Friday, July 1, 2011

Port Jefferson - Day 2 of anchoring out

Another pebble beach - but the kids had fun anyway
We saw a Nordhavn yacht trying to anchor but he was unsuccessful. He had a CQR that was way too small for his windage and he backed down on his anchor with a vengeance. Naturally it dragged. After several tries he left, don't know where he wound up. I'm sure he marked it up to "poor holding". For a boat, your anchor can't be too big and your chain too heavy. Our 45 lb Spade anchor was heavier than his CQR and he was at least 50 feet in length and much heavier. Ann suggested I get in the dinghy to tell him what he's doing wrong (right!). I demurred.

It was another perfect day and we went to the beach but it's not sand, mostly small pebbles but the kids still had fun. There were too many jellyfish for swimming off the swim platform of the boat.

Upon our return to the boat, I tackled the genset again. To separate the variables, I put the output of the water pump (before going into the engine cooling system) into a bucket to measure the flow rate. It was only 6 liters/minute when it should have been 10 to 12. So there was a restriction before the water even got to the engine. After checking the impeller (which was okay) the next step was to put the intake hose in a bucket by the seacock which tests everything on the input side except the seacock. If the flow increases to spec, then the problem is in the seacock. If not, then it's in the connections to the pump. I'll get to the root of it eventually.

We'll head for Branford on Saturday to meet up with Matthew's family. There'll be seven of us on the boat for the 4th of July weekend, should be fun.

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