Water line problem on Westerly Corsair

[Kismet36]

My water is leaking and filling the engine compartment on the way to the water pump. Has anyone experienced this or changed that hose?

[El Pinguino]

Do you have a Cleghorn Waring Calorifier somewhere opposite the engine room..? It could be the Pressure relief valve needs attention....don't ask me how I know this....

[Kismet36]

Thank you for the reply El Pinguino. I just bought the boat, but I don't think I have one. It does seem strange the hose would leak from the middle. Wherever I can see it there is no sign of water leaking. Maybe it's been rubbing on something. There's water under the engine that wasn't there before.

[El Pinguino]

Hmmmm....... The Corsair is almost identical to the Sealord but a bit shorter.....

Some questions....
What year is she?
Do you have pressure and/or hot water on board?
Is she FW cooled?
Is the FW under the engine fresh or salt ( that one is tricky...you have to hope the holding tank isn't involved.)

If she is the same as my Sealord the FW pump will be in the 'Garden Shed'... starboard side next to the engine... accessed from the cockpit but also giving access to the engine.
There is a 'ledge' along the after bulkhead... under that on my boat lives the FW pressure pump plus the calorifier.

My boat is 1996 1986 built...in 2007 the copper ( buried under insulation) in the calorifier was shot and quite a bit of FW was finding its way to the bilge....
Replaced with a new one... thats when I had the problems with the pressure valve... forget how I fixed that.

Hope this helps
Ping

[El Pinguino]

And also..... if it is SW...
I had SW appearing under the galley sole at one stage ... eventually traced to the through hull on the exhaust.... lower edge had pinholes in the thread caused by acids(?) in the exhaust/water mix.... water would accumulate back there and then when heeled to stbd would find its way to the galley... that took a while to find.....

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Kismet.

[davewtsnape]

Check the pump itself and fittings between tank and pump. Has it frozen over winter at all?

[Kismet36]

Thanks for all the help. It took me a while to figure out how to get back to check the thread. In the meantime, when I finally had a friend over I found the problem while he used the dock hose to put water in the tank.

It was simple. A hose came off on a fitting below floor near the cabin table. There is a second tank under the port settee which is filled from the first tank. Under the cabin floor is a four way fitting. I just needed to refit the hose and tighten the clamp. There is no visual access, but it wasn't hard to feel my way through it. I'm not sure why there was water under the engine. I pumped it and it hasn't come back. It's a pleasure to have hot and cold water!

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Kismet36

Thanks for all the help. It took me a while to figure out how to get back to check the thread. In the meantime, when I finally had a friend over I found the problem while he used the dock hose to put water in the tank.

It was simple. A hose came off on a fitting below floor near the cabin table. There is a second tank under the port settee which is filled from the first tank. Under the cabin floor is a four way fitting. I just needed to refit the hose and tighten the clamp. There is no visual access, but it wasn't hard to feel my way through it. I'm not sure why there was water under the engine. I pumped it and it hasn't come back. It's a pleasure to have hot and cold water!

Good to hear, a simple fix!

I had the opposite problem recently.... the yard had removed the sump tank under the floor when they dropped the keel.
When the keel was back on they must have given the job of re-plumbing to 'the boy'.

He connected the port tank to the starboard tank and connected the sump tank to itself. ( my sump has three connections...one in from each tank and one out to the pump(s)...)
A bit like yourself I thought the fact that no water was forthcoming was due to pump issues.... the sump was the last place I thought of looking

[divezonescuba]

Just saw this post.


On our Corsair, I took out that floor panel and cut it with a table saw at the point where the floor board meets the table leg. By putting a piano hinge on the aft part of the cut floorboard and the table leg, I can now easily access the fresh water manifold for maintenance. You can also store wet things down there. I put extra hoses, etc, down there. It has proven to be one of the handiest mods to the boat.

[Kismet36]

Thanks Divezone. That sounds like a great idea. Where are you located? Have you had the boat long.

I'm still on the basic stuff to get the boat livable and usable. I'm trying to find a new depth finder head, propane tanks, some sort of 12v refrigeration. On the mast I have a broken wire hanging down (old VHF coaxial) and a gray wire coming right out of the mast groove, making it so that I can't put the main up. Also looking for Jib sheet sheeves so that I don't have to replace the whole cars. I'm in Middle River Md, but hope to travel South by the end of the month.

I was at the Annapolis show today and will go back tomorrow to keep searching for parts. The newer production boats are nice, but mainly made me appreciate how beautiful and well made my own boat is.

[divezonescuba]

Hello Kismet36:

We are located in Houston, TX. We've had You can look under our boats name themons in this forum for some other trial that we have been through with the boat. You might also want to look at the www.westerly-owners.co.uk forum for some other information.

With regards to your water system. If you still have the old water heater, don't replace it, repair it. It would keep our water hot over 24 hours. Unfortunately, instead of removing and flushing it, I replaced it with an Isotherm which does not work nearly as well. If you do have the original, you will probably have to replace the overpressure valve.

[Kismet36]

Good to hear back. My first boat was a 29 Islander on Mobile Bay. I plan on ending up on the west coast of Fla with this one.

The hot water is amazing. The tank is large and I'm sure it's original. I will follow your advice. I thought there should be a switch to turn it off, but I can't find any. Do you think that matters? Seems minor compared to figuring everything else out.

Also I'm researching crossing Florida by canal and it looks like there are some bridge restrictions. I have a ketch, which has a smaller mast than the sloop, but can't seem to find any height information. Would you happen to have that for the Ketch or the sloop?

[divezonescuba]

Hello Kismet36:


If you tank is like mine was, there was no electric heating coil element, just the engine heat exchange circuit. That was also one of the reasons why I switched the tank out.


When I removed the tank, I believe I saw a port that could be used for the element, but I did not investigate further. The issue then would be whether or not a heating element with the correct threads could be found.


You may not know this yet, your boat may have fixtures with either British, American SAE, or Whitworth threads in it. My prop shaft, for example, is 25 mm, but has a Whitworth thread on the end for the shaft nut. I think the taper was also odd. This is just one of the challenges of having a Westerly on this side of the pond.


I have a book with the specs somewhere. I'll see if I can locate it. There were only a few ketches made.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by divezonescuba

Hello Kismet36:

We are located in Houston, TX. We've had You can look under our boats name themons in this forum for some other trial that we have been through with the boat. You might also want to look at the www.westerly-owners.co.uk forum for some other information.

With regards to your water system. If you still have the old water heater, don't replace it, repair it. It would keep our water hot over 24 hours. Unfortunately, instead of removing and flushing it, I replaced it with an Isotherm which does not work nearly as well. If you do have the original, you will probably have to replace the overpressure valve.

If its the same Cleghorn-Waring as mine it has a copper tank.... it started leaking through pinholes...fixed once but only lasted a few months so I scrapped it.
You can buy direct drop in replacements ex UK... I bought mine from Trafalgar

Trafalgar Yacht Services