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Forum / Techniques and Troubles / Don't try this at home!

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terrymcneill

Posts: 5
Location: Aberdeenshire, United Kingdom
Don't try this at home! - Posted: August 26, 2008 - 9:14 AM Quote and reply
On a recent West Coast cruise on a friend's yacht, we suffered a blocked sink. I nipped up to a friendly chandlery at Dunstaffnage (next stop) to see if I could beg or buy a plunger: no joy - but he offered a suggestion.

"Do you have a gas fog horn aboard, 'cos you can get a pretty good seal around the plughole and its amazing the pressure of blast you can get through to clear the blockage. Sometimes works."

Liking tis idea, I returned and briefed the owner/skipper who tried it. Furious bubbles like an elephant farting in a bath, then a strangled hoot, but no sink clearance. Oh well.

Fast forward to two days later. He's making some breakfast while I've nipped up to the bog in a different marina. I come back to one hell of a smell of burning. There goes the toast, methinks.

Then an ashen-faced skipper emerges from below!

"What's happened?"

"Well, I decided to try your sink unblocking trick again. But I forgot that the sink is next to the cooker, which was going full blast. So this time in addition to the bubbles and the hoot I got a God-aweful 'wumpff' and a sheet of flame as the gas from the aerosol can ignited. Curtains gone, Fairy-liquid bottle melted, eyebrows only just survived!! Wasn't until then that I looked at the can and saw the highly inflammable, do not hold near naked flame signs."

Fall about laughing? We almost had to do a MOB at the jetty!

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