[Public-List] Here's a good one...

Rod Symmes weatherhelm at hotmail.com
Thu May 18 06:52:41 PDT 2023


Pheeeoooooff.

So...... just below the name on your boat, will you be painting a scary face ?

Rod



Sent from my Galaxy



-------- Original message --------
From: Gordon Laco via Public-List <public-list at lists.alberg30.org>
Date: 2023-05-18 9:19 a.m. (GMT-05:00)
To: Alberg 30 Public List -- open to all <public-list at lists.alberg30.org>
Cc: Gordon Laco <mainstay at csolve.net>
Subject: [Public-List] Here's a good one...

So…

Surprise was chucked into the water a little later than usual this year.   The weather was crappy on the first date I’d booked so I decided to wait a week and thereby do the final preps and launch in nicer conditions.   I must be becoming an adult at last.

In we went… the Atomic IV started up without complaint, away we motored over to the club.  A few days later we threw the stick up then brought the boat back over to her slip.  I noticed on the first run to the club from the marina the speed function on the combination instrument wasn’t working… just depth.  Speed showed 0.0 knots.   After the mast raising jaunt I withdrew the sender (the gush of water coming in was only momentary before I pushed the blanker in) and flicked the spinner, hoping the issue was simply that I’d let a spot of bottom paint land on it.  Nope, it spun freely.  Hmmm… must be the sending unit itself.

I ordered a new one.

It came a day later and back I went into the bilge to install it.   My wife came to sit in the cockpit to tell me if the instrument registered when I flicked the senders spinner before I pushed it into the  through hull fitting.  I withdrew the blank, water gushed in; that stopped when I pushed the sending unit into place.  I felt for the alignment notch, caught it, then turned the knurled top of the sender to seal the thing into place.  I felt it tighten…. then the whole thing moved a few degrees.   Hmmm what the heck could that be.   I loosened it, found the alignment notch was still in place, but when I tightened it again, it got tight… then turned… much more easily this time.   And…. now water was gushing in FROM AROUND THE THROUGH HULL FITTING OH NO!

Yep, the whole damned thing had come loose.   I called to Caroline to get the pump going,  She called back ‘call the marina’.  I was already doing it.   Patti at the marine listened to me tell her we had a bad leak around a through hull, and I asked her if they could yank us out and ashore.  She said ‘come right over, the guys will be waiting for you.’

Back to the marina we went… very very glad it was close and this was happening during working hours.    We went right into the travel lift slip and in minutes we were ashore.    I climbed up into  SURPRISE and backed off the sender’s through hull retaining ring… the through hull fitting fell out.  Yikes.

What I discovered was that years ago when the knot meter was first installed, the fitter used a hole cutter that was too large by about 1/8”.  Further, his cutter made a bevel around the hole such as the old EMS instrument senders needed.   And… whatever he’d used to bed the fitting hadn’t adhered to either the boat nor the fitting.  It came off in my fingers as a rounded rubbery peel.

So now I know what the mysterious slow leak was that we’d been experiencing.

I built up a better fit for the sender using butyl…  tightened it carefully to maintain alignment then put the sender back in.  To finish off I made a flange of butyl around the edges of outer flange of the fitting.   We let everything cure for a day then went back into the water this morning… all well.

How’s that for ‘a good story?’   What would I have done had I been up the coast somewhere or even if I’d done the sender switch after hours?  Well I could have tried fothering the leak with a towel from the outside, but man it would have been tough to get it positioned under the turn of the bilge.



Gordon Laco
426 Surprise




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