Nothing like a bit of drama to cocentrate the mind…

10:00pm:

I’d just taken over watch and made myself a cup of coffee. All seems fine – other than we had no wind and were now motoring. I remembered we’d forgotten to do a bilge check yesterday – something rather new for Toodle-oo! since ur bilge is normally very dry – but our bilge pump has decided to act up a bit. The switch seems to be in the ‘On’ position permanently – so it’s pumping a very dry bilge. We’ve therefore adopted a manual arrangement – but that means regular bilge inspections to see if the pump needs to be turned on.

A couple of days ago we made water and filled both tanks to overflowing – except they didn’t (!) overflow that is. Yesterday I remembered to do the check and whoa!!! The bilge had a LOT of water in it! I guess that explains the overflow…

Back to tonight… I opened up the floor panel and was greeted with a very full bilge! – to within 4″ of the floor! How much water does an Outbound bilge hold? (I seem to keep testing this one!). I turned on the pump and went looking for the source. I checked the forward compartment where the speed and depth transducers reside – but the whole compartment was underwater so I couldn’t tell – I decided I’d better help with some manual pumping.

Ten minutes later I had cleared the bilge (actually it was now full of debris from all the various compartments that has accumulated over the last ten years!). The sensors were all sound. The water maker area was dry. Found it! Water streaming at the back of the engine – either the turbo has sprung a leak (I hope not) or the exhaust elbow has. PITA but better than the turbo option!

I’ve decided that the flow is of a rate that the pump can keep up with, but not a good thing! Still with no wind, it being dark and the engine being hot, I decided to keep the engine going for the time being, monitor (and pump) and leave resolution until the morning…

All sorts of lessons for Toodle-oo!’s crew here!!!!