Mystery Water

I don’t know a lot of things about boats but I know that water should be on the outside, not the inside.

To recap: sandblasting the paint off the hull had resulted in water coming out of our recently surveyed (and supposedly only slightly rusty) boat.

Let’s back up.  There are two kinds of rust on a steel boat

1. interior rust (which is bad and can make a steel boat crumble, fall apart and sink to the bottom the deep blue ocean).  This is what Old Salts mean when they say “steel rusts from the inside”.  This is bad.  Avoid this type of rust at all costs.
2. surface rust (which is what happens when something sharp or caustic or otherwise pokey penetrates the paint and causes a tiny drop of rust-colored water to drip down the side of your boat and mar the appearance).  This is Nothing to Worry About and Happens All The Time on steel boats.*

It was generally agreed that we had rust issue #2, NOT rust issue #1 because, I mean, we would have had SOME indication that this was actually happening, right?  Well, the epoxy-filled holes happened.  And Mystery Water happened.  Too bad we had already plunked down the majority of our boat budget on the boat that was full of holes and Mystery Water.

In for a penny, in for a pound.  I had never quite understood that quote before.

The email we got from our boatyard was this: Under stove,frig and sink area. Cabin sole in the way to access hole.

That means: this is about to get very expensive.

So, why was there water inside our boat? Where had it come from?  It came from here:

This is the compressor for the refrigerator that didn’t work.  The compressor was placed under the sink in the far corner of the galley.  We knew that the fridge didn’t work; it was fully disclosed in our survey.  However, the compressor was covered with and infused with rust.  There were many causes for this; one of which was that the original compressor broke and was replaced by one that didn’t have a drip pan to catch the drips.  A drip pan is something that is put under something that drips to catch drips.  It seems elemental to me but I did not install the compressor.

This all falls under the heading of “Not Good Things” but it’ll be fine, right?

*Yes, I know that this is overly simplistic and Not True, however, this is how I had divided rust in my mind.  Welcome to my delusion.