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Starblazer - Starblazer 4 December A Day’s boat maintenance.



Cruising has been described as "Boat maintenance in exotic locations", I’m just not sure whether mid-Atlantic counts.

The generator packed up the other day, it kept on overheating, no cooling water through its seawater filter. Today the sea was calm and the main engine was cold so I could lay on it to check the gen. The first job was to put a doormat over the engine to give me a little protection as I lay across the main engine, removed generator covers and started checking 

Idea 1. Motor to pump drive belt bust. - Easily visible and Belt is OK

Idea 2 Impeller in pump needs replacing. - Slide even further over engine,undo 4 wingnuts without dropping any, remove cover plate. Impeller looks perfect.

Idea 3. Impeller blades not turning with its shaft. - Get Joyce to push starter switch VERY briefly so as not to start gen. - Impeller spins perfectly. Replace cover, drop one wingnut but get it back.

Idea 4. Close seawater inlet and pour water into seawater filter by hand and check that it flows. - Gen works perfectly with plenty of exhaust water. Stop engine, fill filter and close its lid, start engine, open seawater inlet. - Hallelujah, all working fine.

Idea 4 could be done without a cold main engine and without laying across the main engine working at arm’s length. Just lift a floor board to turn off water inlet, and open engine compartment doors! Message to self: Next time do the easy stuff first!

Our watermaker has two pumps, the first is at water level in the engine room and feeds water to the important high pressure pump under our berth in the aft cabin. Both pumps run off 380 volt 3 phase AC as in a machine shop. The first pump pushes water through two filters to protect the rest of the watermaker and is mounted under one of them, so if a filter leaks it drops seawater onto the pump. Not an ideal condition with 380 volts inside. When the water got into the connections to the pump the fireworks were spectacular for a very short time until the circuit breaker cut out. The arcing burnt up some of the connection board and the plastic housing, leaving plenty of carbon to continue the arcing after the water was dried out. Today I removed the pump whilst working head down below me, disconnected it, stripped the board out and cleaned out all of the carbon. On re-assembly I waterproofed the connection box with silicon sealant. Finally re-installed, the pump works again and we have a working watermaker. The pump is fitted with a raincoat as well as the sealant.


Next job, stop the filter leaking!

Before I started either job I ran the engine bilge pump, only to discover that the outlet pipe had a broken fitting to the cockpit drain and the water was just pumping back into the bilge. Between the two major jobs I fitted a new piece of tubing bypassing the aft shower drain pipe. At the moment the aft shower tray stores our fruit and veg crates so we can live without that pump until we reach the Caribbean. The shower in the forward heads is fine so we won’t arrive dirty!

Last night the galley slave served up orange glazed stuffed pork tenderloin with orange sauce, potatoes and mixed veg. Two more meals of the meat are  in the freezer.


John (Ship’s Captain, Engineer and Guest Blogger)


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