3 days ago every thing was very nice. The weather was nice and I liked my life on board. Had also a long video with my wife being in Tokyo. I showed her around the surrounding of MaRe and she liked the emerald green water. She asked me to post a picture of in the OmaOpa (GrandmaGrandpa) group in Signal, which I did. I also did some smaller boat jobs. Among other things I send the new crew information to Penrhyn Island, required to get the permission to enter the lagoon. Additionally I informed the authorities of Kiritimati Island on the new crew.

In the evening, I was invited by Olaf for dinner because he had fresh board baked bread. We had nice evening with plenty of talks. After I returned to MaRe, I took my shower, charged batteries when suddenly the generator stopped with failure code No.1 – a problem in the fresh water cooling cycle. “Strange”, I thought because I barley needed to refill a bit of freshwater coolant into the reservoir.

Next day I looked at it and indeed coolant was missing. I filled in about 2 – 3 l. Starting the generator and it ran for about 20 min; then the same error code again. I followed the advice of the manual and removed the thermostat to check if it opens correctly. This can easily be done in a cooking pot and a thermometer. Thermostat works. Where is the leakage?

Yesterday, after baking my bread, I removed the heat exchanger to see if there is a leakage and the the freshwater escapes into seawater. Olaf came over to MaRe and with 4 hands we could test it. No leakage in the heat exchanger. Where is the leakage?

As the heat exchanger was removed I could look inside the manifold, which is also the equivalent to the radiator of a car engine. The difference is that the heat is not transferred into the air, but via the heat exchanger into seawater. I filled water into the manifold and could watch how it disappears. But where to?

The only possibility is the muffler through which the cooling seawater flows back into the sea. I opened the muffler, poured again water into the manifold and it came out of the muffler. How does it come into the muffler?

I’m in touch with the people of Onan in NZ and today at 1100 my time I can called a technician in NZ to get an advice.

I am afraid I need a new manifold.