Blocks it and other irritations.....

I had a conversation with Pepe one of our mariñeros, During which I imagine he was telling me that The damage to our bow was done when one of our mooring ropes broke during the storms. Unfortunately my Spanish is still pretty basic and I regret to say I only discovered this fact much later being constrained below decks due to rainy weather. I had understood the gist but not the particulars.

Pepe, many thanks, your repairs and replacements were very well done and I also think you were probably telling me to check the other lines for chafe. I'll get on it....

One morning I was using the heads ( toilet) when a tissue fell out of my pocket and I pumped it away before I realised. Normally you can pump anything down our heads, this isn't normal for sea toilets on yachts, two sheets is a common limitation. Ours however has substantial pipe work and a large capacity pump. Lately however it had been getting more difficult to pump and due to my flushing a non dissolving hanky was now suddenly and irrevocably blocked!

One of the problems with sea toilets in general is the usual awkward nature of maintaining pipe work and fittings, ours is boxed into a kind of cistern and would tax a gynaecologist to operate in its dingy and constricted depths.

I must admit at this point to volunteering to leave the thing for 24 hours to see if the insoluble tissue would break down, this meant going back to bucket and chuck it for a while. Luckily I have an understanding wife.

The following day I began the process of disassembling the outlet pipe work, this proved easiest by completely removing the pump. This has an incredibly difficult bolt to unscrew which is only accessible by a stubby screwdriver used left handed and blind. There was already a germ of a solution brewing to this problem but unfortunately it wouldn't be fully formed until after the job was finished, about four hours away. After the pump was extracted the jubilee clips for the pipe work were loosened and a manly struggle was begun with the large stiff pipe, eventually it gave up and I sat on my arse sweating profusely and looking at a completely blocked outlet pipe.

It also was apparent that my bit of tissue was just the last straw as the pipe was fully calcified with the concrete like build up a full half inch thick around the inside of the pipe and now fully blocking it as well as the sea cock.

Luckily I had helped a poor Swiss yachtsman with a similar problem in Laredo, so I did not need to go down the stiff wire, broom handle pokey thing approach and just went straight to the large hammer solution.

A quick hammer of the exterior pipe followed by an energetic bash of the pipe on the pontoon had the satisfying result of evil smelling calcification flying out and covering the pontoon, the deck of Dark Tarn, Lynne, my glasses and everything else within a ten foot radius. A final high pressure hosing and the pipe was a clean as a whistle. Now to the seacock, this was a bit more problematic and I nearly gave up and asked to be lifted out early, but as I sat on the step ( my favourite thinking spot ) common sense said that with the seacock open to the sea I should be able to use a long screwdriver to chip away and poke through to the outside of the boat and clear the open seacock. Of course this would also leave an inch and a half hole for water to enter. As long as the seacock continued to operate correctly this wouldn't be a problem, 

Alarming, yes, but we also had a softwood Bung in case of disaster............

Suffice to say that after a few minutes of very careful excavation a trickle of water became a torrent and the seacock worked perfectly to stem the flow. However Lynne and I were dirty smelly and wet through.

I'll cut this short as the next two hours are not a time in my life I wish to dwell on , I spent an hour carefully assembling the pipe work and successfully installed a brand new pump ( we have lots of spares ) upside down, my brain had correctly married the inlet and outlet pipes but the pump itself was completely and obviously, inoperable, another hour had it the right way up but ( you guessed it ) back to front, so now it worked but pumped the sea into the toilet and not the other way round. I was getting too tired for this job obviously, after reassembling the pump to the correct orientation, body pump and handle were all in the correct place and another hour had the whole thing assembled and working. Working very well too, slick and smooth, the inlet pump by comparison was very sluggish, obviously furring up with the dreaded calcification, that could wait until we were lifted out. I was heartlty fed up of pumps and pipes by now!

The solution to the inaccessible screw was by now fully formed and for the princely price of 7 euros Manuel provided me with a watertight circular hatch.

I will fit this tomorrow, when what's left of my fingers stop bleeding and assuming I have not succumbed to typhoid or cholera in the meantime. Should make maintenance less of a chore and hopefully if we are fastidious about clearing the pipes we should keep de calcification epics in the past.

It's not all sunshine and glamour aboard Dark Tarn......