Zen and the Art of Water Tanks

To any who have read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance you'll recognize this rap. To those who have not read it. . .

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR? :) This book should be required reading for all teachers, sailors, and humans.

Anyway I had several goals today one of which was to check out the water system. We topped off both tanks (65 and 85 gallons) before we left. This to keep green type things from growing in there. Tried the pump to see if water would come out at the sink but nada. Pump is running but no water. This is not unusual and if you search the archives for 'pump' or 'drinking water' or 'suicide' you'll see what I mean.

So what seems to be the problem? Well, I tried various things to narrow it down all the way to a bucket of water with a hose to the pump and nothing on the output side. . .what's a bilge for anyway? OK, pump can pump water about 2 feet horizontally. Now we're getting some where. Watching the semi-see through (or do you see it as semi-opaque?) lines I notice air bubbles on the input side of the pump when trying to draw water from either tank. Hmmm....Well, maybe all the water went away. So I squirt several gallons of water into each tank. NO. I open kitchen and head faucets. NO.

Now I sit and stare at the forward tank. There is about 3 inches between it and the aft tank and in between I see water and a steady drip from the forward tank where the fitting is for water to head to the pump. OK, so this is where the pump is sucking air, right? This is bad then. I cannot get my hand between the two tanks and if I could what would I do? No way to tighten anything. My hand would be a hand sandwich!

Mommy! Shit! This tank is molded into the the boat and leaking where I have no hope of getting to.

Breathe. . .

Wait. . .I got it. What if I plug that pipe from the inside of the tank and then suck water from the top of the tank (like a straw) via a new line to the pump. The fact that the water has to go up to get out means nothing in the world of conservation of energy! YES! That's then how I spent the rest of my day (nearly). We now have a new access to this forward tank. In true sailor fashion I used what I had and modified it for my needs. This tank had a capacity meter on top that has never worked. So I drilled a hole in it for a two ended barb. Now a short piece of hose goes into the tank and a longer piece is fed to the pump. I've not sealed it all up yet because I don't have a good plug in the old feed. I need a nice rubber stopper for that. I think I'll leave this 90% completed (my favorite!) and bring rubber stoppers back with me in June.

On another note, our water tank once again has white rocky deposits in it. Sue cleaned all of this out some time ago but now it's back. I suspect some chemistry is happening due to water + bleach + aluminum tank. I've collected some deposits and plan to take them to the school chemist when I get back to Chicago. This is one of those annoying problems where you look in your water tank and go , "GOOD GOD! What's going on in there"? Then you realize that you have been living, drinking and cooking out of said tank for several years. So, I think the main annoyance of this distillate is that it gets caught in the screen up stream from the pump and has to be cleaned out occasionally. Nobody died yet!

So, what about Zen etc. There is a wonderful part in the book where the author is going to do some maintenance to his bike. Something major like grinding pistons or what ever. But to do so he has to take some trivial cover off and the last screw has stymied him. So his day is spent on that one screw instead of all the fancy maintenance he was going to do. So. . . can't get too mad. This is the hand you were dealt today. Got to just follow it and maybe you'll end up learning some screw removal skills that will be useful later.

I have pictures of plumbing supplies but they are WAY too cool to share here!