Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Tanks a LOT!

We took Enee back to Spice Island Marine today. She actually runs great out of a 5 gallon jerry can. (I wonder how far we could travel with a few of those on board. . .) Anyway, we tied to their pier and their most clever mechanic, Desmond, a helper, and myself proceeded to remove the inspection plate from the fuel tank and pump out ALL the nastiness inside into 55 gallon drums. The inspection plate came off without too much trouble and the fuel/water mix was right to the top. After a lot of sucking and hollering to prime the pump we pumped nearly all of the gunk out of the tank. The first several gallons were pure water.

The tank itself is more interesting than I would have thought. It's 75 gallons but not just one big 75 gallon box. Inside there are 3 or 4 baffles dividing up the space. This to keep the 75 gallons from violently sloshing fore and aft. This is an ugly and nasty job and it's far from done. We're now back on our mooring ball and tomorrow we face sponging up the remaining fuel/gunk that the pump didn't get, cleaning off the top of the tank, making it FLAT where the fuel gauge goes and where the inspection plate goes, and plugging some holes that are there for god knows why. Speaking of the inspection plate, it was held down with about 12 screws - some machine screws, some sheet metal screws. some long some short. So, I plan to drill out all the holes and go up one size in machine screw and re-tap them all.

I'm researching now as to the best way to re-bed those things to the tank. I like 5200 because it is for ever and I can build that up some to make the seal a little dam-like. There are a number of things out there called gasket ________ (fill in the blank). Anyone with a point of view on this feel free to jump in.

By the way . . .when you're sweating your butt off and you have your head stuck in an engine room reeking of diesel do you really want to hear that the water pump to the faucets isn't working?

You don't. But that got fixed later.

To work backwards we started our day by putting on the main sail. She looks more like a sailboat now. We are waiting to put on the Mack Pack sail cover as after inspection, it is in need of serious repair.

Our day ended with Sue retrieving some beers while I fixed the water system (for the 457th time). That led to a swim with our noodles and all is good for a bit before we get back after it tomorrow.

(I have pictures to upload but not with the coconut telegraph wifi system we are on. Maybe tomorrow or if I get up at 3 AM.

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