dark spot and even with a flashlight, the task wasn't easy, But eventually I found it. It most have broken at the connector when I moved the pump. It was too short to cover the distance and so I had to add a length of wire to make up the difference. Once it was reattached to the buss bar and the switch was thrown, it work just fine . . . sort of.

      The pump, sitting two feet below the deck inside, has to pimp the water up about three feet to a point where the hose from the electrical pump joins the hose for the manual pump. when the sensor turns the pump on, it pumps the water into the hose and out of the boat if there is enough water. When the sensor reads dry, the water not far enough along in the hose slides back into the sump, where the sensor read "water" and starts the pump and it runs until the sensor reads "dry" and shuts it off and down comes the water. I am going to have to install some sort of "p" trap - like under a sink, or a "check valve" to keep he water from coming back and causing the sensor  starting the pump. Boat repairs and maintenance are never ending.