In this episode of Sailing A B Sea we remove the black water holding tank as we get stuck into doing the dirty jobs. Owning a yacht is not all Unicorns, rain...

Closed Captions (CC):
We're following the rules!

We're practicing social distancing!

Later on in

this video we're going to include a

segment which explains what we need to

do online to be able to do this out here

And just a quick update on the covid

19 lockdown, you can only go out for

exercise, shopping, pharmacy items, medical

things, necessary bank that you can't do

online ... yep erm so yeah a complete lockdown

and I think that is in place until at

least April somewhere around the end of

April and my gut instinct tells me it's

probably gonna be extended for another

month after that - at least

but here at the boatyard

you know we're social distancing from

the people who are at the yard, we're

just getting on with our boat work we

have moved back on board A B Sea now which

is great and yeah things are just

ticking along I guess. You are allowed to

go for walks and we're very fortunate

that we've got the beach right outside

the boat yard

Every time we go for a

walk on the beach we pick up a little

bit of plastic pollution that's being

washed up on the shore just to do our

bit to help clean up the sea

While we're here I'd like to give a big

warm welcome to Sydney Harbour Marine

yep - Welcome aboard - Yes you're our latest

Patron and we really appreciate that

you've joined our family. Yeah. Let's get

on with some boat jobs hey? Okay.

And these involve a couple of shitty boat jobs. Oh yeah.

Aannsha's got a project that she's working on

forward which is the black water holding

tank which we think has got a leak so

she's gonna put a solution in there to

clean up any residual poo and then we

can get that tank cleaned out properly

and then we can remove it and then we

can find out whether - where the leak

is coming from or even if there is a leak

This is our black water holding

tank and it lives in the forward sail

locker. This has been custom-built to fit

this particular space. On top we have

three connections, one for pump out here

out to the deck fitting, one for poo

inlet here and one here as a breathing

pipe so we're going to disconnect all

three of these for now you're going to

leave the one on the bottom of the tank

connected at the moment and that will

allow Aannsha to put a cleaning solution

in through this hole here and we're

going to let that sit and do its thing

for a day or maybe two before we clean

out the tank properly.

Quite a bit of

rust on these hose clamps so we might

actually take this opportunity to change

them out

We can honestly say that this

is the shittiest job on the boat list isn't it?

We can say them yes. Actually I've got to

take out the outlet hose from the aft

head to decalcify that so that's another

shitty job. True

This is gonna be fun. One of the things

we ordered online was this flameless gas

torch it runs on cigarette lighter fuel

and it's got a little gauze bit there

so that the flame actually doesn't come

out of the end it just heats the gauze

up here and it provides ambient heat so

I'm gonna apply a bit of heat to these

pipes and hopefully that should make

them malleable enough to be able to

twist and pull off

Do it without igniting anything methane that might have built up inside the

God that wouldn't be fun would it? No

You're looking a bit sweaty there Baz

Yeah yeah I got one of the hoses off but

the other two are being pretty stubborn

I've actually used this little flameless

gas torch to try and heat up the pipes

and hoses but it's just not working I'm

not getting enough leverage so what I'm

going to do is this piece here will just

split the pipe here and at the other end

and take it off and give it a

replacement. This one here I don't know

I'm not sure what we're gonna do here

but if we can get this one off that's a

start, we've already got this off so. Okay

Well the upshot is that we've now

got all three hoses detached from the

top of the black water holding tank. This

particular piece I had to cut loose with

a knife to split the ends because it

just was not gonna budge but it's a

short piece of pipe and what I'll do is

I'll get a replacement for it. I also might

get it made a little bit longer because

as you can see it's got a kink here

where it attaches to the top of the tank

so if I get it a little bit longer

it shouldn't kink so much. I know a kink's not that important in the overall scheme of things but I just

like things to be nice and neat. So now

Aannsha can go ahead and put her cleaning

disludging (magic potion) solution in there and

we'll let that sit for 24 maybe 48 hours

before we empty that out and then we've

got one more hose to remove at the

bottom of the tank and then we can lift

the tank out and inspect the tank

and find out if it's leaking or not

well we'll see if it's leaking once I

start putting water in it won't we? This is

true this is true

Just an update upon these gaskets that

were the wrong ones sent from Athens

luckily Juliano at the workshop has

managed to just slightly alter the size

of these holes and has made them fit so

they do actually both fit now just like

that.

