Oolite Bulletins

After dismanteling my living room to have free access to the engine room, disassembling the engine, checking and cleaning the pistons, changing the gasket and putting it back together, I filled up the oil and water and ran the engine. It worked fine, A-OK.

Good!

So, yesterday I finally finished reassembled the living room, and sat back. Ahhh, took me almost a month of work but now the engine worked as clockwork... VrrrrrrrrrrrPASHshshshshs. The oil pressure alarm went on.

What the heck?

I lifted the engine compartiment cover, and was presented with a dantesque vision of hell. The oil filter had sprung the rubber seal and was squirting oil all over the place!

I feel like crying. I do.
As far as I can tell, it could have been caused by:
a) I did change the oil, but not the filter. I didn't think it necssary, as it had been changed on the last oil change. Still, it was leaking some unknown whitish mush. I hope that's just dirt that fell into the engine while it was open...
b)I might have put the gasket with insufficient/badly applied cement. If so, I'll have to take the boat apart AGAIN to dismantle the engine AGAIN and hope I didn't bent or broke the engine head.

Despondently, I've called my deckhand to tell him the bad news, and all he said was "Oh, OK. Take your time."
"What do you mean,'take your time'?! I tall you the engine blew up and that's all you have to say?"
So, he started to explain. He tried to call, but I didn't answer (my cell phone usually lies uncharged and forgotten on the map console). He dropped by, but I wasn't in and the boat was locked up. So...
The bugger got married and I wasn't invited, do you believe that?

Now I've returned from shopping and am facing the remaining half of the bottle of rum I just bought. It won'tlast much longer, I tell you!

It seems your timbers certainly have been shivered, Commander! Sorry to hear your bad news, hope the damage isn't too bad.

I feel for you.
Today my computer's OS died. Not just a little, but full on re-format and re-install died. I've lost all my Uni coursework to date that wasn't on hardcopy, all my mp3's (both pre- and post-Napster 'legalising' ), all the wife's book-keeping work (I'm sooooooooo dead) and all the kid's baby photos.

On the upside, Oolite was safe on the other hard drive, so life doesn't suck so bad

Captain Hesperus

Why is it people only consistently back up "after" a crash!!



Me too BTW

Me three. Just installed RAID1 on this machine. (That IS the mirroring one...right?)

Know the pain of losing coursework. It happened to me a while back. Hard drive crash and all my teaching coursework down the pan. Lots of photos too were lost. Now I backup as often as I can (but not nearly enough though heh heh).

Captain Hesperus,

You may still be able to recover data. If the Hard Disc is recognised by the PC then there are Linux utilities which may recover the data.

Are you a Linux user? Do you have access to a reasonably competent Linux user.

If it is a case that the hard disc is not rcognised by the PC then it could be that the electronics have packed up but the disc itself is OK. If you can get hold of an IDENTICAL hard disc it is easy to swap the boards and recover the data.

I have had cases where Windows crashes if the disc is present wheras Linux doesn't even acknowledge that there could be a problem.

If you post more info, or PM me, I (and others) may be able to help you further.

and if all else fails it is unlikely that the information on the platters is lost:
http://www.datarecoveryspecialist.com/

You all should remember that scatological scene with the Central Services guys in Terrry Gilliam's 'Brazil', no? You probably laughed you eyes out when they got drowned in toilet waste?

Well, I did.
But now...

Yes, my waste disposal system clogged. A marine toilet, with waste holding tank, under the waterline.
I thought the problem was in the pump, but I was wrong, it's at the tank outlet itself. That doesn't mean I wasn't up to my elbows in stored shit, and tomorrow I'll probably flood the bilge with it when I uncouple the tank's lower hose.

All I can say is that my smell is appalling. And yes, I've bathed.

Argh!

P.S.: My engine is presently disassembled, the head went for compression tests/scraping, and the valves have to be repolished. That's almost US$500.00, nealy all my remaining money. I'll have to do something about it soon, but the boat isn't very seaworthy yet.

Puts a whole new meaning to "OK, this time, you're in really deep shit..."

I've managed to bypass the pipe that exits from the tank to the pump.
Uncoupled it from the pump intake (it's clogged so it doesn't flow) and also removed the upper pipe to have acess to the tank's top hole. Then I used another (much thinner) hose on the pump's intake and dipped the other end into the top hole.

This would allow me to pump the waste before removing the bottom connection and avoid flooding my bilge with liquid sewage. But...

Since my engine is inoperational, all I have to charge the batteries is the solar pannels, and they are running low. I've pumped for quite a while, but since the hose is thinner, the pump has to work harder for less output. It was halfway done when the charge meter started beeping, warning me that I was killing the batteries, so I had to stop for today. Tomorrow I should have enough charge to finish it and check the tank's clogged exit.

And yes, I stink. I've even washed with lie, but it only made it worse - I stink not only of sewage, but also because of the lie itself. Argh!

...well, you're certainly living up to your signature...

Suggestion to reduce stink:

For washing yourself add a *little* bleach to the water. Something on the lines of 0.5ml to a bucket of water. (This will give you 2ppm Chlorine) Test for adverse reactions by washing a small part of yourself and waiting at least half an hour.

For the boat use a stronger solution but be careful that you don't bleach anything you don't want to.

The above suggestions are made in good faith but I have to disclaim any responsibility.

Good luck.

A new update on my whine thread:

As I said before, my batteries are running quite low. After several unanswered appeals to borrow a portable generator on the cruiser's net, they've become so low I feared to be killing them. Finally, a fellow sailor lent me a battery charger to be connected to a socket ashore. This meant that I'd have to remove the huge 215 amps batteries and load them on the dinghy.

Easier said than done. It was so heavy I wound up capsizing the dinghy when I tried to pull the one of them from the gunwhale...
Of course, I fancy myself more intelligent than average and thus try to live up to it, so I had previously tied a painter to the battery - just in case. That prevented the battery from ending on the bottom of the bay, but was still washed over by the water displaced when I capsized.

I'm not certain that no salt water went in, so I took it to a electric hardware shop that recharges them instead of using the charger that I borrowed.

As for the dinghy, I had a hard time taking the water out as it was completely flooded and water just kept coming back in, so I had to do it from a neighbour's dinghy. Eventually I managed to bail out the water and recover the outboard engine. It had been completely underwater, so I washed it with sweet water, opened it, cleaned the carburattor and spark plug, WD40'd the whole thing and reassembled it. I did managed to save it. Yay me!

oy, you sure have a lot of work with your gear!