Macerator Pump Adventures

During the last leg of the Baja HaHa we discovered that the forward tank macerator pump would not pump. It sounded like the motor was turning OK, but there was not the usual sounds of actual pumping. As confirmation we saw that the tank gauge did not move. The sludge did not budge. Once in Cabo San Lucas I decided to repair it since our destination La Cruz does not have a chandlery.

Fortunately, the forward tank macerator is "easily accessible". All things on a boat are relative, so this is what easy accessibility looks like when two crew members attack a balky pump. They have already removed a drawer unit to get to this point.


The most vulnerable part of a pump is its impeller, so that is the first thing to check. Removing the pump for inspection should have been a 4-step 15 minute job.

1. Remove the outlet hose



2. Remove the 4 pump mounting screws
   


3. Unscrew the pump from the inlet Tee



4. Take the pump apart and inspect the impeller.

However, we found that we could not perform step three with the pump in place. It was as if the pump and Tee were welded together with 3M 4200. So we added two steps:

1. Remove the outlet hose



2. Remove the 4 pump mounting screws



3. Cut the two power supply wires



4. Remove the inlet hoses from the Tee



5. Take the assembly outside and unscrew the pump from the inlet Tee



6. Take the pump apart and inspect the impeller.

However, we found that we could still not remove the pump from the Tee. I decided to replace the pump and Tee. I walked many miles back and forth between the four marine stores in Cabo. I finally found a Jabsco pump, a brass Tee, and two brass IPT to barb adapters. While looking at a plumbing supply store, two Mexican plumbers offered to help me remove the Tee. Needless to say the pump remained welded not even giving up to the blandishments of a pipe wrench and a piece of pump through the Tee.

Imagine the chuckle we got when we read the directions for assembling the new pump to the new Tee. The instructions say to use Teflon thread tape and hand tighten only. I have asked Catalina to send me a picture of the hands that do the tightening at the Florida plant because I feel our governor of California is moonlighting. I also asked for the brand of Teflon tape since it is more tenacious than any brand that I have ever worked with. Here is the final assembly $400 later.


I must confess that since this episode I have learned that the pump can in fact be disassembled without removing the Tee. You do have to be able to reach the screw heads that face the Tee. As you can see the pump's impeller does have a broken leg. It looks as if the replacement impeller that I bought for the Jabsco replacement pump will fit this ShurFlo pump. That is good news if I ever have trouble with the other aft tank macerator pump.


Well, speak of the devil. On the trip to La Cruz we saw that the aft macerator pump was not working. It showed the same symptoms as the earlier failure. But now I know the not so simple seven step process right? Not do fast. The aft pump is not easily accessible even by boat standards. Given the tight space and the obstructing wiring I do not see how I can remove the entire assemble. I have asked Catalina for any advice they might have on how to loosen the pump from the Tee. Several emails and phone inquiries have not yielded any useful advise other than try using anti-bond on the threads.

I am aware that running an impellor pump dry can wear the impellor. It is hard to tell sometimes if the pump is in fact pumping given the ambient noise if the engine is running. Perhaps my problems are caused by operator error. I am taking the advice that Jerry Douglas gave at this year's rendevous--put a piece of clear hose in the discharge line so you can monitor the pumping (or not pumping) visually as well as aditorily.


On one of my first days having breakfast at Anna Banana's I was introduced to a local person who was recommended for general boat work. His name is Butch and I looked him up to repair my macerator pump. He concurred that the sealant looked like 3M 5200 to him and that it would be ill advised for anyone to use this product for this purpose. He agreed to replace the impeller in the pump and to replace the original opaque hose with a clear one. This took him two hours and he charged me $90--a bargain!

Baja HaHa 2009 Leg 3

No Stories to Tell

Leg 3 began on November 4th with light winds and a rolling start. The land in the background is actually an island. I decided that sailing the entire leg would be nice, but not at the expense of enduring boat speeds below 2 knots. There is just not enough glory in it.

Since Virago uses fresh water to flush the heads, we did eventually empty the 30 gallon supply tank. Here we see the crew filling the tank with sea water. BTW: Catalina cleverly separated the head supply tank from the other water tanks. I added a task to my list of improvements to the boat--install a "Y" valve so we can switch to sea water. The boat has two seacocks already installed that were to be used to supply conventional heads.

Speaking of heads, we found that the tank macerator pump for the forward head was not working. At sea this is no problem since we discharge the heads directly overboard, but it became a maintenance chore to be done while were in Cabo.

