[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

Found that beauty in Vizag. It is apparently called a Lateen sail

My compliments to your friend on the beautiful photo. I had to wake up a few brain cells at the mention of lateen! A lateen sale has a spar across the top which extends forward of the mast. This seems more like a sprit sail, the sprit extending from near the bottom of the mast, diagonally across the sail. Can't make out if it also has a boom, the spar along the bottom of a "for'n'aft" (rather than, eg, square rig) sail.

Used to love all this stuff. Worse, I was rather pedantic about it at times . Those brain cells are all washed up, on the beach, and rusty. Which is a bit of a shame.

[Jeroen]

PAN PAN; The aftermath!!

From my earlier post, it must be obvious that I had a very serious problem with the diesel fuel on Sirion. Even though I did manage to make it home, I did not feel confident taking Sirion back on the water again.

First, the tank needed to be cleaned. There are probably about 15-20 companies that provide a tank cleaning service. But probably less than a handful of them are reliable and have a good reputation. The main challenge is they are all booked up for weeks, sometimes months ahead. Fuel problems is the number 1 cause of engine problems on yachts!

Jip, the mechanic who helped me out in Rotterdam had provided a name for me. He knew the guy and when I checked out the company, it had excellent reviews. So I called him the next day. Mick, the owner, was pleasant and professional. Within an hour I received a quotation. I called him back immediately to discuss some of the details. Then my next question was, when can you come around? Mick replied, it will have to be in the next few days, or it will be several weeks later. I told him, next week is good, in fact next week is great. Let me know the date.

In the end, we agreed on Tuesday morning. He would send Matthijs for this job.

Next, I talked to our harbour master. We have a special mooring reserved for just these sorts of jobs. You are not allowed to do these jobs at your regular mooring. As you will see, this "calamity mooring" as we call it was perfect. Because Matthijs brought a lot of gear!!

I got up at 06.00 AM on Tuesday morning. At 07.00 I started up Sirion and moved her to this special mooring.



I had agreed with Mick I would open up the tank myself, to save time (and some money).

So I opened up the floorboards of Sirion



The inspection hole in the tank also allows for various bits to stick into the tank. Here you see the flange. On it are all the connections. Fuel suction, Fuel return, tank level indicator and atmospheric vent.





At 08.00 Matthijs rocker up in his van. It was absolutely crammed with stuff. He has already downloaded some big portable tanks here.



Matthijs was a real gem. 6 months younger than I and like me a former Merchant Navy Engineer. And we had both worked for the shipping company NedLLoyd. So lots to talk about and stories to share!!

Eventually, we decided to get to work. First things first, pump out all the diesel.



Matthijs had put a tarpaulin on the ground to catch any spillage. On it he put a variety of pumps, filters, drums, hoses, extension cords etc etc.







Matthijs handling the hose and pushing it in all corners of the tank to get as much diesel out as possible.



This is looking inside the tank, with almost all diesel pumped out. You can see a lot of debris and gunk on the tank. Matthijs and I discussed it at length. According to him, modern marine diesel is simply not very stable. As long as you use your boat regularly and replenish the tank regularly there are no problems. But if you leave the boat for months at a time, the diesel starts to deteriorate. Some of the additives start cluttering up and become what is known as a bio-grease. Next, there is also the dreaded diesel bacteria, regular debris and of course water. Water ingress into your tank makes all of the above worse.



Notice that large ring at the bottom of the tank. That ring sits just underneath the opening of the tank. The bolts holding the flange in place thread into the ring, sealing the flange (with an O-ring underneath) to the tank. So it is effectively a retainer ring.

The tank was very dirty and Matthijs could not reach all the corners on the starboard side. So we decided to open up the floorboards on Starboard as well. We found a tiny inspection cover.



That tiny inspection cover was not large enough for cleaning, so I authorised Matthijs to make an additional proper cover. Outcomes the electrical saw!! I was a bit apprehensive, but Matthijs has installed hundreds of these and it showed!!



One rectangular hole cut. Plenty big to put all the hoses through.



Same sad story on the starboard side too!!



Next Matthuis used various tools to detach all the gunk and debris and hoover it up. When everything looks pretty clean, he then sprays down the inside of the tank with clean diesel oil.





Look at the result!! Squeeky clean!! Fantastic!!



Next, we had to put the flanges back on. When Matthijs retrieved that retainer ring inside the tank, a small part broke off. Right on top of one of the threaded holes. It looked as if somebody had already fixed this ring before.

