BASEMENT (CELLAR) SUMP PUMP (not pictured)

Many offshore boats are fitted with some kind of high capacity emergency bilge pump, sometimes known as crash pumps. We have long considered one for “Morgan’s Cloud” but have shied away because we don’t like cluttering up the main engine with belted devices and we have yet to find a pump that is compact enough to fit, will run dry—in a flooding situation we would not have time to monitor the pump and shut it down the minute it sucks dry—and handle the kind of trash that will almost inevitably be floating around in a badly flooding boat.

I think we have found the answer on “Polaris”: She is equipped with two 220 volt (also available in 110 volt) high capacity household sump pumps that will move a huge amount of water and munch up just about anything thrown at them. These pumps are readily available, relatively cheap, can be placed wherever needed (even to help another boat) and be powered by our generator or inverter. Of course we would have to be very careful with such voltages around water. Also, if the generator and inverter get flooded, we would be back to our massive Edson manual pump, but then the same is true of engine driven pumps.

COMPACT and CONVENIENT FIRE BLANKET

Fire blankets are a great idea, particularly to smother a grease flare-up in the galley without the mess of a dry powder extinguisher, and we have long carried one on “Morgan’s Cloud”. However, ours is bulky and ugly so it has gotten relegated to a locker up forward, much reducing its effectiveness in a fire where speed of response is of the essence. The small use-one-time-only blanket pictured seems like a nice solution. Unfortunately there is no maker’s name on it but we will look around for something like it to mount near the galley on our boat.

How come you can never find a taxi when you need one? And yes, that pulk with 90 lb of gear on it had to go up through the pass in the background. Lucky that there was a younger woman around to push from behind, otherwise I never would have made it.

 As I write, there are cries of joy from the bathroom in our hotel room at Aasiaat as Phyllis has her first shower in a month.

Colin Speedie’s truly lyrical post on the joys of his and Louise’s cruising in 2009, “It Was a Very Good Year”, inspired me to think back on our year on “Morgan’s Cloud”. This was a particularly good exercise for me, because in my mind 2009 had become dominated by the administrative and bureaucratic challenges—neither of which I am terribly patient with (they made me do a driving test, for crying out loud)—of moving our residence from Bermuda to Canada and the frustration associated with the slow and premature demise of “Morgan’s Cloud’s” engine.

As I read of Colin and Louise’s year, our own wonderful experiences in 2009 came flooding back: The start of the year enjoying the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas, made even better by the visits of friends from Norway, Maine, Nova Scotia and Bermuda. Two days out from Beaufort, North Carolina, bound for Bermuda, broad reaching in a gentle breeze with the spinnaker up and dolphins playing around the bow. A foggy cold night crossing the gulf of Maine on close reach dodging fishing boats on radar, reefing and un-reefing, at the end of a difficult passage back from Bermuda, with that special feeling of accomplishment that you get when boat and crew rise to a challenge. The last sail of the season, a booming cold reach across the Bay of Fundy with the tide under us; 100 miles, wharf to wharf in 12 hours—go, girl, go. The time we spent with friends in Bermuda, Maine and Nova Scotia. And, this magic experience here in Greenland on “Polaris”. You’re right, Colin, it was a very good year.

The new one started off pretty good too, with 3” of snow last night, which has gone a long way to cover the bare patches left by two days of thaw.

Happy New Year to all.

“Polaris” is fitted with a diesel day-tank that’s installed so the bottom of the tank is higher than the intake on the main engine and Refleks heater. (The Webasto heaters require a combined metering and lift pump, so their position, relative to the tank, is not an issue.) There are several advantages to this system:

1).        Finding an air leak in the fuel intake line to a diesel engine, which will quickly stop the engine, can be one of the most frustrating tasks known to man or woman. That whole problem goes away with a day-tank like this one since the fuel system is under slight pressure from gravity making a leak both less likely—pressure tends to seal fittings and gaskets, vacuum has the opposite effect—and obvious if one does occur.

2).        Fuel plumbing is simplified since a boat like “Polaris”, with four separate diesel tanks and without a day-tank, would need a feed and return (where required) line for each diesel burning device on the boat to each tank—a plumbing nightmare. On “Morgan’s Cloud” we have two tanks and three user devices, together with a fuel polish system, which results in a fuel valve system that looks as if it should require a nuclear plant operator’s license.

3).        Changing filters on the engine is easier since they will automatically fill by gravity and priming the engine will be easier too. (On “Morgan’s Cloud” we have a small electric fuel pump in the system that provides the same benefit without a day-tank.)

4).        The day-tank can be more easily cleaned, and water as well as sludge more easily drained from the bottom, than the main tanks.

5).        Since the fuel is filtered when being pumped from the main tanks to the day-tank and then again as it goes out to the user devices, a polish system is not really required, particularly when you take into account point four above.

6).        It is much easier to measure and monitor the fuel consumption of each device using a day-tank. For example, we are filling in a log of the fuel used by the heater each day. Something you kind of want to keep track of in a place like this.

Hutting, builder of “Polaris”, has done an installation job on the day-tank that is, like all the systems on the boat, a work of art.

The front of the day-tank (just above the twin filters) is what you are looking at in the photo. (The smaller black tank in the left middle ground is the engine cooling header tank and nothing to do with the fuel system.)  The blue pump on the upper left fills the tank from whichever main tank is selected on a separate manifold (not shown) when the black button on the control box to the right is pressed. The pump also starts automatically if the day-tank reaches half empty. The red button stops the pump, which also stops automatically when the tank is full. There is also a manual pump (green) in case the electric one fails. Under the tank there is a deep drip pan to catch the inevitable spills that will occur when the tank is being cleaned or worked on. There is also a simple sight-glass gauge that Michael (owner of “Polaris”) has accurately calibrated.

Drawbacks to the system—there are always drawbacks since everything on a boat is a compromise—are the substantial amount of valuable space used by the day-tank and related plumbing, and the chance of running the engine dry if the automatic refill system fails or overflowing out the vent if the automatic stop fails.

On balance, we would say that a day-tank makes a lot of sense.

In these days of readily available weather forecasts and satellite- or HF radio-delivered GRIB files, it could perhaps be argued that the barometer has been supplanted as a weather forecasting device. However, in our opinion, that supposition would be a serious mistake. On “Morgan’s Cloud” we record the barometric pressure at least twice a watch and have found that information invaluable, particularly for assessing whether the weather is actually developing as forecast, or diverging from the models.

“Polaris” has a beautifully implemented digital barograph from Bonlken Westerland that records and graphs the pressure for the last 48 hours and also reads out the change in the last one and three hours. A very neat feature is that the machine beeps if the pressure drops more than 1mb/hour; usually an indicator that something nasty is imminent. Unfortunately, it does not warn you of an equally fast pressure increase, which it should. (For example, when we had 50-plus knot gusts the other night, it was the result of a 13mb jump in pressure in just three hours.) Our only other criticism is that there does not seem to be a way to silence the alarm, which sounds every few minutes as long as the drop continues. Not only does this add to the inevitable anxiety that such a drop engenders, it could also keep the watch below awake at the very time they should be getting as much rest as they can.