Spray Dodger Back UP, Leak Findings, Work on Monitor

I woke abruptly at 3 AM with the thought that I had totally forgotten the important leak tests that I had planned to do.  I had the perfect opportunity here in the sheltered waters of the marina with a hefty hose of maybe 1.5” in diameter and long enough to reach the back of the boat.  The urgency came from the weather.  We had had a wonderful run of clear and sunny days but once the winter rains set in, finding the appropriate times in periods of dry weather would be more difficult.  I moved it up to the the top of my list, determined to do it this day.

I stayed up for a couple of hours updating Pachuca's equipment spread sheet over coffee and toast then did a little bit of the Spanish course before going back to bed until 9 AM.

At 9.30 AM I headed back to Moscuzza's with my rope samples and specifications, as well as my Spanish for Cruisers guide.  I showed the man a section of rope and told him that it was for my timon de viento (windvane) and I needed 10  meters of fuerte (strong) rope.  His first offering was nylon rope and I didn't know the word for “stretches” but with a hand gesture let him know that nylon stretched too much for use as control lines for the windvane.  He produced polyester rope of the same 8mm diameter as the original control line rope and though I would have like a slightly thicker line I decided to buy 10 meters of it for one set of control lines.  I would get thicker rope for spare lines later.  One thing that I liked about the rope was that it was bright orange, which to me seemed very suitable for the control lines.

I then gave him a sample of my old lazy jack line and wound up purchasing 60 meters of 6mm sheathed nylon rope.  The 300 meters of that I had purchased the day before would probably have been OK but this rope was about 1mm  thicker and seemed stronger. 

The 10 mm of polyester rope cost 4 pesos per meter and the nylon rope cost 5 pesos a meter.  The total charge for the lot was 340 pesos, or about $75.  To Argentina's credit, I was not charted the 21% IVA tax as an international transient. 

Back at the boat I had a quick lunch then began work on the leak investigation.  I was sure that the water that I have been shipping in rough weather ever since I left Australia was coming in from around one or more of the thru-hull fittings that are above the waterline at the back of the boat.  Through them are connected hoses from the various bilge pumps and the cockpit drains.  The water would come into the lazarette then  find its way into the bilge through one of the  many openings in the floor for the passage of hoses.   My plan was to launch the Zodiac (which I had packed away the day before) and from there play a strong stream of water on the various through hull fittings one at a time to simulate a following sea when the boat is moving in rough weather.  After playing the  hose on a fitting I would climb back into the boat and look for  a leak into the lazarette. 

After 30 minutes of water trials on every through hull fitting then every thru bolt for the Monitor wind steering, bollards, etc I was not able to get any water into the lazarette from the outside.  This was a surprising result that was both good or bad.  Good because it meant that I would not have to go to the trouble and expense of putting the boat on a hardstand and rebedding one or more of the aft thru-hull fittings.  Bad because I had not found the leak.

With the floor of the lazarette still dry I decided to test my earlier theory of water flowing from the aft seat then curling around the top edge of the opening with the doors and falling into the lazarette.  I cut down the water flow from the hose then directed the water to the back of the seat (the aft coaming) so that it would flow forward and fall onto the cockpit sole.  After only 30 seconds of this I opened the doors and looked into the lazarette and could hardly believe my eyes.  The sole was flooded with water.  I then dried out the lazarette sole and  ran the same experiment with the doors opened and witnessed the water curling around the rounded top edge of the opening and falling into the lazarette.  I felt the underside of the seat and as expected none of the newly laid teak work had leaked.

So I felt that I had finally found the source of the relatively large amounts of water that I've been shipping in rough seas all of these years.  One interesting observation is that I had gone to the trouble of having Doug make a “curtain” for the lazarette doors in La Paz and had installed the necessary aluminum strips to hold the curtain in position, yet I didn't use the curtain during the entire passage from La Paz because I was convinced that the problem lay in the aft thru-hull fittings.  Another observation is that all of the previous owners of the boat must have put up with the same problem.  None of them solved it and certainly the persons who sold me the boat never mentioned the problem.  I don't want to seem like a Goody Two Shoes but I really could not pass this boat on without explaining the issue to the buyer.  (Besides, I've already blabbed it all in this blog.)

Anyway, on my next long passage (probably to Cape Town) I will have the curtain in place and will report the results.  A better long term solution would probably be to install watertight access doors on the lazarette, but first things first. 

I decided to take advantage of the Zodiac being in position at the stern to do some work on the Monitor.  In my replacement of that awkward bolt at the bottom of the frame on my way to the Horn I had not used a flat washer.  There was no real problem with that but I decided to do it right and break the s/s mousing wire, withdraw the bolt, and fit it again with a washer.  Working in calm waters off the Zodiac was so easy compared to the desperate effort in rough seas as I approached the Horn.  I worked at my leisure, sitting comfortably on the side of the Zodiac, knowing that if anything dropped it would fall into the inflatable.  I reinstalled the bolt then found that there was room enough in the hole at the head of the bolt for a second mousing wire so now that bolt and its counterpart on the starboard side have two s/s mousing wires through them.  The loss of one of the wires will alert me to the need to replace it without loss of the bolt.  I then  made sure that all of the other nuts and bolts on the Monito rare firm.

By then dark and nasty clouds complete with thunder and lightning were approaching.  I decided to replace the control lines while the Zodiac was in place..  I removed the old lines and fed each end of the 10 meters of line through to the bottom of the Monitor and tied them off properly.  The topside work around the steering wheel I would do later at my leisure. 

The thunderstorm was imminent and with exquisite timing Pato showed up with the repaired spray dodger.  Bless his heart, he wanted to get it to me before the rains came.  I expected to stow it and put it up later but before I knew it we were setting it up on the frame.  Pato wasn't too happy with some waves in the window material that he had put in but I told him that to me it looked beautiful, and not much different from the waves on the other window.  He reinforced that top edge that had been worn down to the bar by the mainsail with not just another piece of vinyl but also a piece of leather on top of that.  It was a first class repair job in my opinion, on a spray dodger that I had written off, and  I told Pato that I couldn't thank him enough. For the first time since a week out of La Paz I  had a fully functioning spray dodger.

Pato then went to the office to wait for me and after preparing myself I headed off in the very light rain.  We drove to a plumbing place and purchased the 1” plastic water pipe required for the lazy jacks (I had cut the old ones in two because they were so long.)  The new pipe had thicker walls than the old and it was blue rather than gray, matching the color of the sail cover.  Two lengths of 4 meters cost only 66 pesos. 

Pato dropped me off at the club and left me with a repaired spray dodge in place and the last of the pieces that I needed to set up the lazy jacks.  The rest in that area was up to me.  Shortly after I returned to the boat the rain began to fall big time.

I'm not sliding into any dewy eyed mysticism but I really do feel like I'm getting messages.  Why else would I wake up at 3 AM with the thought that I've got to get cracking on the leak trials, on the last day of the good weather?  Yea, maybe it can be explained in a mechanistic way.  I just know that the older I get the more I listen.  I don't know what I'm listening to, but does that really matter?

I received a real-world message from my bank (ANZ) echoing the data that they had sent  for the failed overseas funds transfer for the new sail.  Everything that they echoed back perfectly matched the data that Martin, the representative of North Sails, had sent to me.  ANZ also said that they had a second attempt with the amended numbers suggested by Martin, but that must have failed too. 

The ball is now firmly in Martin's court.