Water tanks

I got home on Sunday evening and after a rest day on Monday it was time to get back to work, the new Vetus flexible tanks arrived on Monday together with the fittings for the filling line. I  had decided to put down some rubber mats to lay the tanks on to try and prolong the life of the tanks and after searching the local value stores, Poundland etc, I found some perforated textured mats in B&M I am hoping that the perforations will allow any water that finds its way between the tanks and the hull to drain away as this has been known to lead to osmosis on the inside of the hull.

Perforated rubber mats

The first job on Tuesday was to give the inside of the lockers, in which the tanks would be installed, a rub over with some 60 grit sandpaper to remove any roughness this was followed by a good clean out of the two lockers before laying in the rubber mats so that I could then put in the two water tanks once they were in I could finalise the pipework which requires to be fairly flexible to allow the upper surface of the tank to rise and fall as it is filled or when water is drawn off. As 38mm PVC hose is not particularly flexible I need to allow for as long a horizontal run as possible in order to achieve this it looks as though the filler position will need to be re sited from the forward end of the port cockpit bench to the side deck.

Tanks in position

As there was a decent breeze and HW was at a convenient time I stopped work and went sailing for a couple of hours. On arrival back in the berth I was checking around the engine space ant it appeared as though there was a lot of oil under the engine but as time was short I left any further investigation for the time being.

The first job on Wednesday was to hang the clocks and barometer on the forward saloon bulkhead, number two daughter had bought me a tide clock for fathers day and I had been making a hardwood panel to mount it together with a barometer and another clock which I already had. The panel was made from a hardwood plank which came with the boat and for which I had not so far found a use I made a couple of brass keyhole mounting plates which were flushed in to the back of the panel.

Clocks and barometer 

As there are two clocks the tide clock is set to GMT as most tide tables are in GMT, the only exception that I have seen are the tables issued by Swale Marina which have the relevant tables in BST, and the left hand clock is set to BST. After going for a sail on Tuesday I noticed that when the boat heeled water was sloping out of the temporary water tank, a bucket see previous post, so on the way over I bought a five gallon plastic jerrycan to act as a temporary water tank until I complete the installation of the permanent tanks

I then moved on to removing the oil from the bilge under the engine as there is very little clearance between the engine sump and the bottom of the boat I used a vacuum oil extractor to suck it up which was very effective. Once the tide had risen sufficiently I could start the engine and start tracing the source of the leak and once the engine had warmed up I could see a regular drip from the joint between the oil filter mount and the engine block a new gasket was going to be required.

The first job today was to remove the oil filter mount and make and fit a new gasket this turned out to be easier than I had anticipated and once this had been done I set to and started to clean up the bilge under the engine giving it a scrub down with some industrial strength detergent followed by a rinse with hot water the residue was then removed with the oil extractor. Once the tide had risen sufficiently I could start the engine and test the repair which appeared to be successful although I did not have the time to allow the engine to reach normal operating temperature, next week when I have a bit more time I will give the repair a proper test.