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Mojeka - Mojeka – Transatlantic Day 4



15:33 UTC Saturday Nov. 21, 2015
Position: 157.770025N, 32.916832W

THIS IS WHAT IT MUST BE LIKE ON MARS!

We are currently qualifying for the next Mars mission where they leave you behind and you have to be super creative to survive.

Of course I am talking about the watermaker which worked for about 4 hours last night and then packed up again. Same symptoms: stuck pistons in the "Rooibos generator” and the need to take it apart to get the pistons unstuck.

2 lessons learnt today: 
1: the more often you take a complex machine apart, the faster you get. 
2: the pistons are stuck because there is an extremely high pressure in the cylinders. Once the water in them is evacuated they move easily.

the last observation (in conjunction with some very constructive French input) finally got it clear in my head what is happening here.
Before starting up, the system is flushed at low pressure with sea water to clean it and it is flushed again upon stopping operations to relieve high pressure in the Rooibos generator so that the pistons do not get stuck “in an aukward position”.
This normally happens automatically by the watermaker opening and closing an electric valve.

That valve was broken in the brand new unit when it was first commissioned in Mallorca. Since everything was running late the tech was given a Saturday to get the system going. When he found out that the electric valve was broken he replaced it with a manual one not being able to get the real thing on a weekend. Big deal, we can open and close it manually when we start up the system and again when we shut it down.
HOWEVER, WE CANNOT OPERATE IT MANUALLY WHEN THE SYSTEM SHUTS ITSELF OFF FOR SOME REASON OR OTHER.

And that is what happened twice. Maybe it got some dirt into the system, or it was not getting enough salt out of the seawater and was unhappy about the product quality or maybe it was simply tired after 4 hours of work in the middle of the night – whatever the reason, it shut down…. trying to turn the electric valve to relieve itself, but there was none. And to make matters worse we weren’t around to do it manually for it. So it had to shut down with all that big pressure inside, no wonder it got itself hopelessly stuck. Which means we were stuck and found ourwselves sitting here wondering why no one installed a replacement electric valve in Las Palmas.

The solution we cooked up is truly martian: We now have a Mac computer next to the watermaker (held by duct tape –  works not only on Mars, works at sea as well). That computer has its ears (microphone) open and transmits what it hears by bluetooth to my bluetooth earphone receiver. We then attached a cord to the manual lever with the other end in the cockpit so that we can pull on it and open the flush valve without having to climb into “the cave”.
So while I am writing this (on another Mac) I have an earpiece in my left ear playing the rhythmic hum of the watermaker (I never liked opera anyway). If that should falter, trying to shut itself off, I am ready to jump up and quickly pull on the cord and relieve the pressure in the system system before it gets stuck again!!!

This method has made us so productive that everybody is having a shower now and we actually washed the dishes in hot fresh water. And the water tank is almost full! 

Mark Whatney would have come up with a sexier solution, but then he had Hydrazine which we don’t (you have no idea how many important things are missing on this boat!).

What else? 
George is getting desperate and is now trailing rubber gloves (!) with hooks on a big rod (in case there are any Tuna out there wanting to do the dishes)
Monique has fully adapted to life on a roll.
Weather is stable, wind has shifted slightly so we are back on a westerly course. Wind seems to drop a bit, Gennaker is going up this minute.
Dinner: Skippers roast with Le Grendel Cabernet Sauvignon while sailing under Gennaker into the sunset…..

until tomorrow

Klaus






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