Water Works...

Actually, it doesn't. Best guess is that it has been better than four years since the last time First Light had any water in her tanks. The system, so we had been told, had been completely drained when the boat went up on the hard. Ergo nothing much could be wrong and there was no danger of freeze damage. During the survey all of the various handles got worked and the pump was momentarily run. And, according to the survey, all of the lines were inspected and found properly secured. Someone who has little experience with boats could have been forgiven for thinking that all they had to do was fill the tanks with H2O, flip the switch, and open the spigots. 

I had no such illusions and figured at least one full day would be spent getting the system operating properly. Today was that day. To my disappointment (but not surprise) one day was not enough. To start the day, I sat down in the aft deck storage / equipment space while water flowed into the tanks. Much to my relief there was no sign of leaks in the tanks themselves. So I crawled out of the aft equipment hole and into the engine / equipment space to where the pump, accumulator, and water heater are mounted. Deb opened up the spigots and flipped the pump breaker to “ON”. Water, water, everywhere... 

Note to self: do not believe a survey. Had I inspected the system and crawled behind the water heater, it is likely I would have noticed that the lines to and from the water heater had been completely disconnected and just left laying on the floor behind the tank. But at least we knew the pump was working.

Okay, messy but no much of a disaster. Blush a little at being so trusting, apply wrench to line fittings, and that should do it. Right? (I can hear some of you laughing already.) Still in the forward equipment bay, Deb flipped the pump switch once again. I could hear water flowing through the heater and the pump running, which was a good sign. With the air bled out of the system, she closed the spigots. I could still hear water flowing and the pump running, which was not a good sign. I went searching, hoping the leak was somewhere that was accessible for repair, and discovered water spraying all over the place in the aft deck equipment / water tank bay. 

Notice the large bandaid on the arm? A project isn't finished until some blood has been shed...

There are two copper water lines in the aft tank area that run to the swim platform shower. Apparently the cold water side had not drained with with rest of the system. Thus it had frozen, and during one of the cold spells the boat had endured while up on the hard, it had split. A repair to the line held after two tries, but water then started leaking out of the fitting at the shower head. I pulled it off to see what was happening and discovered that it had, at some point in the past, been improperly installed. It must have been leaking at least a little bit before the boat went on the hard though no one (apparently) had noticed. Now, after years of sitting, it was leaking more than a little bit. The improper assembly had damaged a couple of the interior parts to the point where there was no stopping the water flow, even with the parts slipped onto the line in the proper order and wrenched to within an inch of its little plastic life.

I keep reminding myself that we dreamed of this kind of access when
we were working on Kintala

At this point, I was a bit disgusted with the entire circus and not completely pleased with the split repair. We decided to just yank the copper line out as one end was accessible at the shower head and the other at a “t” fitting about 3 feet away. It was replaced with flexible tubing. Not as easy as it sounds as it took 3 different adapters daisy chained together to mate the modern tubing to the “T” fitting on the copper line still in the boat. (Replacing all of the copper line in the boat would take a month and cost a fortune. I have neither the time nor the fortune.) Only a single adapter was needed at the shower end, which was fortunate. There isn't a lot of room back in that hole.

With the day nearly shot, we tried bringing the system online once more. Success insofar as the repair went, but at least two of the faucets are leaking at their base. It is a good bet that the those seals are died up and hard as bits of rock by this point. And we still have to fit a drinking water filter somewhere. Still, the day has to be considered a partial success. We learned a bunch about how the water system works, and fixed a serious leak. It will be at least one more day, and probably more if parts need to be shipped in, before the water system is operable. But, whatever it takes, the water will, eventually, work.