Leak found!

Last night I did what I should have done long ago (no, not that). We lifted the mattress, I removed part of the slatted area to enable me to lift the lid of the water pump box ... and found ... WATER! Well, a very damp floor and damp water pump.

The dark area of wood is where water has soaked in, over who knows what period of time? I took the photo after I'd mopped up the lying water and removed the piece of shiny foam on which the pump was resting (as additional sound proofing, no doubt). The big blue thing is the pressure vessel, and note the two red stop cocks.

When I wiggled the connectors slightly water appeared. There also seemed to be a trace of water from a seam on the pump body, a Jabsco PAR-MAX 2.9 model 31395 - 0292.

The time now was about 2245. But I had to do something, so I isolated the pump with the very well-positioned stop cocks and, eventually, worked out that the blue clips had to be levered out so as to release the connectors.

This involved looking at a pdf of the manual before I was brave enough to attack the clips with a screwdriver. Once released the connectors came away easily and revealed that each relied on an O-ring for watertightness.

I had a box of various O-rings and washers so I tried the best-fitting ones. These seemed to make things worse, so I put it all back with the original O-rings. I took the opportunity to tighten the screws holding the pump together, about eight of them. Some did turn slightly.

When I opened the stop taps and repowered the pump it didn't seem to be leaking. Hooray! But it all seems a bit on a knife edge; I feel that any moment it could start leaking again. And it's not easy to get to.

We finally got to bed at 0045; I set the alarm for 0700 as we had an appointment with the blacking man at Debdale Wharf Marina, outside which we were tied up, in the morning. I haven't gone into how I offered up a new replacement pump (Shurflo - came with the boat) to find that the connectors wouldn't fit, neither would yet another spare, an old Whale pump.

As I lay in bed on the verge of sleep I could hear a rhythmic dripping noise. Oh no! I got out of bed and tried to locate the source of the drip. Then I realised: it was the clock in the saloon at the other end of the boat! I don't think I've heard its tick from the bedroom before.

Onto today, then. Having got up early we waited and waited for our turn to be lifted out of the water. Had we known it wasn't going to be until 1600 we could have had a bit more sleep!

At last we were waved into the narrow bay over the lifting straps; the lift and the pressure washing got under way. It was Clive doing it this time.

A cold wind was blowing so we waited most of the time in the marina office. Steve offered us a very welcome cup of tea. At about 1745 we were able to get back on board - the boat sitting on two sets of timber baulks on the hard standing.

There's more to write about, such as battery charging problems, but that will have to wait. We both need some sleep!