My Maine friend Michael Hetzel always told me that a well planned and executed voyage left no stories to tell. About all I can say for this leg is that it did give us a Chamber of Commerce evening of sailing. We had 10 to 15 knots of Northwest wind, some long period swells, temperatures in the mid seventies, and some waining moonlight. We flew the asym alone for hours. Roger commented that is was nights like this that keep him from giving up sailing and going over to the dark side (power boating). Unfortunately, the wind died completely near the end of the leg so we did motor for the last few miles.

We did learn that the most demanding conditions for battery usage are sailing over night. We didn't the engine for power, but the lights and instruments including radar and autopilot draw nearly 15 amps. During a beautiful 24 hours of sailing the boat will draw down its house bank to nearly 0. Since that would not be good for the battery, we ran the engine just to charge the batteries. This taught us two things: first, the simple voltage regulator on the alternator does a poor (read slow) job of battery charging, and second, that we hate running the engine when we should be sailing silently

Here is the final tally of miles, hours, and speed for the three legs of the 2009 Baja HaHa. BTW In Cabo we emptied the eight jerry cans into the fuel tanks and took on six more gallons to top off the tanks. So, our entire fuel consumption for the entire 750 mile trip (remember that the race legs are not the entire trip) was 46 gallons.

We learned at the final awards ceremony that only six boats had sailed all three legs. Roger says that in 2004 only two boats did. At least our having sailed one leg did get us a 3+ award instead of the plain old 3.

We felt especially fortunate when we learned of some other boats' troubles. The J World boat had hit a whale and sunk. The crew took to their life raft and were rescued by Coast Guard helicopter. The captain is an experienced sailing instructor and the CG complemented her on a perfect text book response. In turn she said the swimmer who put the crew into the sling for lifting was cute. Our friends Larry and Mugs Zabel suffered a broken transmission coupling and had to limp along without engine power and finally be towed into Cabo for repairs.

Baja Green

The island that was in the earlier picture did have some low green vegetation, but Cabo showed and entirely different green fertiliser in action: dollars. (Ok, maybe it was pesos that are not green.)

This is the coast just before you reach Cabo San Lucas. Both Bill and Roger have been here on previous HaHas and remember this as almost totally barren hillside. It reminds me of a crowd watching an event with everyone on their toes trying to see over the ones in front. Thoreau said, "I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion." Appropriately, the heirs of Ralph Waldo Emerson gave Walden Pond to the state of Massachusetts expressly to prevent it from being developed like the resort town of Revere.


Once past Lasha on Baja, the famous arch the trademark image of Cabo comes into view--first without fertilizer.

Now the greenbacks arrive. Cabo is a frequent stop over for cruise ships.

Once around the arches, we see Cabo sprawled before is. Although it is hard to make out from the distance. there is a lighthouse-like tower in the center of the harbor. It is just in front of the IGY Cabo San Lucas marina. Speaking of green, the nightly slip fee (after a 20% Baja HaHa discount) was $148. That's dollars not pesos!

The Ship has Weathered Every Wrack

With 450 miles of California coast and 750 miles of Mexican coast behind us, we settled into one half of a 100 foot slip. It is a sign of the economic times that all HaHa boats that wanted a slip found one. I think there were about 90 slips available and that is unheard of. Just over Virago you can see the before mentioned tower.

From our stern we can look out of Cabo harbor to the sea and remember the 2009 Baja HaHa.

Looking over the bow of Virago we can see the Baja Cantina the official Baja HaHa headquarters. Here you can see Roger and Bob at the Catina.

It's About the People Not the Boats

My fiend Dick Einshpar likes to say the cruising is all about the people. So here is photo of what I will remember most fondly from my 2009 Baja HaHa--my crew: Bob Engelhart, Roger Elliott, and Bill Eddy. Thanks for a wonderful experience.

But wait, there was more to come. We sailed on to La Cruz.

Baja HaHa 2009 Leg 2

Racing Teaches Patience
I have often told people that sailboat racers need more patience to go slow than cruisers or day sailors. This is because unlike those less competitive venues, races do not allow any motoring (at least not without a penalty.) I decided that we would try to sail the whole leg without the use of the motor except to charge the batteries if needed.

We left Turtle Bay on October 31st. The day was spectacular, but alas without wind. The Grand Poobah allowed us to do a rolling start. That is we could motor at no more than 5 knots without penalty until the wind freshened. For a while Virago was near the head of the pack, but as the wind built and the racing chutes were hoisted, we were left in the "dust".


