Water pumps, RIB service and Coronavirus time

A morning was spent in the sun (yes, sun!) changing the oil and filter in the Yamaha outboard on the RIB. The gearbox oil also got changed. The RIB gets suspended in mid air by the crane for this little job:

The one benefit is that you get to take it for a burn around the bay afterwards to check all is well. Hooligan time indeed. On the way back, the Captain had a diversion up the river Ely and found Simon and Nikki sitting outside on their lovely timber yacht. As everyone is conscious of "the virus" we kept the regulation 2 metres gap, in fact a bit more.

The new fresh water pump duly arrived from Italy but as it had been in transit for 4 days we felt pretty safe touching the box. Plenty of hand washing afterwards mind you:

Refitting it was a challenge - another example where the 90 degree elbows for the inlet and outlet go tight 3/4 turn after you want them to. Another job for Leak Lock as normal PTFE tape would not bulk the thing out enough. We had to leave the stuff to cure so could not test it straight away:

So here it is without the wiring tidied up and protected.

A day later, firing it up and bleeding it was another highly amusing job. There is a bleed screw on the front - as soon as the pump picks up some water you get a serious shower. Luckily it is fresh water. Way better than #headgate which we went through when replacing the joker valves in both loos. However, things did not go to plan at all. The position of the pumps is pretty much at the maximum height above the water tanks that is allowed and the new one would not prime. No air leaks, no blockages, just not enough "oomph" to prime. Even when pre-filled it would not drag water through. Grr....... Well, something like that was said, quite forcefully really.

What to do? Have a coffee, calm down, look at the plumbing and realise that it will need some serious surgery to drop both pumps down a couple of feet into the space where the stabiliser is housed. We didn't have the fittings needed to do that so a shopping list would have to be made up. Wonderful. Just made the captain's day which didn't improve when he stuck a screwdriver into his thumb whilst replacing a 240v socket that was misbehaving.. Frequent hand washing to avoid the Covid thingy with a plaster on is not simple.

Our plans were getting a bit messier. Coronavirus was causing restrictions in some harbours so it was time for some agile planning (roughly means that like 99.9% of the population we have no idea how this will all develop so we will just wait and see).

If we have to isolate then the boat isn't a bad place to be. Plenty of diesel (might need a little top up), big water tanks, watermaker but that is not commissioned, big fridge / freezer, plenty of power even if the shorepower fails thanks to the generator. Let's see what happens but we guess that this summer will be short on cruising time.....