We decided to position the ring underneath the tank opening and drill a couple of small holes. Next, we put two small bolts through with a nut and locking ring on the inside of the tank.



Then we drilled a new hole through the flange, through the tank into this retainer ring and tapped thread.

See that narrow pipe on the left? That is the suction line of the diesel space heater. It has a very small diameter suction line. I took off the hose and blew through it to clear any debris.

With the tank all clean, and both inspection covers, old and new, ready to be fitted back it was time to pump the diesel back in. The diesel gets pushed through various filters so is absolutely clean when it goes back in.

The newly made cover on the starboard side was very easy to fit. The cover is just a large beautifully machined rectangular plate. It has an identical retainer plate and a gasket in between. Matthijs showed me how to install it. First, you put these two bolts in, they have white spacers. Which means they are longer than the other bolts. The two bolts in the two flanges are held together but there is sufficient room to get them into the hole. Next, you fit the other bolts (black spacers) and tighten them down evenly.





Once we had all the covers, pipes and hoses re-fitted I started Sirion's engine.
Matthijs and I debated whether we should bleed the fuel system first. But we were both confident that most likely the engine would self-prime. Just to be sure I put her on high idle and let her run for 15 minutes. No problem.

Also, the vacuum gauge on the Duplex filter showed very little vacuum and stayed well below the yellow arc.

I helped Matthijs load up. Matthijs had also provided me with some special Diesel treatment fluid. I have some, but he preferred this stuff. So we added it in the tank prior to refilling it. I asked him to add extra as I was going to get bunkers right away.

At 13.45 PM I cast off and headed for the lock at Gorinchem to make my way to Werkendam. The same trip and the same bunker station you saw me visiting before. The weather was atrocious. I one point I had less than 400 meter visibility on the river.

But with every kilometre of motoring my confidence grew. I kept checking the vacuum gauge. Initially every 5 minutes. Especially once I had cleared the locks and went to full power I kept checking it. But even under full power for half an hour, the vacuum did not increase. All is good, Sirion is back!!!

Very happy and relieved!!



Tied up at the bunker station once again. I took on some 180 litres of diesel.





I am very happy with the result! It was not cheap, but it was necessary. Also, with these sorts of jobs it needs to be done properly. Or you are just wasting time and money. And worst of all, you are compromising your safety.

There is not that much you can do to prevent this. Other than keeping an eye on the vacuum gauge. With my new inspection hole, it becomes a little easier to have a peek inside the tank. Matthijs advised to clean the tank every 4-5 years. But again, it depends a lot on the usage of the boat as well. As I mentioned, the more you use the boat, the less likely it becomes a problem.

I will take that advise to heart!

Many thanks to Matthijs who did a stellar job!! And great to catch up with an old colleague.

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

So beautifully told and illustrated. Thank you yet again for this wonderful coverage.

[Jeroen]

By now, those of you who have followed this thread will have picked up that owning a boat, brings more chores and jobs to do than all my classic cars and our old farmhouse put together!

It is an integral part of boating. There is always something that is not working, leaking, rusting, needing a new coat of paint, polishing and so on.

Even on a well-maintained boat like Sirion.

I have mentioned before that overall I am very happy with all the new Raymarine Electronic kit I had installed. Except for the fact that the radar keeps switching itself off randomly and the plotter keeps changing its zoomlevel randomly as well. Both are extremely annoying.

I have been in touch with Michael, who installed it and I also talked to one of Raymarine's own specialists whilst I was attending one of their courses a few weeks ago. They asked me to update the software and do a system reset. Which I did, but the problems persisted.

The radar connects to the electronic network via a WiFi network, powered by the Plotter electronics. So the next step would be to eliminate any problems on the WiFi Network. To that purpose, a special Raymarine cable was required which Michael sent me. His advice was to just plug it in the radar dome and the back of the plotter and have it traipsing through the cabin. For several reasons I did not like that. it would leave the panel in which the plotter is fitted, half open, because the cable would prevent it from closing properly. Also, on occasion, I have sailed for a full day without any problems. So testing whether the cable made a difference could take some time. I did not want to have cable traipsing around the cabinet, preventing the panel (and the outside cabin door) from closing properly.

