[C320-list] Ball valve under the sink

[John Frost]

The handle mechanism on my holding tank thru hull came off and almost sank
us. The entire mechanism cracked and came off and water shot in on a two
year old boat. The resulting hole was very irregular and I had a heck of a
time slowing the water entry. (A handful of play dough would have been
wonderful) 

Post event, Forespar was helpful and shipped me a new one but said it had
never happened before.
I dug into it and they are properly certified to a tuff standard so I can't
imagine there being a design problem.

I chalked mine up to some unusual loading on the handle being induced by my
zip tieing the handle to an adjacent hose to show that 
it was not dumping overboard. Nothing touches my handles now.

Our story turned out fine because of a few good luck events.
1. I had finally gotten around to replacing my defective bilge pump the week
before
2. Our marina's lift, which had been broken for weeks, had just been
repaired
3. Our marina operator was sitting at the clubhouse with his cell phone
ready to respond to my urgent plea to be ready for an emergency extraction.
4. My wife was ready to bring us in thru traffic at near full throttle while
I fought the stream of water trying to fill the bilge

By the way


Happy Sailing!

John
2007 C320MKII
Hull 1118
Guntersville, AL




-----Original Message-----
From: c320-list-bounces at lists.catalina320.com
[mailto:c320-list-bounces at lists.catalina320.com] On Behalf Of Richard A.
Walsh
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 4:17 PM
To: C320-List at Catalina320.com
Subject: [C320-list] Ball valve under the sink

When at the boat last weekend had the handle break off.  I noticed on the 34
web site that there have been problems with the forespar ball valves
breaking off at the handles.  Has anyone else experienced?  When I called
Catalina parts they informed me only had one in stock, which increased my
consern.