Monday 6 August 2012

Water leaks and dirty nails


The kids don’t like it when I have to get down into the engine room. Not only does it open up a hole in the back deck so they can’t get out, but it really gets in the way of mealtimes. They bring me cups of tea and listen to me swear and, sometimes, weep with frustration, and probably wonder why we don’t live in a house. Maybe not that. Maybe just that someone else would come and fix the engine.

I got dressed the other day in whatever came to hand first. Gabe looked up at me and said, ‘Is there something wrong with the engine?’ His voice had an edge of hollow acceptance. ‘It’s just,’ he explained, ‘that you’re wearing your engine T-shirt.’ I wasn’t planning on engine work that day. I couldn’t, actually, because the parts that I needed to fix the leak hadn’t arrived.

Water leaks on a boat are Not Good News. This leak had been going for a while, at a constant slightly-more-than-steady-dripping rate. The bilge pump is automatic, so in theory would clear out the water before it got to critical levels. Sometimes, though, it forgets to turn itself off, and going on pumping and pumping. This usually wakes me up, making me stagger out of bed to flick the switch on and off before the motor burns itself out, letting the water rise without opposition and the boat sink. The cats think that I am getting up early just to give them some early breakfast. Or a midnight feast. They should be so lucky.

I realised some three weeks or so after it started that the leak wasn’t coming from where I thought it was. That the extra layers of silicone I’d been layering on to that gasket were making no difference to the worn seal at the back of the pump. It turned out to be an easy refit, however. Ged next door knew exactly what it needed, and all I had to do was undo four nuts and release two pipes. And then reverse the above once the pump had been given new seals and bearings and camshaft. It wasn’t even that hard to get at. No leak now.

These jobs, though, are never welcome. They take up time. They make your nails black and your skin oily. They usually mean you have to twist your body into an unnatural shape for minutes at a time whilst you try to edge a spanner into place. And they usually come at exactly the wrong time. I felt for @muckyboatlady when she tweeted recently, ‘Water pump is making a funny noise. But I am wearing a big floaty dress and don’t want to go into the engine room.’ Because it doesn’t matter how much you want to ignore the funny noise. It will gradually overwhelm every diversionary tactic until you are forced to stick your head into the darkness. And get your nails dirty.

I’m going to have a nice cup of tea, and enjoy the hiatus whilst the boat makes up its mind what will go wrong next. Manicure, anyone?