Joe McDonald of Appleton, WI, asks:

I noticed that the crew plans to rebuild the bilge pump in Yap. Does it get that much use?

Ray Danet responds:

Joe, Good question. We do have two engines aboard - one is the primary and the other is the wing engine, which sometimes is called the "get home motor". Both of these engines have a stuffing box and these are designed to drip to cool the propeller shaft. Since we have the engine on full time, the drip is increased and naturally the pump will undergo more stress as it is required to drain at a more consistent rate. The other thought we had for our pump problem was that the solvent cleaner we used to clean the engine room spaces (after the oil line problem that we had) may have attacked the rubber diaphragm in the pump.

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