Who doesn’t love being surprised?
Today the boat threw a lot at me.
One of my best friends came down to help install the new diesel heater. In addition to it being a sunny Sunday, it was also the annual junk sale, er, swap meet so there booths and tables and dogs and Pac Cup yarns and it was a little bit of a feat just getting onto the dock. First, there are all the people who want to talk to me about my one dog who is in a wheelchair. Then there are my boat neighbors, and I am glad to see them and if they are of a certain age I will engage and happily ask them about each of their respective ailments. Then there are the people who must come out to their boats once a year because I have no idea who they are but the tell me how nice my boat is and then kind of slow hang in front of the bowsprit ready to have conversation about *Boats* with me and my boat neighbor and my only move is abruptly jump up and go below.
My excitement at seeing the boat, quite clean and recently buffed, quickly faded when I got inside and was met with a terrible smell, something like wet old cheese. It took a while to locate the smell as being from a sopping wet dog bed. I also found water under the cabinet in the V berth and some more under the sink. So, three different puddles from three different sources (not counting the water on the counter in the head from not closing the porthole all the way). Damn. We had eight good months and made it through the winter and now wtf. (She’s actually a very dry boat and it rains so rarely here that it took an absurdly long time for me to rebed a scupper, source of the only other leaks she has had) These are the kind of moments that I tend to catastrophize as I imagine the boat sinking under the weight of my incompetence.
In moments like these, the skills that work are patience, logic, and a confidence that the material universe can be mastered (often with some combination of a drill, superglue, a pencil, locktite, and measuring tape). These aren’t really my strong points, what with all the impending doom fantasies, rapid heart rate, learned helplessness, and self-attacks going on, Fortunately, the friend I was with has these qualities in spades so I tuned in to his nervous system, put on my detective hat and tried to repeat the mantra, “material problems are solvable. They abide by physical laws and their answers can be discovered” as we set to work.
One of the awesome things about the Dana is that all the bulkhead compartments are glassed, so you can narrow down where a leak is coming from to a relatively small area, except through the center of the bow where the water tank, storage compartment, and three cabinets all connect (so there is a path for wiring and for water to flow into the bilge).
In this case, one of the major leads was that I had tried an experiment a few weeks ago where I filled up the water tank in the bow, after having a vague recollection that it leaks but not knowing how much or from where. What we guessed is that it is somewhere near the top because it only leaked after I have been sailing (so it is leaking when the boat is heeled). I could tell water was coming in because water doesn’t flow easily into the bilge from this lowest cabinet. There is a lip on it, so it flows into the bilge after it has collected about 1/2 inch deep. I sopped all this up and set about troubleshooting. I opened the tank and the seal on the goop on the opening was totally shot. This was a good sign because it might mean that I could fix my leaking water tank for $7. So I rebedded the top with food grade silicone and put butyl tape on the screws. I haven’t been sailing since I did this, so it was disappointing but somehow helpful to see more water, as it means that the leak probably isn’t coming from the top of the tank.
The final move is probably going to be to remove the tank. This is fine with me and actually solves a few problems. The bow isn’t the best place to be holding lots of extra weight anyway, so I’d be better off putting a couple of bladders in this cabinet and letting them act more like ballast. I also then get a giant storage area which is like manna from heaven. With the bladders in the cabinet I now have a much easier water system to manage and replace if need be. And I am trading an awkward low cabinet of storage for a giant tub. So I am excited, but I don’t cut up the boat lightly, so this is the last resort after we have exhausted the other options.
My next move is to get one of the water marking crayons, refill the tank and get a little more scientific about this leak.
As for the the water under the sink, I think this is also part of the bow water tank. I found water in here a week or two ago. Strange, I know because I filled up this water tank several weeks ago, but there was a small trail of dust and water that seemed to be coming from one of the hoses, Then nothing, Now two cups of water. Again with the crayon and wait for it to get wet again.
As for where the dog bed was, this one is still a bit of a mystery. This wood is glassed off from the inside of that cabinet, so the water had to be coming from outside or below. Thank all manner of gods and goddesses that the leak was not because the bilge was overflowing (as was spit-balled to the effect of me hyper-fantasizing that the boat would sink any moment) so we could rule out from below. There wasn’t really anywhere for it to becoming from above, and after checking with a level, we deduced that perhaps it had rolled down from some other location. After about 45 minutes of searching (I had left a heater on two days ago when it was raining so we didn’t have a well preserved crime scene) we came up with a some dampness at the engine cool water intake filter. I am not totally satisfied with this, as if it is leaking now, shouldn’t have been leaking all along? But again with the crayon because we couldn’t find anything else out of place.
Watching the water continue to weep out of the wood for a while made my heart hurt. I feel more like a guardian who has been entrusted to care for her than the owner of an object. With good care, there’s no reason why she wouldn’t outlive me and even though everything can be replaced or rebuilt with time and expense), conservation and good maintenance is the cheapest option and it feels the best.
All this sleuthing ate up the morning and so we got a pretty late start on the heater. We decided it would go in starboard lazarette. It needs a mount to protect it and, instead of taking the ten seconds to measure the heater and measure the holding tank, we just decided that it would be awesome to cut out the holding tank and put the heater in there, (Five hours later we would discover that there isn’t really enough room for it in there, so we are going to mount it further aft).
It was still a well spent five hours, See, the very first thing I did to the boat was take out the head and the plumbing and put in a composting head. I loath the smell of marine toilets. It is the worst. I find them intolerable. I also drew a line in the sand when I got the boat: I was willing to learn all manner of skills and tackle all manner of problems, including holes, sinking, mild hypothermia, etc. but I can’t do leaking septic systems, failures or anything along those lines. I was on a race boat last year where the tank overflowed onto the deck of the boat while we were racing. I can’t take on that kind of problem. No way, Jose. So for the last three years I have had 13 gallons of unused real estate and I have been looking for an excuse to get them back.
I’m still not quite sure what to do with this space, as the possibilities are endless but my needs are few right now. Existentially speaking, I am deeply relieved that I am no longer sailing around with a container of someone else’s petrified yucko.
So ended an eight hour day with the heater still in the box, a list of materials needed to build a mount and more work for tomorrow. It isn’t uncommon for one project to create two or three others, or to start one only to realize halfway through that there five more steps than anticipated. I have gotten used to this. This is how I am learning patience and confidence and the value of staring at something for so long that a logical answer emerges. Though I am excited for the heater and the holding tank, I am most excited by the opportunity to practice these skills, which I will need for all the leaks, surprises, and projects down the road.