In very light air the key to victory is patience. Keep your hand off that start key! We are sailing this leg. The captain had to restrain himself by putting on the sombrero of command and practicing deep meditation.

As it turns out Roger Elliot is also a practiced meditator.


The Work Still Goes On
We had noticed a troubling groan in the starboard side steering mechanism during heavy following seas. There was a slight rubbing sound even in light seas. Roger being the tallest (and having volunteered) he went into the lazarette to find the problem.

Fortunately, he was on good terms with the rest of the crew and had no fear of being locked in.

Of course, the source of the noise was not going to be so easily uncovered. With some moral support from Roger I decided to lower the panel that shields the after cabin berth from the steering quadrants and cables. It seemed like the cable and or sheeves were groaning when under strain. He applied WD40 and the squeaking drastically diminished. At some point I will need to repeat the exercise with some grease as recommended by Edson who makes the steering system.

Just to show that our troubles were relatively minor, I have included a picture of a boat being towed. The tower is the littlest boat in the fleet: a 24 foot Dana. The towee is a Catalina 27 with fuel problems in its outboard engine.

I Can't Believe I Sailed the Whole Thing

As you see from the pictures the sea state was flat with hardly a wind wave to be seen or felt. Much of the time we saw less than 5 knots of wind from behind. With the asymmetrical poled out on the main boom and the jib poled out on its whisker pole we still struggled at times to maintain 2 knots of boat speed. It was only the steely resolve (some would say madness) of the skipper that kept the crew from walking because it would have been faster. In the end we did sail over the finish line.

It had taken just over two days to sail just under 225 miles. It's the kind of performance that only racers or passage makers will put up with. Notice: zero hours of motoring.

We did drop anchor at Bahia Santa Maria and found it to be even more desolate than Turtle Bay. The natural features are similar, but BSM has no town--just a few fishing shacks. There is another beach party with food provided by some of the fishermen's wives and a rock band that drives in from Cabo San Lucas for just this one event each year Bill and Bob took in the party, but Roger and I stayed in for the evening.

We did assemble the inflatable dinghy with some effort and all agree that it is truly a PITA. We all agreed that it was good thing we carried a life raft and did not count on the inflatable for our safety at sea. In spite of my usual lack of faith in the old Johnson outboard it did fire up and run fine. I took a run to the end of the fleet and back just to prove that we had a working dinghy just in case we had to anchor out at Cabo San Lucas. After that brief flurry of activity, we disassembled and put the dinghy away under Toyot.

Roger showed another of his many talents by cooking our steaks on the barbie.

Behind him you see a curious ship named the Pacific Provider. It appears to be a mother ship for some sort of fleet of sport fishing boats. We guessed that it would provide sleeping accommodations, fuel, and food so the short range sport fishing boats could be stationed here without the need of an actual port.

By November 2nd there was a full moon. Thankfully all on board resisted its romantic influence, but Bill does look pretty good with the moonlight streaming through his hair. But, I digress.

With a couple nights rest for all and a small amount of partying by some, we were ready for leg 3.

Baja HaHa 2009 Leg 1

It's a rally, not a race.

All the Baja HaHa is divided into three parts: San Diego to Turtle Bay, Turtle Bay to Bahia Santa Maria, and finally Bahia Santa Maria to Cabo San Lucas. For typical boats that do the HaHa the first leg requires three overnight sails, the second leg requires two, and the last one. The total distance covered is about 750 miles, so even though there are several parties for the participants most of the time is spent actually covering the miles. The boats are divided into classes so there can be some meaningful competition. There is a starting line and a finish line usually 10 to 15 miles from the actual end point of the leg. The event is billed as a rally not a race, but each participating boat is required to turn in statistics for each of the three legs showing the total time for the leg and the amount of that time motoring. There is a penalty for any time spent motoring, but on legs with too little wind there is a rolling start meaning that boats are allowed to motor slowly without incurring penalties. At the final awards ceremony each participating boat gets an award. Each class has a first and second place winner and everyone else gets a third place. There is a special mention for any boat that sails any leg(s) without motoring. This year only six boats actually sailed all three legs without motoring due to light winds.

This year the first leg started from San Diego on Monday October 26th.There were a record number of boats: over 160 with just over 600 persons on board. Here we see the fleet behind us giving us the illusion that we are leading the fleet since we did get a good start.

There is a prize for the crew with the best costumes at the start of the rally. The costumes give the event a little light hearted spirit as we face 750 of sailing along a mostly barren coast.