Also, I figured I would be happier with a wired connection than a WiFi connection regardless. The reason Raymarine introduced WiFi connections is it it saves a hell of a lot of time on installation. Running cables on yachts is a real PITA!! As you will see!

The first thing is to run the cable from the radar mast inside the boat through this special J-bend. Taking it off the top of the cabin was easy enough. Just three bolts and a bit of pulling as it is sealed of course. I wanted it off, because I thought it would be easier to feed the cable directly through the hole in the roof of the cabin, rather than poke it through that J-bend. Notice I have already fed the cable through the J-bend, you can see the connector that will attach to the radar dome



I had brought some special "cable-pulling" tools from home. By far the most successful one is this homemade 1-meter-long piece of flat plastic. You might have seen me use it working on my classic cars as well. It is sturdy, yet flexible.

You should always spend a considerable amount of time attaching the cable to the tool. I use wire and duct tape. The duct tape also ensures nothing sticks out and thus can get stuck.



I opened up all the cabinets and cupboards on the port side of Sirion and removed all shelves and covers to get access to the cable routing.

I just pushed my trusted tool through the deck opening of Sirion and it went in without any problems. Great!!

From there on things got complicated. I thought I would be able to see and or feel it easily on the inside of the respective cupboard. Not so. It took me a long time to figure out where it went. Then a much longer time to be able to actually see it and grab it. I used mirrors, my endoscope viewer. And I scraped my arm badly groping around a corner deep inside the bowls of Sirions cupboard

It took me all but 4 hours to finally get it through!!



Running it behind all the other cupboards toward the forward cupboard nex to the steering stand took 30 seconds!!



I decided I would first finish the work atop Sirion before proceeding with the cable into the steering stand. Which meant taking the radar dome off, just four bolts and inserting the cable into the connector provided. The other cable you see is the power cable.



Next, I re-installed with fresh sealant the J-pipe. And tie wrapped the new cable in place on the radar mast. I had spent about 5 hours on Sirion so far and I needed to go home.

A couple of days ago I went back to try and finish the job. I had been to the DIY centre to find some more tools/gadgets to help me pull the cable through into the steering stand. The challenge is that there are various holes in the bulkheads and so on. But there is already an unbelievable amount of cables running through all these holes. And this cable has a refitted connector, it does need a bit of room.

I picked up this steel cable puller. Normal use is for use in plastic conduit pipes. But I figured it would be strong and flexible enough to be pushed alongside/ through the existing cables and wiring. I made sure all the electrical power was switched off of course. You don't want to poke around with a heavy metal spring around live wires, terminals, fuses and equipment!

At the ready for the job at hand.



Yep, that is a lot of wiring and all kinds of other tubing and stuff going down some holes you can't even see!!!



It took me about 2 hours to get the spring-fed through! Very tight, very difficult to see what I was doing. Mostly by feel. And a lot of cursing of course. Everybody knows cursing helps in these situations.

Finally, I managed to get it through and I attached the radar cable to it. Ready to be pulled through!



However, with the connector of the table being so much larger than the spring every time I tried it got stuck. So I had to reroute the spring several times. Which meant taking the cable off, pulling the spring back and pushing it back in a slightly different orientation, attaching the cable once again and pulling again. It got stuck about 7-8 times and then suddenly I managed to pull it through with virtually no resistance at all!!!

Victory!!



Next I had to stick it through one more hole in a panel dividing the steering console in a forward and rear side. That went very smoothly.



Finally, push the cable connector onto the plotter. Job done!!



With all the cupboards and panels still open, I powered up every electrical system on Sirion. Everything seemed to be working, no smoke coming out of anything. This is always a bit tricky because when you pull new wires and cables in and around existing ones, you might pull something loose.

So I just closed everything down and collected all my tools to take home.



All in all, it has taken me about 8-9 hours to install this damn radar cable. You can imagine if you have to pay somebody it would cost a small fortune. At least here in the West, this kind of work will cost easily Euro 100 per hour. They might have been able to do it quicker than me, but not by much I figure.

We have my wife's cousin Debbie, from Barbados, staying with us. Of course, we took her for a day sailing on our gorgeous river de Linge. Lots of nibbles, and these days alcohol-free Prosecco! I am happy to report that all of Sirions electronic worked perfectly for 6,5 hours!!



it is a good start. But then again, I have had the odd full day without problems before. Once I have put some 30-40 hours of trouble-free sailing on the radar and plotter I believe my problems are finally solved!

Jeroen