Went sailing today on Daniel's boat.
Not much wind going out so we had to use the outboard. Once we were far enough out, we caught some wind and tried to tack to Isla Borracha. The boat began taking on a serious amount of water. We headed back to Los Borrachitos so we could figure out what was wrong.
Once in a tiny cove, dug around and found a small hand bilge pump. We would have to fill our beer cooler with water then dump it overboard. Each stroke of the this little pump would spit out about 500 ml (1 pint) of water. It would take at least 100 strokes to fill the beer cooler. This soon got tiring and we decided to rig up a small electric pump we found. It was not powerful enough to send a column of water up and over the rail, but it was easier to fill the beer cooler than the hand pump and soon we had to boat empty of water.
A cotter pin came loose from one of the stays on the main mast and we could not put it back in due to length of the cable. We decided to go out, put up the main sail hoping sail would tweek the mast so we could put the pin back in place. Daniel had go out on the rail do the fix but it worked.
Then water started coming back in...a lot of water! I went below and hooked up our makeshift electric bilge and started the bucket brigade once again but we were not making any headway. Water was coming in faster than the pump could take out. I asked Daniel if all the seacocks were closed. He thought so...
Not much wind going out so we had to use the outboard. Once we were far enough out, we caught some wind and tried to tack to Isla Borracha. The boat began taking on a serious amount of water. We headed back to Los Borrachitos so we could figure out what was wrong.
Once in a tiny cove, dug around and found a small hand bilge pump. We would have to fill our beer cooler with water then dump it overboard. Each stroke of the this little pump would spit out about 500 ml (1 pint) of water. It would take at least 100 strokes to fill the beer cooler. This soon got tiring and we decided to rig up a small electric pump we found. It was not powerful enough to send a column of water up and over the rail, but it was easier to fill the beer cooler than the hand pump and soon we had to boat empty of water.
A cotter pin came loose from one of the stays on the main mast and we could not put it back in due to length of the cable. We decided to go out, put up the main sail hoping sail would tweek the mast so we could put the pin back in place. Daniel had go out on the rail do the fix but it worked.
Then water started coming back in...a lot of water! I went below and hooked up our makeshift electric bilge and started the bucket brigade once again but we were not making any headway. Water was coming in faster than the pump could take out. I asked Daniel if all the seacocks were closed. He thought so...
A couple more beer coolers full of water and Daniel asked where the sink drained. I looked under the sink and found our problem. The drain pipe had come lose and the seacock was open. Water was coming in like a firehose! The seacock was frozen, but with the help of a Leatherman tool, Daniel got it loose and closed it. Then we were able to empty the boat of water via our electric bilge pump/bucket brigade method. We probably emtied at least 1100 L (300 gallons) of water.
Came home and watched Ben Hur on TMC with Tania. I hadn't seen that movie since I was a kid. It is really good. Last night we watched Bridge on the River Kwai, also very good.
Came home and watched Ben Hur on TMC with Tania. I hadn't seen that movie since I was a kid. It is really good. Last night we watched Bridge on the River Kwai, also very good.
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