Exhausting

Our engine exhaust passes through the hot water tank....very nifty arrangement that provides plenty of hot water when traveling. The original system revealed its flaw on a particularly quiet and beautiful part of  the Hudson River. That is the whole point of a shake down cruise, of course!

On a lovely sunny autumn day in 1982, we were suddenly engulfed in  an alarming great cloud steam as a small private yacht club came in sight. The sight of a dock at just this moment was miraculous. It was extra good fortune that the  people on the dock were so helpful.

After the adventure of billowing  in and having our lines taken, it turned out that  heat from the exhaust had entirely boiled off our hot water! The Poughkeepsie Yacht Club helped us get to the nearby town of Rhinebeck for parts, and let us stay on their dock while John devised a sensor and cooling pump system to solve the problem. They also encouraged us to visit the nearby  Roosevelt home in Hyde Park  (I had just started reading Eleanor Roosevelt's autobiography, so that visit  was another unexpected gift )

John has simplified the system for this refit- 1) by realizing that the engine had double and unnecessary cooling, 2) by building extra keel-cooling tanks,3) by designing a muffler, and 4), by re-routing the entire affair. In my previous post I showed the work-of-art-muffler...these are stainless steel pipe and flanges created on the home lathe this very afternoon.