workday 6. there are holes in a boat that either let water in or let water out. each hole has a thru hull bronze fitting which attaches to a shut off valve, called a seacock, inside the boat which attaches to a hose that goes to various systems. some boats have 2 or 3. our boat has 21 and we are replacing them all. the engine cooling system, the sink drains, the discharge drains, the a.c. cooling, the fridge cooling, and the deck drains and some others. they were all a mess and most of them were inoperative. that's really dangerous. if a hose fails you have to be able to shut the valve. valves that won't shut are one the major causes of boats sinking.

we got most of them done today. it took 10 hrs and alot of yelling and grunting. i can't hear john from inside the boat and these things are hard to get in and tighten up. several of the seacocks inside the boat are way way back behind and under things like the lower cabinets in the kitchen galley. we (i) had to squeeze myself like gumby into some very tight little places and then pretzal twist my arms around in knots in order to be able to grab onto hoses and pull them through the backs of the walls so we could reattach them to the valves. alot of grunting and bruising was going on but overall a very productive day.