Successful Head Repair for Blue Water Sailboats

My blue water sailboat is a  1980’s cruiser but her head is less than one year old. Yet, a few minutes after pumping, “stuff” fills back in the bowel.  This repulsive issue could intensify if witnessed by paying customers.  Fortunately, there is a simple answer.  Most cruising sailboats have heads that use a joker valve to prevent back flow.  Joker valves are typically soft rubber valves the size of an espresso cup.  They wear-out annually (most likely by design) and while only $13, Joker valves help keep marine stores in business. 

Jabsco, owned by Xylem, makes the heads found on most American blue water sailboats.  However, the Joker valve is ubiquitous across manufactures.  The following list provides all you need to solve this problem plus some advice from recent experience.

1. Watch this Jabsco video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqYkXa5AWe8  Note: The factory supplied screws are self tapping so when refastening, be sure to patiently spin the screws gently till the original threads catch, otherwise you carve new threads that will fail. 
2. Clean the area.  You’ll likely be positioning your face and hands in some badly forsaken places.   Also pump fresh, clean water through your entire head system.  This provides peace of mind during this otherwise messy task.  
3. Use a portable hand held bilge pump to empty the bowel.  Keep pumping until it stops refilling.  If the water looks dirty revisit line two.
4. The video displays  a brand new head, on a table, bright lighting, and ample work space.  Your blue water sailboat's head is probably wedged tightly between dimly lit bulkheads. This is why man invented the socket wrench. I recommend replacing the factory’s screws with identical brethren, except with socket heads.  Please note: Jabsco doesn’t provide “socket screws” because it’s very easy to over tighten- indicated  by the sound of crunching, cracking, plastic followed by swearing.  Be very gentile and remember you are working with fragile imported plastic. 
5. Lastly head lube keeps the pump working like new.  I’m hopeful it also  delays indefinitely the otherwise inevitable rebuild.

I hope this article helps keep your repair quick, hands clean and a head clear for sailing.

Wild Departures

This spring’s been busy with sailing charters.  I love this work, this time of year.  The wind, temperature, tides, even the dolphins cooperate.  I especially enjoy the people appreciating the area, the boat, and sailing. 

When busy, my boat handling skills improve.  It’s cyclical-- Successful dockings, impressed customers, improved confidence, more experience, more skills etc. But every market self corrects.

My wife and I went for an after work, dinner sail.  The tide runs parallel to the dock and was coming in.  My bow was pointed out and the wind was blowing us off the dock-- circumstances for easy departure.  The wind however was unusually strong and angled such that the boat was practically sailing at dock.  The sailboat slid forward on gusts and the tide carried her back in the lulls.  I only have 5 feet fore and aft before I hitting expensive neighbors. 

My hastily drafted theory/experiment was to keep both the stern and aft spring lines attached.   This will keep the blue water cruiser steady while I release the bow.

I could have asked my wife for help.  I could have brought the stern in closer.  I could have used a mid-ships cleat.  We could have eaten at dock.  I could have done many things.  But I am a charter captain with sharp skills, confidence, and a soon to be deflated ego.

I untied the bow, jogged back, untied the stern line, through it aboard, and noticed, the current was loosing to the wind.  The boat didn’t drift back onto the aft spring line, which would have swung stern toward the dock (Making it easy to board).  Instead, the entire boat was simply sliding away from the dock.  I grabbed the aft spring and tried to pull the stern in.  This only spun the  bow, now broadside to the current, further down stream.  The boat was perpendicular to the dock.  I held the aft spring which served as a piviot while all 25000 lbs of blue water cruiser drifted (fast) towards the boat neighbor.

I yelled Vivi give me shot in reverse!  Normally this request is accompanied with hand signals signifying which way to pull/push the transmission.  Without the hand signal, we have about  a 50% chance that she’d remember “reverse is up.”

  She leaped into position and thankfully her mental coin landed up as she pulled on the transmission and matched my urgent tone with assertive throttle. The boat responded, I coyboy’d on to the Wind vane self-steering.  As she returned to neutral. I quickly pulled the dock line out of the water.  The bow swung past 90 degrees to the dock and my neighbor stern was two feet away.  “Now a shot in forward, HARD!”  At full throttle, the only thing that collided was exhaust smoke which plastered my neighbor.  Our sterns cleared by only a few inches. 

Yahhh Hooo.  I climbed aboard - more lucky than good but exhilarated, humbled, and slightly wiser for next time.