WINTERLUDE 2018

It's been about a month or more since I last visited BIANKA. The weather has been cold and the winds blowing off Long Island Sound make it feel colder. But, since the fourth Nor' Easter is about to arrive tomorrow I figured I should make the trip. I needed to make some measurements and check on space availability for some various projects I have planned once the weather warms up.
I arrived at the boatyard a few minutes before Spring or the Vernal Equinox happened. Though it sure still felt like winter. I did the usual checkout of the deck and charged up the batteries. I then moved the piles of cushions, boxes of parts and tools so I could check the space where I planned to relocate the new Jabsco Macerator Pump. It looked very doable and should be a pretty easy job:

Which was a relief. However. the location where I planed to install a new Standard Horizon 2200 VHF radio was not going to go as smoothly.  Behind the bulkhead where I wanted to install the unit was hose and fitting for BIANKA's anchor wash down outlet.

It may require that move the outlet. But, perhaps not I'll know better once I get the unit and see how it fits. But, at least I'll be prepared to do the work.

Not much else to do in the cold temperatures on board once the batteries were topped up except to check the bilge. There was some water there. Not surprising since the boat has weather three Nor' asters and some heavy rains since I last visited. I took out the Micro Wet/Dry Shop Vac and sucked the water out of BIANKA's deep bilge. The small shop vac makes the job so much easier, faster and cleaner. 

   I empty the Shop Vac into a five gallon bucket . One that I had labeled to show one gallon for deck washing solutions.  It showed I had only about a gallon in the bilge.

Having accomplished all I had planned to do. I buttoned the boat up disconnected the power cord and went home to await the storm. Hopefully warmer Spring temperatures will soon be on the way.

A WASTE OF TIME

Sometimes you just have to know when to stop doing some optional maintenance that is going to turn out to be more of a problem than it's worth. A while ago I had two equipment failures located in the same area and sharing the same wiring. One was the anchor washdown pump and the other was the Jabsco macerator pump. Since they both were fed from the same breaker and stopped working at the same time I thought it was too much of a coincidence that they both would fail at the same time. It was not. I worked on the Flojet washdown pump first and found it's problem was a faulty corroded pressure switch. Then a week ago I decided to finally take a look at the macerator pump issue. Since I thought at first it might be a power issue I decided to rewire the pump using Anderson Power Pole connectors. Using the30 amp connectors would make removing and testing the pump easier now and in the future. It would also help clean up some of the wiring. The macerator pump power was originally operated through a on/off /on switch that powered the washdown pump or the macerator pump depending on which position the switch was set:

So I wired two Powerpole connectors directly to the pump power wires:

I found some trouble shooting info on one of the sailing websites that some times the macerator pump is jammed. But, there is a cap on the back of the motor that could be removed and a screwdriver inserted onto the macerator pump motor shaft to turn it and clear the jam. Unfortunately, my twenty eight year old pump must have been one of the early ones and did not have the mentioned cap. So it looks like I will have to remove the pump to investigate further. In addition a ball valve on the output of the pump was jammed and would not budge. Since the input to the macerator pump also had a T that also connected to the holding tank output. Taking the pump out would now make the holding tank unable to be emptied by the usual means like a pump out:

So I decided that this project would be best done in the off season when I have more time to deal with working in the confined space where these components are located. My time is better spent now getting the boat ready for launching for the season. Sometimes you just have to know when to stop on some projects.