10 days… and no leak!

I have, including today, 10 working days left before my cruise. I cannot believe how slow time can pass when I am waiting for something as good as this! I suspect time will then speed up no end when I am cruising!

I have also finally diagnosed and temporarily cured a problem that has dogged my engine for nearly a year. I was losing water from the cooling system and it was ending up in the engine bilge. I had spent hours hanging upside down under the engine trying to locate the leak but without success.  I had taken the boat to the boatyard twice and had all the pipes replaced, but still the water mysteriously appeared in the bilge every day, at the rate of about a cupful or so.

Recently the amount had increased and I had come to the conclusion I must have a rusted through hole in the skin tank. The only way of accessing that would be to remove the engine and weld underneath – at a quoted cost of around £800! So to at least get me through my cruise, I decided to try Forte – a posh version of Radweld. This is a liquid you put in the header tank and it seals any holes it finds.

Anyway, I wanted to make sure it was entirely dry under the engine so I could see if the treatment was working. So I crawled into every gap I could to mop up the water, when suddenly I saw a drip, speedily followed by another and another – I had found the leak! The reason I hadn’t found it before was because this pipe was below the engine and on the opposite side to where the water was gathering and where the rest of the pipes were. Sorry, I’m going on rather long about a fairly boring subject, but to me it was like finding the Lost City of Atlantis! The Forte worked and I have also wrapped the offending joint in Duct tape and miracles of miracles, my bilge has been dry for two days! Hopefully that will see me through the cruise and then I’ll book it in for a permanent repair when I return.

Happy days!