People commonly have two misconceptions about life on a boat. First there is the idea that we are living in luxury. Second people ask what we do with our time, as if life on a boat is filled with downtime. The reason each of these ideas are wrong are related. The things that keep us busy are not luxurious.
What I have come to accept as routine breakages occupy more time than I thought they would. Prior to the trip, in the three years we have owned the boat, I addressed all the issues that came up and I would always have the yard fix things that they pointed out to me. Yet problems come up daily. The toilet outflow tube clogged due to years of crusty build up along the hoses. The new navigation and autopilot systems shut down because salt water had penetrated one of that system’s numerous electrical connections. A bolt on a recently installed larger flywheel had worked its way out causing the other bolts to wear, leading to a loose flywheel which could not drive the alternator. The list goes on. It would be prohibitively expensive to have professionals address these problems so I have books, fellow cruisers and professionals who I can email. I also have tools frequently laid out on a no-longer-white sheet I use to contain my mess.
I am curious to understand how these systems work and I’m keen to be more self sufficient. Without that interest these problems would be much more of chore than they are. I always make a good attempt at addressing problems myself, no matter the size. What gets discouraging are the self-inflicted injuries I incur as part of my learning process. When I tried to put back on the flywheel I was told to use a regular washer and a lock washer where neither had been before. I therefore needed longer bolts and found some I could cut cut to the correct length. I cut one of the bolts too long so that when I crewed it tight it bottomed out and stripped the threaded socket on the engine. We had to stay at the dock two days longer.
A useful strategy is to start with a good look at whatever component of that system I was last messing with to see if my own efforts to solve something else created a new problem. For example, we discovered our freshwater tanks were leaking. Our water supply should last 10 days and we had gone through our larger, 75 gallon, water tank in 2 days. I initially suspected a leak in the water pressure system since I had disconnected that pump and indeed to was wert under that pump. However, by creating dams with wads of paper towels and drying the hull downhill of the dams I was able to follow the flow of water. I was able to determine it was fresh by tasting just a drips off my finger. I found the highest point of this seeping flow by laying a paper towel flat and finding it soaked 10 minutes later. Of course the source above that point was concealed by a hole, cut in the woodwork, into which the freshwater hose passed on its way to the tank. Access to points beyond the hole would require major carpentry. I then recalled that we had opened the inspection port on top of the tank to clean out some black floaties we were finding in glasses of water. I would not have thought that the top would have been the source of the leak but drips of water were sloshing out. By re-opening it, cleaning the seal and screwing it firmly in place I stopped the drips sloshing out. It took a while for the drips that were already flowing from the top of the tank to reach that hole in the woodwork, but eventually my paper towel laid on the hull remained dry.
Projects have a way of coming up unpredictably and with some urgency. The other evening our guests, during dinner in the cockpit, noticed that something was making a bubbling sound. It was the bilge pump frequently being triggered by the float switch meaning we were taking on water. First thing in the morning I began by inspecting the stuffing box which is a large nut stuffed with packing material that encases the propeller shaft and which screws down around the hole in the boat where it exits on its way to the propeller. Water seeps through the packing material so that it does not get too hot when the propeller turns. The tightness of the nut must be adjusted so that it admits no water when the shaft is still but allows a couple drops per minute while the shaft is turning. I had recently adjusted that nut. My stomach began to turn when I peaked down there and saw the two 14” wrenches I had used resting next to the propeller shaft. I immediately thought about an occasional knock I’d been hearing and had not yet investigated. I was convinced the spinning shaft had driven those wrenches into something that was leaking.
That turned out, fortunately, not to be the case and the stuffing box job had been done correctly save for being careless about putting tools away. It wasn’t hard to find the leak which was a full on trickle coming from the bathroom. It turns out it was coming from the foot pump in the bathroom. A quick taste and I knew it was freshwater. We have foot pumps so that we do not have to turn on the water pressure. Obtaining water pressure uses the batteries and leaving the pressure on risks loosing all our water if a faucet is left open or, which actually happened before, gets knocked open. We had opened the 75 gallon tank, which I thought I had fixed, while preparing dinner the night before and now only 40% was left. I could stop the leak by plugging the hose with a shaved down wine cork. Fortunately I had squirreled away a rebuild kit the old owner had left behind. By mid afternoon it was repaired, though I admit it was not until evening that I had everything put away because we needed to go back to a newly discovered snorkeling spot at the entrance to the harbor at Deshaies while the light was still good.
It is clearly not just our boat that has issues. “Boat talk” is often the topic when visiting with other boaters. And we regularly run into people at the marine supply store. I’m told it happens more in the first year which doesn’t help us single year cruisers. I suspect that if you’re not somewhat prepared and inclined to accept this aspect of boat life, you may be ready to get off the boat before that year is over.
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