So last week I was house and dog sitting for friends and Nigel and I stayed at their house across the bridge in the next town over, about a fifteen minute drive from the marina. There was rain off and on, but I had a clear cockpit and a working bilge pump when I left and when I came by to check on it every other day or so.
Until I didn’t. It appears the cockpit drains clogged and the hatch to the engine in the floor of the cockpit flooded, dumping 50 gallons of water (189.27lt) into my living space, drowning the bilge pump and shorting out the power bars that spread the shore power across the boat.
I pumped the water out by hand, removed and threw away the carpet, cleaned and replaced the insulating mats and got part of the electrical system working again. My batteries appear to be shot, they are on a trickle charger and not charging up, so that’s an expense I can’t do anything about at the moment that is fairly important.
I don’t know if the bilge pump will work or not as the batteries are not holding a charge, but I’m hoping it’s actually ok now that it’s dried out a bit. I can’t test that until I get the batteries replaced. And I can’t do that financially until next month at the earliest and it needs to be done before then.
I have surgery on February 2nd, which means I won’t be able to lift or carry anything to or from the boat for about a month, and definitely not a pair of deep cycle marine batteries. So I need to fundraise for new batteries — I need $200 to get a pair at Costco.
That’s the cheapest place around and a match for what’s been in here, they run some $80 something each plus core charges and all that. I can get them in and out of the boat myself right now, but I won’t be able to do it until maybe March? depending on recovery time if I miss this window. There’s a lot of rain between now and March in coastal Oregon, to go that long without power for the bilge pump would be bad. Replacing the pump as well would be roughly another $80 at the local marine store — not finding them online for much less really.
Bank of Mum has already been hit for replacing the power bars and food from the fridge that went off for at least 2 days — it was defrosted — and she doesn’t have a battery budget available. So I’m in a bit of a bind here, and it’s dark. I have one lamp that runs off shore power in the cabin, all of the other lights are battery powered as well.
So if you have a bit to spare, I could use the help, my paypal is mortifyd at the gmail dot com I have a debit card for the account and can go to costco straight away ASAP before the end of the month. I’d really appreciate it.
Thanks,
Mort