He's a bit of a legend Juliano isn't he? He is

he's good at what he does.

That of course means that we can put one of these on

when we finally get the unit attached to

the engine, keep one as a spare and

do have the old one as a backup spare

Right now though it's time to head over

to the boat to do more jobs and I think

job number one on the list today is

removal of the blackwater holding tank,

that should be under fun

Yaaaaaay.

And for people who want to come to the sea on

holiday but aren't able to at the moment

I've been making little rock pools in

shells with the beautiful coloured

pebbles from the beach just over here

They'll be great to put on your desk

or on your table at home

What's happening?

Back in the forward sail locker and today we are

removing the nuts that are holding the

holding tank against the bulkhead and

we're hoping that once we got the

holding tank loose it might be easier to

use the weight of the holding tank to

shuffle it off the final hose that's on

the bottom

We've already undone the hose clamps

so we'll see how that goes as a plan

We've now removed the black water holding tank

and lowered it over the side. There are a

couple of seams on it that look a bit

rusty and we're going to get that into

the workshop and ask the guys to see

what they can do about replacing or

repairing those sections.

Next thing to

do is to remove these wooden bits of

flooring so that we can get access to

the hull itself and that will allow a

thorough cleaning of this area and we'll

also while we're in here hopefully try

and have a look at the bow thruster mechanism

Ew. This is the top of the

tank, bottom of the tank, we've obviously

got some sort of rusted through

situation going on here as you can see

from these stains running down, there's

definitely a rusted section here at this

seam and probably also at both of these

two bits as well, so more than likely

what we'll get the guys to do is to just

cut a half centimetre off the bottom of

the tank and reweld a new bottom plate

onto the tank. It'll make it

ever so slightly less capacity but we're talking miniscule.

I mean, it's already a small

tank anyway isn't it? Yeah

Okay, so I'm going to walk this over to the workshop

Woah. Aahh. What? We need to clean it up first

No. That's the whole point, they're guys they'll

go, oh I can see we've got rust here, I

can see we've got rust here, I mean you

know the poo factor. No! Okay, okay!

That's what it looks like. Alright!

It helps them identify problems.

Right. Do you want to take them some

plastic gloves? I'm sure they've got

plastic gloves. Okay.

