One of my biggest concerns onboard is keeping our fuel supply clean. Biological growth in the fuel tanks will quickly wreak havoc on our engines. A small amount of water at the bottom of a fuel tank is a great environment for bugs to grow.  If they get established and proliferate they will clog fuel filters, plug fuel lines, and ruin the fuel pumps and injectors on the diesel engines that we depend on to provide water, electricity, refrigeration, and propulsion. 

I started my day by making a run in the small boat to try to purchase a small amount of commercial grade biocide for our diesel fuel tanks.  It was almost an hour each way to get to the marine company that supposedly had the biocide I was looking for.  When I got there, however, I discovered that the product they had was not a biocide, but a more general "fuel conditioner".

After I returned from my unfruitful small boat excursion we weighed anchor and headed to a marina to fuel up.  Hambell Point Marina was the type of large marina that I am familiar with in the US, different from the commercial docks and harbors that we have been staying in thus far on this trip.  There were plenty of glossy, shining boats decorating the harbor.  We got our fuel (and a non commercial grade biocide) and headed out into the Solent.

When we got far enough from land to make water with our desalinator I started the generator and got some fresh water flowing into our tanks. After about an hour, though the generator stopped and I went to investigate. It had shut down because of a lack of cooling water.  After first starting the smaller generator and getting the watermaker back online I went to work on the cooling water problem. 

It turned out that the impeller in the water pump that circulates cooling water had partially disintegrated.  The impeller is made of flexible rubber with vanes that bend to create the pumping action.  When the vanes get brittle and begin to come apart the pump will no longer move water effectively.  Without cooling water, the engine was shut down by a safety designed to prevent overheating.

I removed the old impeller and flushed the water lines of all of the little bits of old impeller before installing a new one and putting everything back together.  This whole process was made more difficult by the fact that it was rough out and the main engines were running, creating perfect conditions in the engine room for inducing seasickness.  I was thrilled when I turned the generator on after that job and cooling water blew out with the exhaust just as it should.  All in time for dinner, no less.

After dinner I got to enjoy the fresh sailing breeze and stars while doing some yoga and stretching on the quarterdeck, which was the only piece of dry deck on the boat due to the spray and waves.  That breeze kept picking up until we were sailing at 11 knots:  fast enough to overtake a small freighter that was headed in the same direction as us.  It was beautiful, exciting sailing speeding us toward the southern tip of England.
 

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