Seawater Strainer

General
1

Hi,
I wasn’t going to post this because, I’m embarrassed to have been this stupid, but here goes…

Background - This is my 3rd season with Soave. I pay the boatyard ( where Soave winters) to winterize Soave’s engine because it’s an easy box to check on the form and doesn’t cost much. Soave’s raw water flow has always been good. Her sea strainer is on the starboard side beyond her hot water tank ( hard to get to.).

I 'm not sure why, but assumed that winterization included checking for debris in the sea strainer. Bad assumption.

After the Rendezvous and seeing a number of boats experience cooling issues, I decided to check Soave’s raw water strainer. I checked, just for grins, since flow is good and weeds are not a problem in the area we sail. It is something I knew I hadn’t personally verified, and I didn’t expect to find a problem.

When I checked the strainer I discovered the basket was missing !

At some point, either prior to my purchasing, or perhaps as part of the annual winterization someone forgot to put the basket back in. Now that I know, I’ll replace the strainer and clean out the heat exchanger, replace the impeller, and do an extra thorough flush of the system.

The reason for posting is ; I was one of the approximately 50% of owners at the Rendezvous that have owned their boats for less than five years. Sea strainer is on the checklist posted on the INA website… I used the checklist, but I skipped the sea strainer because it is in the winterization section. Hopefully I’m the only new owner that was a little overwhelmed in their first couple years of ownership and paid others to take care of things I should have personally verified.

Fingers crossed I don’t have an crud stuck where I can’t get to lodged in Soave’s cooling system.

Moral of the story, new owners ought to ( I wish I had) lay eye’s on every inch of your boat to be confident that it is indeed seaworthy.

On Soave I’ve found numerous things that are easy to fix, and definitely worth fixing to prevent future headaches.

Fall is a good time for preventative maintenance.

Hope this helps someone… just like going to the Rendezvous and talking to the owners that experienced over-heating issues on the way to Greenport, prompted me to check out Soave’s entire cooling system.

Sail on,
Rob…

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2

A new boat was someone else’s old boat just before you bought it. Nonsuches tend to be loved and kept until the owner can no longer sail and so they can often come with some deferred maintenance. Mine did. So the first few years of ownership are kind of the “discovery years”.

A captain should know every inch of his boat. (I’m still trying to figure out what the Omega 13 device does that I found under a seat cushion.) But it takes time to accumulate that knowledge. I don’t think you need to feel stupid about something that was missed by a professional mechanic or surveyor. They are the ones who should feel stupid. You should be feeling lucky that nothing worse came of it.

And right now I feel lucky that my strainer is transparent and is the first thing you see right inside of the access hatch. (Though I’m actually acutely aware of strainers because most of my boat ownership has been on rivers where we pick up stuff all the time in our intakes.) But what am I missing that I haven’t learned about yet? Time will tell.

3

When we bought Rendezvous 25 seasons ago, there was no basket in the Raycor strainer. The boat previously operated on the south shore of Long Island (under the name Quiet Storm) and had a fancy strainer on the outside of the hull. Was an easy fix and I empty the basket each fall when I winterize the engine. One time I found a live crab - about 1/2" in diameter. Wondered how long it had been living in the basket - it certainly did not get there as a 1/2" crab.

4

Thanks for posting. This will be my first year winterizing a Nonsuch and glad to hear of the actual experience of others.

5

Another thing that I discovered about sea strainers is that the strainer can develop holes and generally start to break apart. I discovered this last season during my winterization of my Nonsuch.

6

The basket the fit in Soave’s raw water strainer is a Groco BP-1. (HERE ) is a link of where I sourced it.

Case closed… I’ll do the flush & heat exchanger internal inspection in the spring.

Sail on,
Rob…