Year 7 Day 275 Getting Ready For Our Mozambique Channel Crossing
04 October 2014 | Moramba Bay, Madagascar
Dave/Partly Cloudy
The weather window is still holding and things look real good to start our channel crossing tomorrow. Thus, Mary Margaret and I worked a bit to get things ready. We really did not have much to do since all of the big stuff was done before we left Crater Bay.
The work started out a bit early when I turned on the generator to charge the batteries. After about 20 minutes I heard the starboard side bilge pump go on which it should not have done. I immediately thought that a generator cooling water hose clamp had failed and shut done the generator. I then opened up the floor boards that are over the bilge and saw that it was flooded with about a foot of water in it. Water was still coming in. I turned on the main bilge pump and between the two pumps the water level started to decrease. Plus, the inflow of water was slowing down. I then went to the stern cockpit and opened up the generator lazarette and removed the cover to the generator. Yep, the hose leading from a coupling downstream of the cooling water pump had failed and the hose was off of the coupling.
Whew! I was glad this was causing the problem and not a thru hull failure. This is the second time this year a hose clamp on the generator has failed. I had inspected them all before and they all looked good. There were no rust stains on this broken clamp so I guess it just failed due to fatigue. The gen set is 8 years old and we have over 3500 hours of use on it.
We were both thankful this happened now instead of when we were spending 10 days on land tour. If it had happened then, I don't think Bruce, who was running our generator one hour a day for us while we were gone, would have realized the problem. The generator would have shut itself off after it started overheating but meanwhile the bilge would be getting fuller and fuller and our batteries would not have been charged and we may have lost our food in the freezer. We thanked our lucky stars this problem happened today.
Mary Margaret spent a hard hour cleaning our bathroom and shower. This is a thankless job and is so hot to do. However, her efforts were rewarded and the two rooms now sparkle.
I spent a short period of time adding ten gallons of diesel to each of the fuel tanks. Between running the generator each morning and all of the motoring we have done since leaving Crater Bay, we were down 20 gallons. We are topped off now and I still have 30 gallons left on deck. We hope to be sailing more once we get into the channel and start making our crossing to Africa.
We have lost our Internet now. The Sim card we purchased was only good for 30 days and that is how long we have been in Madagascar. I still cannot get a good SSB radio connection to the South African land station that is the SailMail station for this area. I had been told that it is not a very strong station and since we are only now 1350 nm away from it, I guess that information is correct. Fortunately, we have our Sat phone and we will be using that to get our emails and post our daily blog.
We plan on starting our cross tomorrow around 1100.