March 10-13 Just before we left Owl Moon a few weeks ago we determined that the vents for both holding tanks were plugged. They had probably been plugged since we purchased Owl Moon as we didn’t use the heads much prior to our last time aboard Owl Moon. That explains some of the difficulties in using the heads as the holding tanks were being pressurized by flushing. We pumped both holding tanks the morning of our departure and could tell the vents were plugged. At least we left knowing what the problem was, and with the holding tanks empty…don’t want pressurized holding tanks. So, the priority job for me this work weekend was to unplug them.
How to clear a blocked vent hose…The method I came up that worked fairly well was to remove the vent hose from the holding tank and attach it to the wet/dry vac. Just running the vacuum was not enough to unplug it…it is a light duty 12v vacuum. Running a water hose on the vent outside the hull in combination with a stiff brush, while running the vacuum, worked for both hoses. I then used the power dinghy pump to blow air out the vent hose to confirm that it was clear. Removing the vent hoses from the holding tank as well as getting them back on required warming the hose a bit. Not having a heat gun or hair dryer, I found that a cloth soaked with boiling water worked well.
Another big success of the weekend was getting the AIS to display on the Raymarine E80 chart plotter. We had paid someone to do install the AIS in St. Augustine. He had not been able to get it to display on the chart plotter. I had sent him some information from Raymarine which he said he had already tried. He claimed that the NEMA 1083 port on the chart plotter was bad. When I looked at the wiring he had done, it was obvious that he had not used the straightforward information from Raymarine. Once I connected everything as it was supposed to be, the AIS displayed on the chart plotter.
Another work item was to trace unattached wires with ring terminals in the battery bank area that I discovered near the end of our last time aboard. In the process of tracking them, and removing them as the other ends were also unattached, I found a dead end wire that was still attached to the hot terminal of the starting battery. It felt good to get those sorted out before our passage back to Annapolis…not good to have unused wires lying around. One could easily have grounded the sail drive and led to galvanic corrosion…a problem that had plagued Czech Mate.
The work weekend was a success with several full days. No time to see the sites around Brunswick. That will be on the agenda for next weekend when I return with Diane and Sarah.
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