I've just dropped the

holding tank off at the boatyard

workshop. Now the guy who knows

everything about stainless steel - or inox - on site is Manolis, unfortunately

he's a little sick at the moment

hopefully it's just winter cold

They reckon he could be back at work in

a couple of days so when he arrives back

at the workshop I'll go talk to him

about our options for fixing the holding

tank. That saga continues

With Greece being in full lockdown the Greek

government have put this website

together and it is in both Greek and

English so that's quite helpful for all

of us people who are stuck on our boats

and basically you need a permission or

you need to notify them that you're

going outdoors. The things that are

allowed are travel to and from work, going

to the pharmacy or doctor, going to the

supermarket if delivery is not possible

going to a bank if transactions can't be

done online, going to assist someone in

need, attending its ceremony, funeral,

wedding or christening, and those are

reduced numbers - I'm not sure the exact

numbers but there's reduced numbers of

people allowed to do those group

activities, exercising outdoors or

walking your pet. So for us the main

thing is obviously point three here

which is going to the supermarket. So

you've got various ways of doing this

you can send an SMS text from your phone

there'll be an auto text comes back that

basically lets you know that you can go

out and do whatever activity you want to

do and if you get stopped by the police

you just show them the SMS text and it's

all good. So you would fill out your text

like this... I did try this on my phone but

unfortunately the text didn't

so that's something else I've got to

look into. So moving on from that we can

print out and fill in the permit so

they've got the options of PDF or a

Microsoft Word document and I didn't

want to do that because our printer ink is

nearly out so I'm saving that for a

rainy day

We went for this option here the

handwritten note, so basically they just

want your full name, your home address

the reason for moving using the above

permitted categories and a date and a

time and a signature and to make it

easy we also used Google Translate to

translate that into Greek. Now just be

aware that you must type the web address

in like this because if you try and do

www. forma.gov.gr then it comes up as

unknown, so it has to be HTTPS

I will put a link of this address in the

description of this video if you need it

through your use.

We're just about to

order our anti foul paint and obviously

before we apply the paint we've got to

seal up this gap between the hull and

the keel. If I zoom in here you can see

we do have a bit of a gap here so we

need something that obviously we can

squeeze into there and I'd like

something with a little bit of

elasticity to it and obviously it's got

to be usable underwater so if you know

what we can use let me know in the

comments down below and we'll order that

in at the same time as we order in the

anti foul paint

In another part of the

yard this is a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 43 and

they've got a nice seal here, no breaks

or gaps and if I just press that with my

fingertip I can feel it's got a bit of

give to it so we'd like something very

similar to seal the gap between our hull

and keel. Let us know what you recommend

I've just been told by Evangelis that

Manolis is in the workshop today so

we're heading over there now

Manolis is of course the expert in

stainless steel in the yard and Manolis

actually built his own helicopter and

flew it in his younger years so that's

how much he knows about stuff

So this is Manolis, he is the

stainless-steel expert

What follows is part Greek, English and German and lots of sign language and we muddled through...

So there's a problem here yes. This is a problem too yes

With here it is it possible to cut here

and here and make make new this bit here?

Because we see we can see here and here

there are more leaks gonna happen so if

we cut off this section here all the way

around take this away? And make

a new piece to go on here

This is no good for cutting this metal

Aloniatis is the name

If you go in Chalkida

Well that wasn't the news I was hoping

for, they don't have the correct cutting

tool in the workshop for that kind of

metak. There is a place in Chalkida which

is approximately an hour and a half's

drive south from here. They are open even

though most places in Greece are closed

so when Harris next has a load of fish

from his fishing trip to send down there

I'm going to go down there with

Evangelis with the fish and the

stainless-steel tank, see what they

recommend. It might even be that we have

a brand new on built. So let's wait and

see on that one.

Yesterday evening I took

a five hour round trip down south to Chalkida

and the reason we were going was

because we wanted to have someone have a

look at this holding tank of ours. It had

over time developed a few little leaks

and Aannsha did some research on

and the general consensus is definitely

agreeing that once you get a little rust

on the on the seam the welded seams then

you know basically you're gonna get a

lot more. We've just cleaned the front

end of the boat and we didn't want to

put a leaking one in for when we go over

to Turkey

so we had to get some sort of repairs

done as a temporary measure. We will

probably get this rebuilt or replaced

when we do get to Turkey because it

obviously it's more cost-effective to do

that sort of work there but the guys

down in Chalkida did a great job. We just

rocked up and right away someone was on

it even though they was busy with a lot

of other jobs and about I don't know 45

minutes after he'd had a look at it he

welded many many places and the big leak

down here, he's actually welded on a new

piece of stainless steel so that's that

was a big leak there and he's basically

just gone around everywhere and just

welded those bits and pieces. The total

cost was just 30 euros, so that's a job

well done from those guys down there

Thank you very much for that, we now can

put this back into the forward sail

locker and reattach all the hoses

Pleased

We've got plenty more boat jobs

lined up waiting to show you in future

episodes of Sailing A B Sea so stay tuned

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