I wonder how you can own a boat and have time for anything else. The list of jobs to be done is endless (and i’m loving it). There is so much to tinker with, pull apart to understand how it work and then put back together again…..
Getting through the todo list has also been helped by the fact we have not been out sailing much this week as the wind has been up. Also Tatum been working and needs to be on wifi. However I have lots to keep my busy.
Today’s task was cleaning out the bilges! it wasn’t quite as unpleasant task as it sounds as they they weren’t too mucky to start with.
I’ve already done the starboard (left) hull, but wanted to get them both sorted. Aside from being a bit of a clean-freak, getting the bilges scrubbed gives me a chance to check everything as I go….
Ok, some of it was pretty unpleasant… The pic to the right is plumbing for the toilet, you can see the small pipe where the sea water comes in and then the large pipe for where the waste goes out… When we’re in the marina, the seacocks are closed and everything is in a holding tank.
If nothing else, living on a boat forces you to get familiar with all the services you get other people to do for you on land. 🙂
A couple of hours of scrubbing later and everything is looking pretty spiffy. I’m not sure i’d eat my lunch off it, but it’s much cleaner and most importantly, it doesn’t smell any more.
I do like how accessible everything is under the floorboard – you can just pop them up and get your head in there.
One of the things I did to is pour a few buckets of water down through the bilges. You might things it’s a bit bonkers filling your boat up with water, but as well as making cleaning a bit easier – it serves another purpose.
All the water in the bilge flows to the lowest point (the bilge sump). Pouring all that water in flushes out any debris that’s hiding in the corners (and there is a surprising amount of it). Bit of plastic, hair and other nasties could clog the pump! you’re much better doing that in a windy harbour on a Thursday afternoon, rather than it happening at sea when you have a leak when you need the pumps to perform.
It also allows me to test the pumps work properly and come on automatically. (which they did). However, i’m not particularly impressed with their performance, so I might be replacing them in the future.
Final job of the day was that I found one of the connectors had corroded. so switched it out and it was job done for the bilges.
