Gas Warfare

Kamalii's holding tank for the heads is located under the port side cabin berth, where Emma "dwells". For some time she has been complaining of bad smells in her cabin, especially when a head is flushed, but quick checks of the plumbing etc found nothing. On the weekend we got serious and stripped everything out of her cabin and opened it up so I could have proper inspection.

The tank was retrofitted in the '90's and is a very large plastic tank. As soon as I put some pressure on the top of the tank and it flexed I got hit with a scent that I'm betting Chanel will not be launching any time soon. Some bouncing around for a bit  revealed that the o-ring seal on the tank gauge sender unit was all distorted, and the gases were leaking out around it. I had noticed the last time we emptied the holding tank that there was big vacuum formed in the tank, with air continuing to rush in through the vent pipe for several seconds after we disconnected the pump. It turns out that the dockside holding tank pump-out system is so bloody powerful that the tank vent pipe can't keep up with the flow rate and the tank actually collapses slightly under vacuum, which also sucked the o-ring out of position. All fixed now, and I replaced the old vent hose for good measure. We will have to tell the dockside staff to go easy on the pump-outs. Oh, and guess what grows on the surface of the contents of a holding tank? Nothing good...

Someone once said to me they reckoned the average boat owner spends about 10% of their time just fixing toilet problems. That's a ridiculous assessment - it's at least 25%.