O’Toole shows up

Friday, June 19, 2009

I have always been a believer in O’Toole’s law. O’Toole’ law says "Murphy was an optimist".

After our ice cream last night I came back to the boat to cover seats on the fly bridge, when I then went into the cabin the front bilge pump was running. I went down to find a steady stream of water running from the middle of the boat. I went looking to see which thru hull fitting was letting in water. When I got back to the area of the fresh water supply pump it was running and it should only run when water is being used. The water tank was almost empty instead of the 75 gallons I thought were in it.

Well at least it is only a leak in the water system nothing that might sink the boat. I decided that to find the leak I needed to add water to the tank and it was just too late it could wait until morning. I had turned the power off to the pump and the bilge pump quickly caught up and stopped. We would rough it for the night with no water, the dinner dishes were still unwashed.

During the night we had a thunderstorm and at 3:30 I was out retying some lines and putting out larger vendors. Not a lot of sleep.

This morning I got the hose out, ran water into the tank and turned the supply pump on. Very quickly I found that there was water gushing out of the bottom of the water heater. It was not too hard to get the old one out, then I went up the hill to Don’s and off we went to town to try and find a replacement. We stopped at a Lowe’s; they did not have anything that close to small enough. We guessed that Menards and Home Depot would be the same. We then tried a large RV dealer. Lots of supplies, no water heaters, he said he could order one should be in late next week. We then tried a Plumbing Supply Wholesaler Don knew of. They didn’t have one but recommended another wholesaler. They had a 12 gallon, same size as the one we lost, but it was smaller in diameter and taller, it would not fit under the dinette bench. He did have a 4 gallon fast recovery unit that looked like it would work, so I bought it.

The old one was hard wired, the new one was a plug in, we stopped at a hardware store to get an outlet to put on the end of the old wire, so we would be on the same circuit. Back on the boat we got the electrical work done and set the new unit in place. Even though the new one was not as tall as the old, the old had water supply connection on the side, the new ones were on top, by the time the plumping was all connected the bench seat was not going to fit. The unit sits on a platform that we decided could be lowered so we tore it out took it up to Don’s table saw and modified it to be two inches lower.

Back to the boat to reinstall the platform and we were finally able to install the water heater and turn the water back on, it all worked fine. Don headed up to his home office to finish up a little business for the week while Diana and I got the boat put back together. By 4:00 Diana had hot water and was able to wash last night’s dishes. I got the shop-vac out and tried out all the bilge access points.

I am so lucky to have friends like Don. I can’t thank him enough for all his help today.

Don and Kim had plans for the evening so Diana and I went up and had dinner with Don’s Parents and Diana did a load of wash while we ate. Back to the boat to write this and listen to tonight’s thunderstorm start to roll in. I am ready for a good night’s sleep.