On Sat, 25 Apr 2015 11:29:53 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

wrote in message ...

On Thu, 23 Apr 2015 07:14:36 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

much deleted


One of the owners of the company I worked for in Indonesia bought a
Grand Banks and had so many raw water pump failures on the twin
Caterpillar engines that he bought two spares and kept them in the
engine room ready to bolt on when (not if) one failed.

We don't keep them in the ER, but they're readily accessible. In our case,
"failure" merely means a drip, so it's not a catastrophic failure.

Or, at least, I've never had a bearing fail on me; there's always a first
time!

The boat was about a year old when he bought it and had been owned by
an Indonesian millionaire who had, apparently, used it more as a
week-end resort than a boat as it had been tied up at the dock for
most of the period that the first owner had it. My boss bought it and
promptly set out on various "boating trips" and the problems began to
appear.

Anyway, they were on the way back from the extreme west end of Java
and one of the engines started to overheat and they found that the
impeller had disintegrated on the raw water pump. But not to worry
they still had the other engine and they carried on with the one
engine and about the time they got back into Jakarta harbor the other
engine started overheating.

At the time we were the single largest purchaser of Caterpillar spare
parts in the country so when I called CAT about our problems we got
immediate service. They checked everything and replaced to failed pump
and everything was wonderful, until the next weekend when the boss
decided on a trip to the Thousand Islands (a group of Islands sort of
North of Jakarta) when a raw water pump failed again and they came
back on one engine again.

So... Monday morning the Boss wants his boat fixed and I call CAT
again and explain that "we really need this fixed". This time they
changed all the water hoses to ones that used a screwed connection,
fitted screwed couplings on the pumps, supplied two spare pumps and
even offered to furnish the necessary wrenches to change the pumps :-)
They even sent one of their mechanics to the boat to teach the "Boat
Boy" how to change water pumps.

Fixed :-)


more deleted
a Frigoboat unit; we were VERY pleased with our system until it
catastrophically failed. I only wish our new system was even close (it eats
about double the amphours) to as efficient as our Frigoboat was.

The commercial versions were much nicer, but I'd still not be happy with all
that hanging under the boat, for lots of reasons, hot stack being the least
of them :{))

The amp hours our reefer eats is prodigious - up to an average of about 10
per hour, running our BD80-driven SeaFrost 3-evaporator-plate in low-80s air
and water. The only saving grace in this
working-just-fine-but-insanely-hungry system is that defrosting is a piece
of cake compared to the Frigoboat, considering that the plates are encased
in SS, with no bumpy spots to hold the ice, as was the case in the FB.


I had a small fridge on my last boat that had an air cooled
compressor. As far as "working", it did, never had a single problem
with it. But when the compressor was running it grew 10 amps and it
ran approximately half the time. Tied up in the marina, using shore
power was no problem but on a trip it did make for some rather careful
battery monitoring :-)

The circumnavigating friend I mentioned has a "cold plate" fridge and
he tells me that on a trip he usually runs the engine to freeze the
plate about an hour a day. But... I suspect that he probably only
opens the fridge door once a day.

L8R

Skip, wishing for more wind and sun, as we keep up with it if we have clear
skies and 15 knots...


Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
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- Dr. Samuel Johnson
--
Cheers,

Bruce