Leak

We awoke after a very solid nights sleep. Something about life on the water. We set about tackling a couple of the issues we’d discovered the previous day. I opened up the cabin ceiling and removed all the 12 nuts for the two sets of clamps which I wanted to swap. The clamps themselves were glued on solid and would not budge. Helen had me think of a simpler solution which turned out to be just swapping the topping lift and the halyard around. The topping lift is never in as much strain as the halyard so the rough bit is not likely to damage it and once I’ve filed down the rough patch, the decreased bite won’t result in a slip.

Before leaving I checked the bilges and shaft seals. We had a leak on the port side. The small tray we had underneath it was overflowing and the seal was dripping away. This is where we had the old shaft seal put back in due to lack of a second new one in the country and some poor communication from the distributor about a second. The bilge alarm had gone off the previous day but we’d thought that was due to water under the bathroom that had collected when we were cleaning the bow locker.

All Helen’s careful packing beneath our bunk was pulled out to let me have access. Drained the tray into something larger and ‘burped’ the seal to remove any trapped air. No good. I made several attempts to inject grease under the seal and eventually brought the leak to a stop.

We set off for the bay but the leak returned in vengeance. I had to drain the tray every 10 minutes. I tried again to inject grease while the prop shaft was turning (it never stops turning when we sail) but never managed to make much difference even though I managed to quell the leak for a few minutes.

The day was a fine day but the winds were quite light. In the past we would have motored in these winds. Even in 6-7 knots of wind we were making around 3 knots on the new sails so we used the power in the batteries to bring us up to about 4 knots. While on the move we established contact with Lew and Tracey who we’d met on the Otago Rail Trail. They have a home in the islands and we’d promised to get in contact when we were up here. Turns out they were on their way up Thursday evening and Friday would work. We adjusted our course for where they lived and anchored up mid afternoon.

Along the way I had set about making something to contain the leak. I took some spare tubing and another tray, make a hole in the tray and then used marine sealant to glue the tube through the hole. Once this is all set we can put the new tray under the leaking seal and run the tube into the bilge. That way the water will run straight into the bilge and not over my new ground plane and under the electric motor.

Upon arrival, the leak stopped. We left the bunk open for a few hours to be sure it was going to stay that way before closing it up for the night. I want to leave the grease to settle before putting in the new tray and retesting in the morning. From past experience the real challenge was always getting the grease in to stop the leak. Once the trail of water coming through has been shut down the grease works it’s way in. I hope it will be the same this time.

Having taken steps to contain further leaks and a plan prepared to work on a short term fix I set about a proper fix. Bearing in mind we were facing Easter I had to move or face an additional four day wait. Fortunately although it was the end of the day Thursday for us, the western world was still before start of business. There was no public internet in the bay so I resorted to using the very slow internet connection using my phone as a modem to source a new part. This turned out to be an incredibly tedious and annoying task. I found 5 or 6 sites which listed the part. Over the slow link I’d register on the site and set up the order only to find either they would not ship to NZ or they didn’t have the part in stock (only being told right at the end) or that they would do their best to ship in 2 to 3 days (not good enough).

I eventually found 3 sites that might have it. One in the US, one in the UK and one in Slovenia. The latter was in communication with me via email but wanted to charge 80 euros just for the shipping. The price was not the biggest of my issues but it seemed steep and I’ve never done business with anyone in Slovenia before. I decided to call the UK and talk to them first. If they didn’t have it I’d wake up at 1am and call the US. If they didn’t have it I’d chance the Slovenia angle. As it turned out the UK option came up trumps. They had four in stock and would send me one that day. I haven’t checked yet but hopefully it’s all worked out.

That leaves fitting it. The boat is quite able to stand on it’s keels so we need to find a nice gentle sloping beach somewhere with no rocks. We’ll come in an hour after high tide and ground gently on the sand and wait for the tide to go out. I’ll have a few hours to switch the seal. I’ve spoken to the tech who worked on the shafts recently and the job seems straight forward. How well my near term fix goes will determine if, when and where we do the seal switch. The tidal range is about 40% greater here in the bay versus Fiji so I’ll have more time to work here.

The good news is that the leak is no show stopper. Worse case we have the means to contain it indefinitely but that’s not desirable. Chances are we can stop it with more grease (maybe by doing nothing as it’s not leaking now). And we are most likely to have the means to do a full repair well before we are due to leave. The bad news it’s an irritant we didn’t want.

Cruising isn’t called “Fixing your boat in exotic places” for nothing.