Pentland Firth (again)

Swona and South Ronaldsay

We both felt refreshed this morning and a 1 pm departure felt good. Yesterday, I had put some putty and paint on Worm where some water still seemed to be getting in under the patch I had fitted in Scrabster.

We had all morning. It was time to work out why the starboard fuel tank wasn't being used. I tried loosening the pipe fitting by the tap but it was twisting the tap and I didn't want to break the tap joint to the tank so I left it alone. The next place to look was the T-piece joining the pipes from the two fuel tanks and feeding the fuel filter.

I turned both taps off and started to undo the nut on the starboard side. It came lose almost immediately. That was wrong! No fuel came out. I undid the other two nuts. They needed lots of turns.

Getting the T-piece free took a bit of pulling and pushing but I got it out.

The starboard side was dirty almost to the end of the thread. Looking more closely, the end of that thread was broken. I thought I had found the problem.

It can't have been put on correctly. Then air could get in and cause an air-lock, stopping the fuel flowing and the tanks equalising.

I held a carton under the pipe and Alison briefly turned on the tap. Diesel flowed!

I cleaned of the swarf where it must have been cross-threaded, and the grime in the threads and re-fitted the T-piece. I got all three nuts to turn the same amount. It looked good.

I turned on the port tank and started the engine. No leaks at the T-piece and the engine was running fine. I opened the starboard tap. OK so far. Now for the moment of truth. I closed the port tap.

The engine kept running! I left it that way for 5 minutes and there was no trouble. So I opened the port tap and left both tanks working and turned off the engine. With luck, we are back to normal.

There was one more thing before we left. I went to launch Worm and noticed the painter was almost worn through where it was tied to the transom.

I cut the bad bit off and sealed the end and put two bowlines on, if it wears again and breaks it should be caught by the second loop.

We had a lovely trip. There was only enough wind to purely sail now and then. Mostly it was motor sailing. But the weather was nice. There was enough shipping to make it a little stressful but we managed to keep out of the way of the big stuff.

We didn't expect a big ship to follow us into Scapa Flow. It went up to anchor near Orphir.

When we got into Scapa Flow, there was no wind and I went below to cook. We had some lovely haddock fillets given to us by some fishermen in Wick.

It was going well until suddenly the wind kicked in and the boat heeled. The cabbage that was steaming went flying and so did the frying pan I was putting onion and tomato and garlic into. Luckily, the potatoes stayed put in the pan holders. But we only have one pair.

Luckily again, the haddock was still in the bag, so I could slice another onion and more cabbage and carry on cooking. 

We got into Stromness about 11 pm.