"rhys" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 18:53:34 GMT, "Roger Long"
wrote:


I told him the boat was from the Great Lakes and he said, "Oh, no
problem.
In that case, it's a great engine and should be almost as good as new.
You
should get 15 more years out of it easy."

That's about right, and a very good argument for freshwater cooling
via an exchanger. Even in lake water, it can't hurt to run clean
coolant instead of whatever you happen to be sailing in, which can
have goo, poo and/or mussels in it.

...as time progresses I'll need all the other points of view I
can handle! I can't always count on guys like Skip Gundlach being
online G.

Hey!

I resemble that remark. However, today is a good day for me to see this, as
I just winterized (in my case, draining the water out is all I have to do)
my ski boat, as we're headed into the teens this weekend.

The exhaust manifolds spewed water that looked just like the red mud bottom
of the lake. There's not enough circulation/volume, and it tends to
accumulate, so, there you have it. The water from the block and water pump
was totally clear...

You'll not likely find a freshwater cooled ski boat, and in any case, it was
the exhaust manifolds, but it sure illustrated the point!

FWIW, for the very few watching, Flying Pig is coming along agonizingly and
excruciatingly slowly and expensively. Everything expands once you get into
it, and only one project is anywhere near completion, and another, which
should have been finished over a month ago, is just now ready to proceed
smoothly, all the other hiccups (presumably) having been dealt with.

I'm accumulating pictures in the currently-about-15 project folders; once
any have finished, I'll put them up on the gallery and tell the story. At
this point I'm praying the critical ones (I'm sure the less-than-critical
likely won't be touched) will be finished in time for us to leave...

L8R

Skip and Lydia


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

You were lucky. The general guideline from the mechanics I know is that
it takes 30 seconds to start to destroy an impeller when run dry. There
are some impellers made from fancier materials that suposedly can
be run dry for a while, but they cost 3x or so more. I also suspect that
a new impeller can survive longer. I replace my impeller every
spring as part of my normal recommissioning to try to avoid any sort of
impeller failure. I also open the seacock once in the spring and then never
close it until fall unless I am leaving the boat unattended for a long
period
of time. So starting the engine with the seacock closes is not likely.

Doug
s/v CAllista

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 17:54:02 -0500, "Doug Dotson"
said:

The impeller will self-destruct way before any temperature alarm
sounds.

Not my experience, at least on my Yanmar. Had the engine heat up enough to
shut itself down once this summer before I noticed the temp light. Pulled
the impeller this fall--no damage.

There is no substitute for good
procedures that are followed.

So true. In this case I carefully followed my checklist on day 1, but
forgot
on day 2 that I had closed the sea cock the previous night.

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 17:54:02 -0500, "Doug Dotson"
wrote:

There is no substitute for good
procedures that are followed.


Doug, hard experience made me a convert to that philosophy. G

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 18:38:27 -0500, "Scott Vernon"
wrote:

the 'key on the seacock' thing is a good idea. My Yanmar doesn't have
a key, I look for the water out the exhaust.

Wow, you mean I can steal your boat by casting off and punching a
start button? G

If not a key on the seacock, then hang a GPS, your "sailing hat", a
pair of sunglasses, whatever. The idea is that you are persuaded to
check the seacock before you fire the engine, if, like me, you have
irregular visits and don't care to leave it open.

I close every seacock on the boat, by the way, excepting the cockpit
scuppers, which are pretty massively clamped at the hull ends.
R.

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 19:21:48 -0500, "Skip Gundlach" skipgundlach sez
use my name at earthlink dot fishcatcher (net) - with apologies for
the spamtrap wrote:


You'll not likely find a freshwater cooled ski boat, and in any case, it was
the exhaust manifolds, but it sure illustrated the point!

We winterize for real in Toronto, and part of that is putting a
T-connection after the pump but before the block. This T has a hose
fitting for a garden hose and you can flush the block with city
pressure straight out the back end. The first 15-20 seconds ain't
pretty, even in a clean lake. After that, you seal that T off and run
pink antifreeze via the raw water pump until it too flies out the
back. Then fog the carb, drain the fuel pump, spoon oil down the
cylinders...and as the guy who taught me this stuff says, you can
"sleep soundly as the February blizzards howl around your frozen
boat".

FWIW, for the very few watching, Flying Pig is coming along agonizingly and
excruciatingly slowly and expensively. Everything expands once you get into
it, and only one project is anywhere near completion, and another, which
should have been finished over a month ago, is just now ready to proceed
smoothly, all the other hiccups (presumably) having been dealt with.

This can't be news: the recreational boater's "rule of three" is in
full effect. Multiply all costs by three to achieve a predictable
tally, just as the word "marine" in front of a boat gear noun implies
the same multiple.

R.

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 14:14:52 -0500, rhys wrote:

We winterize for real in Toronto, and part of that is putting a
T-connection after the pump but before the block. This T has a hose
fitting for a garden hose and you can flush the block with city
pressure straight out the back end. The first 15-20 seconds ain't
pretty, even in a clean lake. After that, you seal that T off and run
pink antifreeze via the raw water pump until it too flies out the
back.

I have a big strainer basket mounted above the water line. Raw water
runs from the intake up to the strainer, then back down to the water
pump. As a result, I can take the top off the strainer and feed
whatever I want into the engine by pouring it into the strainer. On
haulout day I run the engine, keeping it warm until I'm in the haulout
slip, then close the seacock and pour the pink stuff into the
strainer. With the engine warm the thermostat is open enough to get
flow everywhere. Then I shut down the engine and pull the drain plugs,
confident that anything left in the system is unlikely to freeze.

The other advantage of the strainer is that it provides a very obvious
direct check point for water flow peeking up through the engine cover
in the companionway.

It may be something in the lubricity of the pink stuff, but I have had
no problems with impeller damage from modest amounts of dry running
around haulout and launch. Atomic 4 in this case.

Ryk

"rhys" wrote in message
...

the 'key on the seacock' thing is a good idea. My Yanmar doesn't
have
a key, I look for the water out the exhaust.

Wow, you mean I can steal your boat by casting off and punching a
start button? G


Yes. You could also steal it by sailing away.



If not a key on the seacock, then hang a GPS, your "sailing hat", a
pair of sunglasses, whatever. The idea is that you are persuaded to
check the seacock before you fire the engine, if, like me, you have
irregular visits and don't care to leave it open.

I close every seacock on the boat, by the way, excepting the cockpit
scuppers, which are pretty massively clamped at the hull ends.


I keep all mine closed too. After closing the engine seacock, I leave
the engine house cover off whch reminds me to open the seacock when I
return.


--
Scott Vernon
Plowville Pa _/)__/)_/)_

nice "catch" roger....

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 10:15:15 -0500, "Scott Vernon"
wrote:


Yes. You could also steal it by sailing away.

How did you know I can do that??? G



I keep all mine closed too. After closing the engine seacock, I leave
the engine house cover off whch reminds me to open the seacock when I
return.

Nice. Whatever works is good. Two boats sunk at dock in five years in
a 200-slip club here, one with a failed clamp at the head inlet, the
other with a failed hose at the raw water inlet. Both skippers got the
phone call: "dude, I think your boat's sinking..." Both could have
been prevented with closing the cocks when off the boat.

R.

Say, what about rigging a limit switch to the seacock lever and hooking it
up to a loud alarm that goes off if the starter is engaged?

--

Roger Long