Ready for the off – almost!

The repaired heat-exchanger

Sunday 07 February 2016

41:39.14S 073:03.62W - Marina Costa de Huelmo

We eventually got the heat-exchanger back from the shop on Wednesday; not exactly as good as new but I wasn’t going to let them keep it any longer. They had welded up and machined the corroded area but with insufficient weld so the rubber O-rings sealing the ends of the tube stack were not working. I sealed it all up with rubber gasket compound and let is set over-night.

I don’t have time for taking and/or posting more photos right now but the repair is inside the right hand end of the exchanger as it is shown in the photo above. A tricky bit of MIG welding.

A test run on Friday showed no leaks so we’ll call it a good enough job and leave.

We are now preparing for sea. I spent yesterday filtering and treating water before putting it into the tanks as the supply here is full of bits of forest. Somewhat optimistically I also made a big fish gaff. Paula was cleaning and stowing the boat. Today we have a few more things to stow and tomorrow we’ll do the final fresh food shopping.

We hope to leave here, Huelmo, on Tuesday provided the paper work part of the departure goes smoothly.