Tag Archives: washdown pump

Failures Bring on Frustrating Times

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Sugar Shack has had a string of failures over the last few weeks. I cannot remember a time when I’ve been so frustrated.  

Our boat has been and continues to be an amazing vessel. 

She has safely transported us over 50,000nm across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  She is our home, our yacht, our love and I would not trade her for anything else.  We love our Catana!

However, with anything over 24 years old you have failures.  

All of this happened over the course of 2 weeks in route to Fiji from the Marshall Islands.

Double Steering Failure

As you might recall, we had a “A Double Steering Failure” when we lost our starboard steering gear box and our port rudder arm.  This rendered our starboard helm un-steerable and our port helm without a rudder. 

Makes steering a challenge, but still doable with auto pilot using the port steering gear box and the starboard rudder.

Problem: ​Starboard Steering Gear Box failed. 

Solution: We ordered new bearings and seals from Germany for both port and starboard.  They’re being sent to Fiji where we will do repairs.

Problem: Port Rudder Arm failed. 

Solution: The good news is it broke at the attachment point.  We found the one man who has the tools to weld stainless and he fixed our rudder arm! We need to weld the two pieces together at the exact correct length to reinstall the rudder arm.

Matt and I searched for a stainless welder all over Funafuti over 3 days.  We finally found the one man who has the tools and expertise.  He tack welded the two pieces together, then did some grinding, then finished the welding.  We are back in business with two rudders!

A Massive Disappointment

Port Engine Failure

Problem: Our port engine water pump had a slow leak.  We had been watching it and were prepared to replace it once we got to Fiji. However, the leak got progressively worse.  So, Matt decided to replace it in Tuvalu.

The water pump is located in front of the engine making it a challenge to access. Matt has to lean over the engine, upside down to access the pump. Many pieces and parts have to be removed including the timing belt.

Problem #2: As Matt was removing the timing belt it ripped!  Oh for the love of God!  The engine can’t run at all without a timing belt!  This is bad, very bad!

Solution: The water pump was installed, but there is nothing we can do about the timing belt.  We ordered (2) new timing belts (one for both engines) from the UK to be delivered to Fiji where we will do repairs.

More Annoying Issues

Problem:  As Matt was removing pieces from the engine to get to the water pump one of his most used sockets fell into the water.  We are in 14m depth (40′).  

We got the dive gear out and both pressure gauges had water ingress and were not readable. 

Solution:  Matt used the dive gear anyway and within 4 minutes found the socket!  Yeah.

Problem: The furler is starting to fail and is leaking.  It is still working, but we have to be gentle when using the genoa.

Solution: We ordered new bearings and seals to be sent to Fiji where we will do repairs.

Problem: The washdown pump failed.  We use this pump to hose off the boat and clean the ground tackle (with both fresh and salt water).

Solution:  Matt thought we could just take it a part, clean it and get it working.  But this 13 year old pump was done.  We will have to buy a new one.

Summary

 
We have one engine and one rudder forcing us to run between helm stations. And somehow make it to Fiji to do the repairs.
 
Good news:  
  • We can steer from the Port helm and run back to starboard to use the throttles
  • We found a stainless welder in Tuvalu (the 2nd smallest country in the world). We now have use of both rudders
  • The port engine NEW water pump is installed
  • The engine was off when the timing belt failed.
    • Would have been catastrophic if it failed with the engine on.
  • We found the socket in 14m of silty water.  New octopi will be purchased in the future
  • Matt thinks he can take the washdown pump apart, clean it, service it and get it working without a replacement.  
  • The furler still works but we have to be gentle using it.  

Trying our best to see the silver lining. We are truly blessed and know that “life happens.”  It’s just hard when it happens all at one time.

We find some joy and charm in Tuvalu – check out our last blog post.

Our blog posts run 8-10 weeks behind actual events.  The failures occurred between mid to end of March 2025.

Wash down pump replacement

Servicing our Girl: Sugar Shack

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What do you do on a beautiful day in paradise?  Get dirty?  We had a few boat projects that needed to be completed in calm weather (no wind and no swell).  So, we set out to do some maintenance and servicing of both Sugar Shack and Sweetie (our dinghy). 

Anchored in calm waters with very little breeze made it much easier to accomplish these specific projects.  We dropped the hook at North Totegegie where we had beautiful views. 

Servicing the Boat in Paradise

Servicing the Boat in Paradise

Windlass Service

What is a windlass?  It is an electric wench that raises and lowers our anchor and anchor chain. It is a very important part of our boat as it would make anchoring nearly impossible without it.  In a pinch, we can manually raise and lower our anchor using the hand crank method.  However, we have 100 meters of 10mm stainless steel chain attached to a Spade x140 anchor that weighs in at over 65lbs.  Imagine cranking all that chain and anchor up by hand – no thank you!

Our Lewmar Ocean 3 windlass (2000 watt) was running a little slow when raising the chain.  Once it got going it was fine, but the startup was less than optimal.  Not a problem, just needed a little love.  We are at anchor with our anchor chain connected to the windlass.  Can’t rightly service the windlass without removing the anchor chain, right?  First things first, Matt ties a line to the last link of chain (just at the rode) and then secures it to the anchor roller so he could remove the pressure off the windlass.  Then he jumped in the hole (locker) and cleaned the brushes and removed the corrosion.

Servicing the Windlass

Servicing the Windlass

Not yet at 100%…it might require a more comprehensive servicing in a month or two.  For now, it is better than it was and that is good for us (maybe at 95%).  A few days later, Matt took the windlass apart and cleaned all the connections.  He found a loose wire that was the culprit and now the windlass is running perfectly!

Tail Tails

Do you know what a tail tail is?  It doesn’t have anything to do with your posterior or an animal.  A tail tail on a boat is an indicator of how your sails are trimmed while underway.  They are small, light pieces of fabric attached to the sail.  When the sail is trimmed correctly, the tail tails on the windward (inside) and leeward (outside) of the sail will stream backwards.  That’s when life is good.  If the sail needs trimming the tail tail will either fly up or down indicating the need to tighten or loosen the jib sheet (working line) to give you optimal performance.

Our tail tails were very sad and in need of servicing.  Easy enough job when there is no wind.  Matt had to drop the sail onto the deck in order reach all the tail tails.  You don’t want to do this in windy conditions as your jib will be flopping all over the place.  We bought a kit which made replacing them super easy.

Washdown Pump

Our Jabsco washdown pump is located in a locker near the mast.  This pump provides pressure to our hose to enable us to wash down the boat, the anchor chain and pretty much anything we need.  It is great because we can use it with salt water or fresh water depending on how the valve is turned.  We usually hose things off first with salt water, then do a final rinse with fresh water.  Why is that?  Because we have an abundance of salt water and a very limited amount of fresh water.  Our pump was very corroded as it is in and around salt water and salty air.  It worked, but it was limping along.  Instead of ‘servicing’ we decided to replace her.

The pump is only attached with a few screws and clamps.  Matt had it replaced in under an hour.

Wash down pump replacement

Wash down pump replacement

Servicing Sweetie – Our Dinghy

I had intended on putting the work done to service Sweetie on this blog, but it was so extensive that I ended up giving it her own blog post.  Stay tuned for “Dinghy Spa for Sweetie.”

Events from this blog post occurred during the month of January 2021.  Our blog posts run 8 weeks behind our adventures.