Using Yanmar as a blender

[Oceanaut]

Took the boat (Cat) out yesterday for only the third time. 15 Minutes in the overheating alarm sounds from the port side motor!

Switched it of and inspection revealed blockage in sea water inlet valve. Swim in 14 degrees celcius water delivers no apparent blockage at the thru-hull. Delivers a pretty good brain freeze though.

I am allready nervous docking as I have only done it once before and was taught to only use the throttles and not touch the wheel. Now I only had one motor.

Docking at the fuel dock was actually a breeze. Came in at 45 degrees as with monohull and turned parallel at the last minute while travelling as slowly as possible.

Removed the inlet valve, knocked in wooden bung, and hey presto - small rock fish wedged tight inside the valve. We had to prey it out with a screwdriver!

I will have to check that there is actualy a proper screen on those seawater thru hulls!

Any similar experiences out there?

To this I add the blocked blackwater tank incident that spewed human excrement all over the forward starboard collision compartment!

Boat ownership is no boring matter.

Chalk it down to experience - Now at least I know how to handle these two eventualities!

[boden36]

I don't know if it is possible with your boat, but it is really good to mount a water filter with a removable top above waterline, and connected to your thru hull with a straight run of hose.
That way, if the intake blocks, you can take the lid off the filter whilst leaving the seacock open and push a probe down the pipe and through the open seacock , thus clearing the system. It need not be a solid probe, a piece of fairly stiff hose with an O.D. that will fit through the seacock will often work. You may have to chamfer the business end of the probe a little.

Regards,


Richard.

[Oceanaut]

Hi Richard, Thanks for the suggestion, it should certainly be possible!

We actually do have such a filter. We loosened the pipe feeding water into it and tried to blow out the blockage but that did not work. Also duct taped a 2L plastic bottle to it and then compressed it to see if we could blow it out but no luck.

Your suggestion is a good one - I will try and fabricate such a contraption.

Maybe flexible tightly coiled wire with a rounded tip to prevent damage?

[Jim Cate]

I've used a leftover bit of 8 mm 1x19 rigging wire to ream out blockage in water lines... it will deal with reasonable bends in the hose run but is stiff enough to push out jelly fish, etc.

Cheers,

Jim

[Oceanaut]

Thanks for the advice Jim - the more solutions the better

[SurfNRG]

I once had a starboard engine overheat buzzer come on. Swam over and didn't resolve anything. I closed off seacock and removed the inlet hose. Slowly opened the seacock up and had water flow but wasn't quite sure was enough. Being that it was a catamaran (twin engines) I went over to the port engine and did the same to compare. The water flow was much better on this engine. Went back over to the starboard engine, opened the sea cock again and this time pushed in a piece of coat hanger. This evicted a family of barnacles that were starting a settlement in the thru hull. Water shot up showing a much better flow of water. Problem solved.