Here we see the good news and the bad news for Virago. The new asymmetrical spinnaker flew very well and helped us keep moving in the light air we experienced for most of the trip. The bad news was that for all the "this is a rally not a race" talk, most boats flew full racing symmetrical spinnakers. So this picture captures a scene we saw all too often--Virago out sailed! This especially hurts when the overtaking boats are only half our size.

The first night of leg one gave us very light air and we chose to motor rather than languish. As we got into the second day the winds freshened and by the third day we were seeing 25 to 30 knots winds from behind and seas building to 12 to 17 feet. This had been predicted and the Grand Poobah suggested that boats not wanting to face those conditions put into an anchorage and lay over for a night. In fact, this turned out to be the worst leg for weather in the sixteen year history of the HaHa. Since Virago and her crew had passed through almost a bad conditions on the way to San Diego, I decided to tough it out. We were rolled around a lot by the following seas, but we did make speeds of over 8 knots with only about one quarter of our main and jib out. Since the finish is on the honor system, we took a photo of our chartplotter screen as we crossed the imaginary line in the sea.

We finished the first leg in a reasonable time averaging just under 6 knots.

Once we finished the race course we restarted the engine and rounded the point at Turtle Bay.

You can see from the photos that Turtle Bay is no garden spot. The land is barren. Until a few years ago there was a cannery in town to process fish. That is gone and all that is left is a dusty impoverished little Mexican fishing village. The annual visit by the HaHa fleet is the biggest economic event of the year as yatistas descend on the town. Boats can get diesel here and the crews can get beer and have a choice of about three eateries. We knew we were in Mexico.

Leaps of Faith

There is a dinghy dock at Turtle Bay and experienced HaHa cruisers say it is a vast improvement over the old pier only arrangement. You used to have to climb a rusty ladder to get onto the pier. Now you can tie up to a normal dinghy dock. (Or for about two dollars a head, Enrique will send a ponga out for you.) Of course you can land your dinghy on the beach if you trust your surf landing skills.

You do still have to make one leap of faith though. There is a three foot gap between the end of the dock and the steps up to the pier.

There are only a couple of actual restaurants in town. We ate at this one on the bay. It is owned by the same Enrique who runs the pongas. This was our first real Mexican eatery and maybe we were a bit squeamish, but the food was excellent. The service was definitely on Mexican time.

No trip to Turtle Bay would be complete without a trip to the Veracruz hotel up on the hill in the center of town. The view up the main street shows how dusty this Mexican town really is.

We did make the pilgrimage to Hotel and although it is hard to tell, Virago is in the picture near the head of the woman of the unidentified couple in the next picture. You can tell by the cap that he is a HaHa participant though.

Next you see Virago's crew testing the beer at the Veracruz. There is a disco dance floor at the hotel that was created just for the once a year visit of the HaHa fleet. We didn't attend the party at the hotel though.

The Work Goes On

There is always work to do on a boat and Virago is no exception. Below you see the crew checking the oil, the fuel filters, and the cooling water intake filter. All was fine except the intake filter desperately needed a cleaning.

There had been one minor mishap on the wild third night of the trip. A wave of green water came over the side of the cockpit and used the two escape skylight in the aft cabin as an exit route. The bedding for the aft cabin berth was drenched as well as the guest cabin double sleeping bag. It would normally have been safe up on a shelf except for the fact that I had been using it to take up some space so that I would not roll from side to side in the big following seas. Here you see Bob demonstrating his Eagle Scout grasp of the rolling hitch as he prepares a clothes line for drying duty.

Even in port the crew needed to be fed, so here is a shot of the rough fare of blueberry muffins that the skipper whipped up. We all highly recommend KrustEase mixes by the way: both pancakes and muffins.

The Turtle Bay Pot Luck

There is always a beach party/pot luck during the stay in Turtle Bay. The deal is to bring your own beverage or buy beer on the beach and bring something to share. Here is crew bringing in our sacrificial lasagna.

To ensure fairness the Grand Poobah appointed a "portion Nazi" to make sure folks did not take more than they brought. It's a rough scheme, but works pretty well. The only real problem is that there develop two lines: one for food and the other for buying beer. By the time my crew reached the food our lasagna was gone, but there was plenty of other choices.

The party presents quite the spectacle from the tall bluff behind the beach. I think you can get some idea of the size of the bay where our 160+ boats didn't even make a dent in the available space to anchor.

After a two day rest/party at Turtle Bay, we were ready for leg two of our journey.