Boat Woes and Some Bright Spots

Severance now has a modern working toilet that doesn't have some of the woes that kept the last one from being the least bit endearing.

A small job (that of course turned into a major project)...but a big step forward!

And, we can now empty the holding tank (what the heck was a piece of glass doing in the macerator pump...hope some crew member doesn't have a lacerated intestinal tract!). Of course, France fully supports pump out stations and I actually saw one in the smallest marina we visited to date (which was of course later than I needed it).

That puts France one pump ahead of the Azores!

By the way, for the curious, it is true that the best marine head is a bucket...

As I write this, we are attempting to address a vexing drive line vibration problem that goes away after a period of time.

I lucked out and found an English speaking mechanic and the yard worked me into their schedule. We decided to tweak the angle of the strut to improve the alignment, the shaft was binding in the cutlass bearing. The alteration did allow the shaft to rotate much more freely,but the vibration problem was not solved, so we've ruled that out but have no idea what is causing the problem. I'm still convinced it is the transmission, but supposedly they work or don't and never cause vibration problems.

So, we plan to just live with the problem (it goes away after a bit of running and things warm up) until we find someone that can determine what the problem is.

I really did leave before a proper break in of many new things, but I did feel pretty good when another long term cruise told me you just need to leave and deal with things as you go. Many people never do push off and I'm really glad to be over here, even if the boat has some “A” list things I need to work out.

Anyway, enough about boat problems...we finally pulled things together and got out of Brest, so we're moving along (even though the boat is on the hard as I write this)!

-Scott