Monday, April 18, 2011

The Nitty of the Gritty...

Friends of the blog have asked details on the glitches, offering help. (Thanks Bill!) The main plumbing SNAFU* at the moment is the short in the sump pump. I planned on troubleshooting it Sunday but got side tracked. (The Tartan is attracting a lot of attention here at the start of a new season. Visiting friends deserve better than talking to the seat of my jeans as I disappear, head first, under the sink.) The pump may well be toast but the system is suffering a hard short with an instant trip of the C/B - I wouldn't be surprised to find the fault in the wiring. Having spent Saturday in the bilge I didn't have the time to visit the dark areas of the galley - the joys of that plumbing are yet to be experienced. I'm not even sure (yet) where the sink drain exits the boat, but it doesn't look like it goes to the sump tank. There are feet of hose, pumps, switches and filters under the floor forward of the mast that remain a mystery as well, though I suspect they are part of the A/C system.

Getting the mast up is also a priority. It is simply too big and vulnerable to leave in the parking lot / work area as the season spins up and more and more people get to flogging on their boats. Then will be the head replacement. The base where the throne is mounted is looking kind of mushy...might as well install the high tech "royal seat" as part of the work list of fixing the head.

*The first of the three stages of mechanical mayhem:
SNAFU - the stage where you expect to find things porked, bent, frozen, leaking and inoperative that you didn't expect. Normal "back yard" engineering, a goodly number of tools, some cash, and usually a little shed blood will see it right, or at least functional.

TARFU - sometimes the result of inept and/or stupid trying to deal with SNAFU, but often a case of the unexpected really being unexpected. Expensive tools may be required, serious cash outlays loom, and expert advice and skills will have an equal chance of reducing the state of affairs back to SNAFU or escalating them to FUBAR.

FUBAR - Think Japan and 'nuke plants...

All boats come with some SNAFU installed at the factory. Passing decades will inevitably result in portions of the installed SNAFU morphing into TARFU. With a little luck The Tartan will be free of FUBAR...at least I hope so.

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