I could feel something coming on last Saturday night. Spending most of Sunday in the V-berth corralled enough energy for the drive to the city. By the wee hours of Monday both Deb and I had landed firmly in Zombie land, felled by a persistent, nasty little virus that consumed an entire week of our lives. It wasn't until Friday morning that I managed to get out of the house for a couple of hours work time. (Tuesday was so bad I couldn't even do emails from the bedroom!) Friday late afternoon we were back on
Kintala. It is strangely quiet around the lake this weekend. Only 4 of us were on boats last night so Friend James joined us for an evening meal of
Mexican Dip (see the
Cruising Comforts blog on the tab in the header). Our first real meal in a week - it was a good one.
Embarrassed by my lack of progress and still waiting on the machine shop to hack chunks off the coupler, this morning it seemed reasonable to worry a couple of minor cosmetic projects to a close. That proved encouraging so why not start another big project? After all we only have 4 or 5 of those in progress at the moment.
"Marine water line" is printed on the box. Pretty stuff, 5/8", bright white with colored reinforcing threads. Once I started pulling some of the old stuff from under the sink something became distressingly clear - there is not a single piece of marine grade water line anywhere in this boat:
NONE. Was there no such a thing in 1982? The junk to come out so far is clearly something no healthy person would use to move drinking water. This is going to be a job high on the "glad we did that" list.
It is going to take a while though. At some point in her checkered past
Kintala has had either a pump or her lines changed. The pump has 1/2 inch fittings, the lines are all 5/8s. But if one takes soft plastic 5/8s tubing with no reinforcing, it will crush down onto a 1/2 inch fitting tight enough to "fit". Of course one can order the proper fittings for about $3 each - but why bother when Mickey Mouse and Captain Shade Tree can do the job both cheap AND dirty?
And why would any Certified Master Boat Survey Hack bother to mention it?
 |
| Nice new clean water hose. Yippeeee! |
He wouldn't.
Putz.
4 comments:
Glad you're up and around....
Thanks...it was a long week.
I feel your pain. Our "water lines" were of the green garden hose variety, circa 1977-ish. I'll be replacing them this spring. I'll also be replumbing the head/holding tank with Trident 101 hoses.
Drunk, stonned, hung over, sick, one eye swollen shut and wearing mittens I still don't think I could match the poor quality of some of the work I have seen in boats. Who is doing this stuff anyway?
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