3/4 Forward, 1/2 Back

Vero Beach, FL

No LL

Sigh. Sometimes life is discouraging.

Today my project was to install a new bilge pump. Along the way, I cleaned the bilge thoroughly, and I re-plumbed all hoses and clamps down in the bilge.

It is a thoroughly dirty job. Bilge water invariably leaves behind a sticky oily black sludge on everything. I'm not sure of the composition of that stuff. Oil absorbent cloth won't absorb it. Soap won't dissolve it. It's nasty.

The old bilge pump was getting unreliable. I had tried two types of float switches and both had the same problem. After a while they would not switch the pump off when the water level dropped. That would leave the pump running all the time and could drain the batteries. Thus I had to leave the automatic bilge pump turned off most of the time, and turn it on manually to pump.

We also had clunky non-return valves in the bilge piping. Those valves were designed for home plumbing. They were big, didn't fit the hoses right, and were unreliable.

I saw an ad for a new kind of bilge pump. It was sealed and had electronic sensing of water level. The sensors, in theory, can't get fouled. It also had a built-in non-return valve. Perfect, I bought it.

Anyhow, after spending most of the day cleaning, installing, plumbing and soldering the wire connections, it was time to test it out. I fetched a bucket of sea water. Then my luck ran out.

The handle to our bucket broke, spilling two gallons of salt water down the companionway getting a lot of things wet. Oh no. The bucket bail had rusted out. It wasn't designed for salt water. I had to stop and improvise a bucket bail repair. It has to be strong because we lift three gallons of water at a time with the bucket at the end of a rope.

Then, I got a new bucket of water and tested the pump. It pumped out fine but then it didn't stop when the bilge was near empty. Oh no; that's where I started.

I think I see the problem. The base plate I screwed the pump to and then screwed to the floor wasn't quite level. That made the front of the pump suck air and stop pumping while the sensor at the back of the pump was still submerged by a couple of millimeters. Not the best design if the pump must be so close to perfectly level.

Sigh. I gave up for today. Tomorrow, I'll fiddle with the base plate to make the pump tilt slightly the other way.

So, I made one step forward today, minus 1/4 backward as the pump didn't work right, then another 1/2 step back as the bucket bail broke. If I was a drinking man, I'd pour a stiff one.

p.s. I can't resist including the following item. Reading it made all the day's troubles seem to evaporate. :)

About two dozen women marched topless from Longfellow Square to Tommy's Park . . . in an effort to erase what they see as a double standard on male and female nudity," reports Maine's Portland Press Herald:

Ty McDowell, who organized the march, said she was "enraged" by the turnout of men attracted to the demonstration. The purpose, she said, was for society to have the same reaction to a woman walking around topless as it does to men without shirts on.