Swanwick to Lymington - kit testing and joker valves, again

Escape from the rather expensive winter berthing rates at Swanwick could not come quickly enough. After Paul from Maricom finished the electronics fit, we hot footed it to Lymington. OK, an exaggeration really. It was blowing a near gale and gusting force 8/9 (42 knots at times) according to our nice new instruments and we had no reason to doubt them at all! Getting off the berth in Swanwick was fun as the wind and stream wanted us to stay there. The big barn door rudder, thrusters and luck extricated us. The route is a simple one:

but with a WNW gale blowing the Solent treated us to its trademark "Solent Chop" - short wavelength steep waves caused by the wind being over the tide. We threw lots of spray around, giving our nice new FLIR and even the radars some salt to help their inevitable future corrosion.

On the way, we were circled by a police boat which had been on the Hamble river. They might have been thinking "what are these mad guys doing out here". We were drinking tea actually. The Nordhavn is pretty stable! On arrival in Lymington, the same police boat was on the berth we had been given by the Harbour Authority folks. Doing a loop in the wind, the crew had great fun yelling at the policemen and telling them they had stolen our spot. They apologetically moved on with the skipper saying how he was jealous of the Nordhavn and always liked them. Now we understand the circling bit.

Somewhat less amusing was #jokervalvegate2 . Yup, the fore heads had developed a little leak (it has to be from the outlet, doesn't it) and tightening the inaccessible outlet pipe that holds the joker valve did not fix it. We thought that the 90 degree plastic elbow or the stupid plastic (yes, plastic!) flange that holds the valve in place might have a crack in it due to the tension put on the fitting from the new stiff sanitation hose. A new elbow was procured from the rather excellent Lee Sanitation folks together with an extra 90 degree swept elbow that could be fitted into the hose to relieve any sideways pressure on the fittings.

Planning the job and getting the bits was simple. Doing it? Well, not as bad as the joker valve replacement in the main heads but still a job from hell. The machine screws that hold the fitting in place are slotted so you have to rely on a screwdriver. One of them is hidden behind the elbow it is holding on. A cranked screwdriver will not go in (not enough clearance). Much bad language ensued.


Cutting the hose and adding the swept elbow was simple. Releasing the fitting that holds the joker valve was not... Finally the machine screws were out, got replaced by sensible ones with a hex head on them and the thing rebuilt after fighting the hidden bolt in place.

Only it then leaked again. The **** new joker valve that you cannot hold in position whilst fitting the thing had twisted a bit. Undo, rebuild and finally we have a working heads again. Simple job that should take an hour or so took about four.

New swept elbow and fitting finally in place:

Spot the second machine screw holding the flange and elbow in place on the toilet body:

Yup - you cannot because it is hidden behind the elbow itself. Awesome design, thanks Raritan!

To be fair, the heads have been ultra-reliable in their 12 year life so we should say a prayer of thanks to someone and stay quiet. It is hard doing that after 4 hours messing about with a toilet discharge pipe though. Very very hard.