More preparation

Petillant has now been hauled and painted, and all the underwater work has been done to prepare for the 2012 trip north. We installed a new Dynaplate ground plate for the SSB, and a new SW washdown pump.

It appears that the old SW washdown pump suffered freeze damage during the winter, and it leaked quite a bit when it was turned on. The pump was also relocated from the compartment under the fwd berth to the space under the aft head sink. Now that we have a freshwater head, we have an extra thru-hull there, and it is a lot easier to maintain a pump in that compartment to one that is buried fwd. We had to run a bit of hose fwd, but this is a good thing. Now we can also run a line aft, install another washdown deck connection, and even install a cross-connection with the FW system, so that we can do either FW or SW washdowns. The latter phase of this mod will have to wait a bit, but it is now quite ready to do. All the parts are on board, and it is just a matter of running the hose. We also found the final bits of the SW pump for the genset. Last year we sucked up a jelly-fish, and the pump impeller died, but we didn't find all of the bits that came off of the pump, so operation of the genset was dicey. The new pump impeller could not push enough water thru the heat exchanger to cool the exhaust, so we experienced frequent premature shutdowns of the genset. This year we took apart the entire inlet to the heat exchanger, and found 4 pieces of rubber in the tubes. They are now gone, and the genset is able to support full use of the AC system. The watermaker was unpickled, and it produces water that is at least as good as the day it was installed, at the same flow rate. This is one piece of equipment that has worked quite well, and we are very satisfied with it. We also made a few mods to the FW plumbing, and can now pump water from any FW tank to any other tank. This is useful because the watermaker only makes water to the center tank. The plan is to move on board on Sunday April 29, and if the weather cooperates, leave for La Rochelle on May 1. Kitties are getting excited....