Kudos to Bryant, the previous owner. His record keeping was superb. Most of the sea cocks had been updated 17 years ago and are still in great shape, the hoses, while serviceable, needed replacement. To me it was more “let’s get this done before it becomes a problem”.

All the sea cocks in the engine room, head, and forward cabin received new hoses and clamps. It took just over a days labor. It’s great to see all the correct sized clamps instead of the mismatched and oversized chaos. The pulling and pushing of hoses into the seacocks and filters exposed another weakness that would need to be corrected. Bonding wires. A few of these had the bonding wire pull free from the ring terminal. A quick fix on the loose ones by replacing the terminal, but after close inspection,on a 31 year old boat, these wires were not tinned and living in a tough environment. Note to self…..add this to the list…..

Tackling the sanitation hoses was another story. That became a two man job taking a full day! Pulling hoses between the head and forward cabin the greatest chore. There happened to be a screw sticking out under the shower floor which would cause the hose to get hung up as it was pulled through. Eventually we installed the hose starting from the opposite direction and in it slid. One hose remains to be changed in the system. It’s the hose to the pump out fitting.

Job creep…. the macerator needed to be replaced. The holding tank in Salty Lady id configured with the outlet 1/2 way up the tank. Presumably there is an elbow inside with an extension which reaches near bottom. This means that the macerator cannot be removed with more than 1/2 tank of waste. So a 1-1/2″ 316 SS ball valve was installed ahead of it. There is no doubt that when the macerator goes, the tank will be more than 1/2 full, with no pump out in sight and no way to stop the flow of black water from the tank, this ball valve was a simple solution.

The genset exhaust hose was next, two pieces, one in and one out of the muffler and only a two hour job. With the cover off the genset it was another 1.5 hours to change out both the salt water and fresh water cooling lines

While the engine hoses looked fine and were given the green light, a replacement set was ordered and put on board.

On our second cruise across the Chesapeake Bay we noticed that we were loosing engine coolant. The culprit turned out to be the coolant lines running from the engine to the water heater. The leak was at the fitting coming out of the engine. The hose barb coming from the engine was a straight fitting. This caused the hose to fatigue as it tried to bend 90 degrees within a short loop. New hoses and a 90 degree hose barb solved that problem and neatened up the hose run.

Now to wash the bilges!