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February 6, 2007

Watermaker Failure #2!

LOCATION: Arabian Sea Crossing
Day: 6
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:18°45344
Latitude: E: 068°29456
Miles from Mumbai: 270
Miles to Djibouti: 1,530

Disaster struck late yesterday afternoon in the form of the handle on the primary backup watermaker shearing off. So we're now down to just 20 gallons of emergency drinking water (enough to last us 15 days if we're very careful) and the emergency watermaker normally reserved for the liferafts. This small unit, although much slower at producing freshwater than the other two units, is still worth something - it kept Steve and I alive for 45 odd days pedaling between San Francisco and Hawaii back in 1999 after the primary watermaker failed (as this one now has - again!). Plus we can call on passing ships if we get really low, and in around 20-days we can stop in at one of the ports along the Yemen coast and resupply if need be.

One this occasion the blame rests squarely with my own supreme stupidity. I need to digress a little to explain what happened...

Being Indian, Sher asks a lot of questions. And being Sher, he asks a whole host of other questions that most people wouldn't even dream of asking. That's why we nicknamed him 'Special Branch' back when we first met him in 1999 in California. Like the London police special investigation division he's never satisfiied until he's reached the bottom of a case.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon Sher was interrogating me on something utterly banal like why the sky is blue while pumping on the watermaker. And being already late in what turned out to be an especially hot day, with zero ventilation to the pedal seat area, my brain was fried and I had had enough of his incessant curiosity. But he had one more for me.

"So is the plastic end of this watermaker - is it important?"

The sudden change of tact in his questioning and seeming unrelatedness to anything that we'd been discussing previously was the last straw. Without even looking up from my book I uttered a dissinterested grunt and something to that effect that no, it was just cosmetic.

Five seconds and a couple more pumps on the handle later and there was a sickening crack, and Sher turned to face me with the handle very much dislocated from the main unit. It appeared that the ropes locking the unit to the side of the boat had been secured too tightly and the plastic mould holding the pump handle had split in two. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear!!!!

If a hole had opened up in the middle of the boat right there and then I would have gladly jumped into it. I felt like such an idiot.

The first thing to do of course was to come up with a plan. Poor Sher has had his fair share of mishaps on this voyage already and the last thing he needed was to completely lose all confidence in the skipper. So at the time of writing we're sawing up one of the dinner plates to make some supporting strips to bind the watermaker back together again. There have been some pretty bodgy jobs done on this boat over the years but this one will probably top the list. And if it works I'll dance the Fandango in my birthday suit.

jason

Posted on February 6, 2007 1:19 PM

Comments

i really hope the watermaker hack works: i'm looking forward to the fandango video. ;) seriously, though, i can't believe what rotten luck you've had with those things!

sher: stay curious! i, too, get a lot of flack for asking so many questions. :)

Posted by: gl. [TypeKey Profile Page] at February 6, 2007 6:19 PM