Monday morning I got out of bed with an already formulated plan that I'd be in the small Greek fishing village of Limni by 9.00am ready for when the hardware shop opened for the day. But A B Sea had other plans.
A few weeks back I had removed the outflow hose from the aft head (toilet) and Aannsha had followed up by giving the whole area a thorough clean. It was spotless, but on Monday morning when I went in there to grab my toothbrush and toothpaste I noticed a rust coloured stain behind the head itself. Hmmm that definitely hadn't been there yesterday. I asked Aannsha to clean it up and to also have a look to see if she could find the source.
Using her phone to get a photo of the back of the head the source was obvious, the salt water flushing inlet coupling was badly corroded and was now leaking. Confined spaces
We're getting very used to working in confined spaces as we go about ticking things off the boat jobs list and I optimistically thought I'd be able to remove the corroded inlet coupling with the head still in situ. I was wrong. After a bit of boat yoga and several awkward attempts at removing the coupling I declared that I'd need to remove the whole head. More tools were brought out and after a bit more boat yoga the whole head was removed and taken on deck for better lighting and easier access to the coupling. Every new boat job is like trying to solve a puzzle. Figuring out how things are put together so that I can take them apart without breaking something always includes lots of head scratching and much pondering. Having never before taken apart a Jabsco toilet it took some time for me to realise that the coupling was actually a complete unit that didn't disassemble. Once I'd figured that out, removal was achieved by brute force and a lot of twisting.
I optimistically added the coupling to the list of things I wanted to buy from the hardware store and much later than I'd expected I rode the scooter along the coast and into Limni village.
Loo with a view
By the time I returned to A B Sea it was already after midday and my mission to the hardware store had been a 70% success. I'd got most of the bits and pieces I needed except for a few specialist boat pieces that I'd ideally need to pay a visit to a marine chandler to have any chance of success.
The toilet coupling was certainly one of those things as it is a Jabsco proprietary component. I've had a look at the Athens chandlery website and they do stock that coupling as part of a Jabsco toilet service kit. It's been added to the list. Meanwhile the porcelain toilet is now temporarily residing on the fore-deck of A B Sea. It's a loo with a view.
With the toilet removed from the aft head it was the perfect opportunity to install the new outflow hose that we'd had delivered from Athens a couple of weeks ago. Installing the new hose was a heck of a lot easier than removing the old hose and for a boat job it was completed quite quickly and without any snags. That's always a good thing.
Thank you
Our YouTube viewers are a great bunch of people on so many levels. They watch our new videos almost religiously each week. They leave really helpful tips and tricks of how to get a boat jobs done. Many of them generously support us via our Patreon page or by buying us a beer on our website. Sometimes when they buy us a beer they leave a little message and recently we received a donation that said "treat yourselves to a nice meal and a good bottle of wine." And we did.
Unfortunately with the Greek lock down still in effect all of the restaurants in Limni were closed, so we did the next best thing and bought some nice steak from the butcher and a good bottle of red wine from the supermarket.
The last time we'd enjoyed a steak was at Christmas so we were really looking forward to this one. As usual I was in charge of cooking the steak while Aannsha prepared the salad and shallow fried potatoes. The result was delicious and we enjoyed the good food and good wine sitting in the cockpit while we watched the sun set out to the west. Thank you.
The metric / imperial vortex
Our new cutlass bearing had been languishing in the freezer for almost a week and today was the day we were going to attempt to install it into the P-bracket underneath A B Sea. The tools were readied and the area was prepped. Then like some kind of organ transplant mission the cutlass bearing was removed from the freezer and transported from the apartment block and back to A B Sea in a cool bag packed with ice blocks.
I donned the thermal glove, grabbed the rubber mallet, retrieved the bearing from the cool bag and lined it up with the P-bracket. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Nothing. No indication that the bearing wanted to become harmoniously one with the P-bracket. Bugger.
We needed to call the guy. And we did. Later that day the guy turned up with his son who spoke perfect English so communication was not a problem. After much measuring of things, much discussion and much translation. It turns out that the bearing is 0.5mm (0.02inch) too big in the diameter department. Bugger. The guy offered two suggestions. There is another guy locally who has a lathe which could possibly shave 0.5mm off the outside of the bearing or I could get in touch with the bearing manufacturer in the UK to see if they had a better solution. I chose the latter and after thanking the guy and his son for their help I spent the next hour communicating via email with very helpful Tom at Exalto Bearings UK. A B Sea is a Jeanneau yacht, Jeanneau's are built in France, France is in Europe and Europe uses the metric system of measurement. But for some reason the P-bracket is constructed using the imperial measuring system.
Tom pointed out that Exalto manufacture bearings to both metric and imperial sizes and when you convert the diameter measurement of the corresponding imperial bearing to metric the diameter of that one is 44.45mm. The one I had in my possession was 45mm. Bugger.
Tom offered a solution. He would invoice me for a replacement imperial sized bearing, I could make a bank transfer for payment and he would mail me the replacement bearing. Then I could mail the unused bearing back to him and he would credit the cost of that one back to our bank account. And that ladies and gentlemen is how we got caught in the metric / imperial vortex.
We're now waiting with great anticipation for the courier to deliver the new bearing and hopefully I'll be able to tell you all about that in next week's blog. Stay safe out there.
To watch the video that accompanies this blog click here.