Day 5 - (Part 2 of 3) Be Careful What You Ask For!

So, I was feeling a little left out of the adventure (ie. fixing the broken things). Granted, chasing Poseidon around is quite enjoyable, but my mind and my hands wanted in on the action of engine bleeding, generator trouble-shooting and RO pump rebuilds. The good things about all of those is that they are now fixed. Even better, is that I was not only able to assist in the generator troubleshooting (even if it was just using smaller fingers to pull dropped nuts out of the drip pan) and fixed the auto-pilot. For those of you who have not gone out on a sailboat overnight before, you must be going, "You're kidding, right? What did they leave on; a tin can?" I have learned in my years of living on-board and sailing that nothing breaks until you leave the harbor. The longer the voyage is and the more important the item, the likelier it is to break. Murphy loves sailors. (Sounds like a bad tattoo re-reading that...)

What happened to us and how we made it better...in hopes this helps someone else along the way.

Engine - The way it is wired and the fuel lines set, a fuel boost pump has to be on at all times (not just priming). Please never do this to your boat. When I get around to replacing the fuel system (somewhere on my to do list), this is going away. We now have it ingrained, but it took 3 bleeds in a day and a half to get us all on board.

Generator - Self-inflicted as well. Forgot to turn on the salt-water to it until after it overheated itself. Thought the impeller was toast (hence the dropped hardware), but was not. After much consternation (ie. two guys standing there staring at it for a while) they decided to prime the salt water the old-fashioned siphoning way. It worked. Not in the manual, not supposed to be required, but just a reminder that not every answer is in the book.

RO - For some reason the suction port is placed too near the waterline. On the starboard side. For those not familiar with the winds in the Pacific, they come at you from the North. You are constantly laid over with the starboard side in the air, and wouldn't you know it...that's where the feed line is. We rigged a second feed option to the salt-water input to the head (toilet). Before you get grossed out, this is where the water comes in that you see in the bowl. So, it is before the water sees anything resembling plumbing. It's a little closer to the centerline, and on the port side. Now, you just have to select input based on the tack you are on.

Auto-pilot - The pump connection to the piston was loose. Two screws tightened with an allen wrench and we are no longer filling the hydraulic reservoir twice a day!

Sail - Tomorrow. But, the lowdown is that the stitching on the reef points themselves had deteriorated and frayed. When trying to reef, this thread unwound/broke. The pulling off of the point then continued to rip as tightened because it wasn't noticed in time. Easy fix, lots of time.

Over 500 miles traveled!!

And then for post 3...