From Snorkel to Screwdriver - the Underwater Mechanic strikes again! | S2. Ep. 11

Hello there, welcome to Sailing NV, We're a sailing family pursuing an unconventional dream of sailing around the world in our recently converted ex Vendée Globe Open 66 After many incredible weeks exploring Vanuatu, an enchanting archipelago buried deep in the South Pacific, we found ourselves in Luganville, the country's 2nd largest city, preparing for our next adventure, sailing to Indonesia through the Torres Strait, a passage of more than 2000nm Our journey with NV began in New Zealand, where after we bought her, we sailed her up to Fiji for a 2 year refit, transforming her from a race boat to a comfortable family cruiser. Since relaunching, our ocean exploits have been relatively modest, with our passage from Fiji to Vanuatu covering just a fraction of the distance we were now facing through the Torres Strait, with it's added challenges of shipping lanes and treacherous reefs. However, our well-laid plans were thrown into disarray when merely days before our intended departure, our engine refused to engage, a headsail tore, and our generator suddenly ceased functioning. We checked the gearbox oil and found it milky, meaning water had gotten in. So after deploying a bouquet balloons to keep our vessel buoyant, our big captain spent the little captain's birthday underwater taking the propeller off, to check if a rope or fishing line or something had got caught and damaged the seal, leading to then ingress of the water. But unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, our morning of aquatic endeavours, didn't uncover any lost treasures tangled in the propeller. Meaning our next exciting task would be cracking open the gear box from inside the boat. So having spent the morning underwater, Timo swapped his snorkel for a screw driver and spent the afternoon disassembling the Watermaker We have a Spectra Watermaker, which uses a special hydraulic pump called the Clark pump to reach the huge pressure needed to turn salt water into drinking water. You may remember we had Watermaker problems around a month ago (https://youtu.be/HSYDAzBzqgg?si=JzzSy5US9fnX4oEb) and had opened up the clark pump in a previous video and found that the long brown piston rod was crodded on one side. So we'd ordered a new one and kept ready for this day which we new would come. So Timo took this opportunity to replace this rod and the seals. But unfortunately he ripped another seal which we didn't have a replacement for in the process? On boats, you often end up inventing unique solutions to problems using the materials you have onboard. For this reason sailors often store a lot of spare parts even if you have no present use for them? In this case, the only seal we could find of similar size was that from the pump of an old manual toilet pump (even tho we don't actually even have that toilet pump onboard). Unfortunately despite having now replaced the piston rod and o rings, it didn't increase the pressure or the water production. The next step was to check if the Clark pump was leaking internally by removing the plug at the test port on the back to check if there's water coming out there. Unfortunately it seemed there was a tiny leak coming from inside the Clark pump, so Timo took the Clark pump back out again for further disassembly 00:00 - Intro 01:35 - The problems start 01:53 - Taking the propeller off underwater 07:11 - Watermaker problems take 1 11:19 - Watermaker problems take 2 13:54 - Party time! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you enjoyed this video please consider supporting us on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/SailingNV or with a one-off donation via https://ko-fi.com/sailingnv or paypal https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/sailingnv You can find out more about our awesome battery operated dive gear from BLU3 in our previous video https://youtu.be/EeLkyscfIIQ?si=ViqggIBu2Dqk78B_ or using this link https://lddy.no/1g12p We'd also appreciate you using this last link if you decide to purchase one for yourselves! Use the coupon code SailingNV when making any purchase to get a free tshirt! #sailingnv #sailing #boatlife #sailingvlog #boatwork #boatrepair #passagepreparation #cruisingvanuatu #watermaker #boatjobs