February 12 2014
You’ve seen this image before. It’s the water pump. It sucks in salty sea water from a hole in the bottom of the boat, spins a rubber wheel called an impeller which kicks it (“pumps” it) out the higher left-sided hose and into a ‘heat exchanger’. Then the cold salty sea water exchanges it’s cold temperature against nice clean fresh water which goes from hot (circulating through the engine) to cold (from this sea water), then back into the engine to become hot again. After that the salt water gets spat out the back of the boat back into the ocean.
Salt water ruins everything. You can see from the corrosion around the piece and the bolts behind it. This is why the heat exchanger just steals the coolness for it’s fresh water, so salt water doesn’t ruin more stuff inside the engine.
Anyways, the bolts are so corroded that the mechanics spent a few hours cranking them and only got one off. The other 4 will require more hours of work tomorrow, and a BLOW TORCH.
This was not good news.