From: "Rodney Field" <rodneyfield@thedogpaddler.com>
To: "1 Rodney Field" <rodneyfield@thedogpaddler.com>
Subject: Always on the Lookout - loading chain - ex printer - 'man the pumps' - busy crew
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 21:20:40 +1100

No - the computer is not fixed yet - it's still sitting here lifeless - until I can take it to the shop tomorrow. So I've just done some of these photos on the laptop for you. There's been a few things to do around here the last few days (and probably for the next year too) - but now just to add a further twist - here is how I found the printer when it was unpacked from the journey.

It's not really a good look - but here again as well - I suppose I've done pretty well out of it for $95 bought about 2 years ago - and it must have printed a few thousand things. It has the look as though someone - probably me - has stepped on the box - which can hardly be surprising in the activity and turmoil of the whole big move. They really get you in with these printers - don't they - almost giving them away - only to find that it just about costs more for the ink cartridges than the printer itself. So I don't think we'll be rushing out tomorrow to buy one - we'll just have a look around and get the right one sometime. But I'd say - another 3 in 1 multi-function is the way to go - and we do a fair bit of scanning too.

John Meyn came down again on Sunday - this time bringing down the 500kg drum of anchor chain - that had been left back at Erskine Park. I didn't think we really needed to load another half ton right in the bow of the bottom half before the lift - so I left it out.

As you can see below - it all worked out pretty well. He was able to back right up to the end of the dock - and we fed it out and onto the rollers and winch on board - and then just let the winch haul it in - like it's supposed to do from now on anyway. It all went smoothly - and I hosed it off as it was coming up to get the mud off it. So - in theory - we should be OK to drop anchor now anywhere and retrieve it - just as a matter of course - anytime we like.

While this was going on - I had run a hose across from a tap on shore (you can see the blue hose running along the dock above) - to fill up some of the water tanks on board. The yacht has the capacity to take about 10,000 litres of water in ALL it's tanks - but in the past on land - I don't normally fill all of them - only the forward tanks - which hold about 2000 litres and can easily last about a month being frugal with use.

You always think you've done things correctly - but we all make mistakes. Mine this time - was not to check ALL the hoses that connect to these tanks. There are fillers and breather pipes on BOTH sides of the yacht (although back on land I only EVER used the Port side closest to the shed tanks). And I had NOT reconnected the hoses to the deck on the starboard side for whatever reason.

So I proceeded to merrily fill these forward tanks using the same method as always - that is - to just let the hose keep going until it eventually flooded back up the filler and onto the deck - meaning the tanks were full to overflowing. The tanks are part of the hull structure and well sealed and cannot leak.

But an open filler hose - laying down on the other side of the floor behind boxes MEANS DISASTER. Once the water tanks are full and it starts to come back up the other open line - the garden hose will just keep running and running and filling up the bottom of the yacht - and overflowing from one area to the next - and then into the bilge.

It would take more than 24 hours of full garden hose pressure to put enough water in - to even come near a lower floor level - but nevertheless a couple of hours of water filling up storage areas under the floor full of gear - is bad enough.

It may sound pretty stupid really - but it was compounded by the fact that I was doing 3 loads of washing with the washing machine as well - which tends to use a lot of water as it's coming in - and the tanks were pretty much empty - and we were pre-occupied doing other things on board - and it can take a couple of hours anyway to fill those tanks. Until I eventually said - I'm going below to see why this water is still running - it should have been filled by now. To then find the minor catastrophe of overflowing water filling up floor compartments. It had filled 2 large forward underfloor compartments forward of the tanks and apart from lot's of fresh water up there - no real harm was done.

John and I rigged a new 240v garden pump I'd bought at Aldi a few weeks back for $120 - and it worked perfectly sucking the water from the compartments and pumping it up 8' and out onto the deck for it to run away. So let's just put that one down to experience and early days hiccups.