Saturday, Valentines Day and Green Monday

This weekend was a long weekend here in Cyprus, culminating in what Tim calls Greek Monday. 'Well', he explains, 'we have Greek National Day, Greek Independence Day, Greek this day, Greek that day... I'm sure Green Monday is just a spelling mistake'. Whatever the reason it gave us an extra day off over the weekend.

The rain has meant that we haven't got as much painting done as we hoped but the weather held up over the weekend and was generally fine. In fact we ended up doing a lot of miscellaneous jobs.

I am reading two books by different authors about the Appalachian Trail. It's a very, very long footpath up the east coast of the USA. It takes many months to walk from end. Much like the time it is taking to prepare King Malu for sailing.

When discussing Bill Bryson's version of events my wife remarked that his account of preparing to go was more interesting than the journey itself... when it gets onto the actual walk in the woods it becomes boring. Sometimes I feel like preparing King Malu is a little like the exceedingly long hike along the Appalachian Trail. The preparation though not monotonous is taking many months!

We did actually complete a few jobs this weekend. Deep in the bowels of the boat is a very important pump. It's the pressure water pump for the fresh water system. The old pump had been there many years. It was a diaphram pump. The diaphragm was leaking by the time we have bought the boat. We possibly could have repaired it, but in reality it was time for a new pump.

So we took out the old, which was mounted on a plate in just the right place for your foot if you wanted to get to the back of the engine and mounted the new much smaller one on an upright plate that still allowed access to the gear box behind the engine. The electrics are being wired a new way, instead of traditional connector blocks (called 'choc blocks' because the first ones were brown and looked like chocolate blocks) we are soldering the wires together and then sealing with 'liquid insulating tape' which effectively makes the wires continuous.

Tim finished the other side of the water system - the sink drainage, allowing water to either go into the grey water tank or straight out to the sea. Last summer the Med was added as an IMO Appendix V area which meant the rules became stricter on discharge of waste water close to land.

It's amazing now to be able to turn on the tap and get water. May seem simple thing for living on land, but finishing both the inlet and outlet of the water system is a step forward.

The second task we worked on was installing the windlass (or anchor winch if you like). That has been an ongoing task. Having identified the old one as faulty, purchased a new one, fitted a block for it to rest on, and finally modified the hatch covers we were able to fix the new windlass in place, connect up the wires and test it. We won't be able to close the wiring panel and say 'It's finished' till the Treadmaster is down on the foredeck and the foot switches fitted permanently. I did tack on the foot switches and we tested the windlass. So that's another job almost complete.

Last week I also bought some more marine ply. This enabled two more small jobs to be completed: While King Malu had been on the hard she had been slightly down at the for'ard end, which meant that rain onto the main hatch cover flowed into the space above the saloon rather than away from it. It then pooled above the saloon slowly and gradually rotting its way through the cover. Eight years of rain left the this a sponge like rotting piece of wood. We hacked that out and have replaced it with a new piece of marine ply which we glued in with Sikaflex and will then seal with epoxy paint and glue.

The sun had its effect on the hatch cover itself, warping the teak and bowing it till it no longer ran true. Even before we bought the boat one of the side rails to the hatch cover had been removed as it had detached from the hatch cover itself. So, we kept the side rails and front and replaced the hatch cover itself with a new piece of marine ply. We had discussed how to finish it. Should we varnish or should we paint? Because of the damage to the side rails over years of use which needed filling we will paint it. Painting it with white Awlgrip will make it more reflective to the sun. Almost all the time you are on the boat, the hatch cover is open so you won't see and miss a varnished hatch cover anyway.

We had taken down the ceiling pieces above the galley to fit new lights. As mentioned earlier we are changing over to LED lights. The current used is very much lower. We can almost run the entire boat lights for the same consumption as one or two of the old lights. We have new strip lights for either side of the galley. Since the current consumption is so much lower we would have liked to have them all on one switch. We have found a way to make each side on a separate switch but not combine them to a single galley switch. The old wood was warped and slightly tatty so we glued the strip lights to new pieces of marine ply which we will stain and varnish to match the teak of the saloon.

We glued the new white strip light above the chart table. We changed the round light to take a red light and will have a bright white strip light alongside that. What I am now looking for is a replacement switch for the round light that will be centre off, so I can wire it one way for red and the other way for white.

Finally we did a big clean down of the deck ready for painting... well... not quite finally... we checked the bilges having changed batteries to charge another one for a friend and found that the automatic bilge pump was working and not working at the same time. By that I mean the switch made the pump start but although it pumped and made a noise, no water was coming out. We traced this eventually to both one way valves being stuck. Now these two are replacement valves for others that had been faulty earlier.

I can believe one valve or type pf valve faulty, but four faulty suggests something else.How we have plumbed it is with the two pumps (main and backup) each going through a one way valve into a y-piece combiner then up a single pipe looped over into a further combiner and out to the sea. The head of water sitting on the one way valve is approximately two metres and so I am thinking that the back pressure of two metre head of water wedges the one way valve making it stick next time you want to use it. Also turning on one bilge pump will add pressure to the other one way valve wedging it further.

So what to do about it? We wanted to have one way valves near the bottom of the system to try to stop the back flow of two metres of water in the pipe. Maybe we will just have to put up with this and if we want one way valves, have them closer to the final loop and combiner.

All in all an enjoyable and profitable holiday weekend. Now if the weather holds maybe we can finish the deck painting this week/next weekend.