Air in cooling water ?

[rogerroger]

On a VERY lumpy sea and F5 on the nose in the Solent yesterday I sailed with the engine on for max speed to drop very fed up SWMBO at the nearest Port.

We were being thrown around all over the place and then the engine cooling water alarm came on. I stopped the engine and tried restarting after changing tack but the same thing.

Once ashore it started, the impeller fine. This all happened again later in the day aswell.

What could have caused this ? Could air have been sucked in through the cooling water inlet as it's quite likley it was 'exposed' in the swell?

Should one just let the engine cool and try again? (the second time we did this it worked) Bear in mind in a chop / swell you simply can't check the impeller.

What would you do ?

Cheers



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[snowleopard]

if a water pump or impeller is slightly worn it may not be able to re-prime after sucking air because air can leak back around the impeller blades and insufficient vacuum is created to suck up the water. air can get in through leaky hose unions, badly fitting strainer lid or as you say by the inlet coming out of the water.

check your pump or have an engineer do it for you. an impeller change may be all that's needed, otherwise you may need to replace the pump cover and/or body.

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[longjohnsilver]

There's a lot of seaweed about at the moment, did you check your raw water strainer?

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[rogerroger]

Yeah - where's all this damn weed coming from ??

I didn't check it but the Sea Start engineer checked everything when back at port and couldn't find any blockage...

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