A Less Well Known Aspect of Cruising

A slow passage between Barbate and Cadiz and Audrey reported that the heads was not pumping out. It was of course more than happy to pump water in. We have a spares set for it and it quickly became clear that we would have to remove the entire thing before being able to work on it. Matthew and I got it out and I donned some heavy duty marigolds and started undoing screws. The first bit was to take the inlet assembly off the back of the diaphragm pump. Next I gingerly undid the six bolts holding the diaphragm assembly. We had taken some care to get all the water out of it but the inside of this was of course full of scale and decades of use – I will say no more! Each part was then washed in sea and then fresh water. We decided to replace all the spare bits we had. There are numerous springs to push flap valves and such like into the correct positions and it transpired that the inlet spring was indeed broken. I think that this was what had caused the initial problem.

Matthew captured the moment with one of the more disgusting bits of the contraption.


We did however find that our initial fiddling had sheared off the nylon nut which held the main pump spring assembly in which was why it was not pumping at all. Of course, the spares kit did not include this nut. We visited a Ferreteria who sold us the smallest screws they had along with some epoxy glue. We returned to the boat with trepidation and a determination to search for the smallest drill bit we had.

Matthew did some heroic work with the cordless drill and we got the two broken bits of the nut back together. We did use liberal doses of the epoxy but it refused to adhere to the nut at all. The instructions (in Spanish and Portuguese) said it would not work with polyethelene and I suspect that the nut was made of something like this. The important bit was that the screw was holding it all together. With some trepidation, we put all the bits back together and rebolted the whole thing down and reconnected the pipes. Disaster – the bronze plunger to which you need to attach the flushing/pump handle had it's hole at completely the wrong angle.

I was once again given in a lesson in how much practise makes perfect. I had the whole thing off and disassembled in fifteen minutes this time. Thankfully, a quick reversal of the actuator arm and all was well once it was reinstalled. What was more, water would pump out even if it didn't seem to want to pump in. I then disconnected the inlet hose and primed it and all was well! I think that the original problem was the spring on the inlet valve which was not opening or closing a bit of it. It must also have been weak for a while as it is now much more enthusiastic about pumping water both in and out of the bowl.

It is hard to describe the feelings through this whole adventure. Not having a working toilet on a boat is terrible even though you only use it at sea or when at anchor and even then, the waste goes into a holding tank only to be pumped out when out at sea. Peeing in a bucket may have been OK for Nelson's navy but it is definitely not OK for us. However, marine toilets are potentially disgusting things and have all sorts of reservoirs that are not found on land based toilets, thus any maintenance work is a horrible affair and is put off as much as possible until it goes very wrong. We hope not to have to do such a thing for the rest of the cruise!