The Headless Boatman

Newark, NY
43 02.93 N 077 05.60 W

One man says to another, "I'm having an attack of Alzheimer's and Deja Vu at the same time."  "What do you mean," said the other?    "I think I remember forgetting this before."

Last night we had no head on board the boat.  We were headless.   (Head = toilet in nautical terms).  How was that?

Our head has a lever to pump out black water, and a foot pedal to let in white water.   It is a massively solid  and functional bronze head called The Skipper by Wilcox and Crittendon.  A few weeks ago, we suffered a whoops when the bowl filled with fresh water when nobody was around.  Uh oh, a valve leaking somewhere. I have a sea cock and also a second valve to shut off flow of white water to the head, so we shut off the valve for a day.  The problem went away.  I attributed it to a flake of sale and/or lime that jammed in the valve.

The problem came back.  This time it happened at night and it almost sunk the boat.  Not really sunk, but the water in the bilge filled up almost to the floor boards of the main cabin.  A big whoops  (The automatic bilge pump was also broken.)  We turned of the valve once again until we could overhaul the toilet.

I still attributed the problem to salt build up.   You see we are supposed to put vinegar down the head once per week to dissolve salt.  But that's a chore we often forget.  I thought that our negligence with the vinegar caused the problem.

On the way west on the canal, we tied up at Newark, just feet away from a bathroom and toilet.  Great time for a head overhaul I thought, so I did.  I completely removed the head, and put it on the dock.  Then I took it apart, and used a scraper and a bucket of hydrochloric acid to clean away the salt.  Funny, there wasn't as much salt as I expected.

I put everything back together and re-installed the head, but "Oh No" the leak problem continued.  We shut the valve once again, vowing to fix it later.

Wednesday, we were back in Newark once again so I set out to repair the leak.  But how?  Why was it leaking?   All the internal parts were in nearly new condition.  There was no more salt.  I wasn't entirely clear as to how the white water valve worked in the first place.   As I stared at the mechanism, I spied the tip of a bronze part a tad shinier than the rest.  That triggered an old memory,  "I had fixed that exact problem once before many years ago.  I think I even wrote a blog about it."

The problem was two brass fingers which press against a rubber & steel flapper.  That formed the valve, and the fingers had worn down over the years.   My previous fix was to put a drop of JB Weld on the end of each finger.  That lasted for 5-6 years, but now it was gone.  I got out the JB Weld, and did it again.  This time I also put drops on the steel parts of the flapper.  I gave it all 24 hours to cure (hence headless overnight.)  Today I put it all back together and brought the head back on board.  It worked!

Now for the 64 dollar question.  If it leaks again six years from now, will I be smart enough to know how to fix it?  Maybe I should just start mentioning all the minor breakdowns and let blog readers tell me how to fix them.  Is that a :-) or a ;-) ?

p.s. I also fixed the bilge pump, a cabin fan, and a flat tire on my bicycle today, so I guess the title should be "fix-it day."