Yup, that’s what the mechanic said.  Went out for a sail on coming into the harbor on the way back the engine started making “expensive” noises.  You know, the screeching, grinding ones.  I initially thought it was the fresh water pump, but when I took off the fan belt and tugged on the pump shaft it was tight and spun freely.  Started the engine again and realized it was coming from the transmission area.  Time to call in the mechanic.  He immediately diagnosed it as a broken stress plate spring.  Turned out that was close.  It was the fan on the stress plate that broke.  Pieces were flailing around inside the bell housing.  The “tranny” was fine, but the stress plate was toast.  We pulled the bell housing, took off the stress plate and it turned out the flywheel had to come out too due to some bolts on the stress plate corroding onto the flywheel.  A week later and a new stress plate and we’re back in motion (oh, and about $1500!)                           

Took a week off to get some work done.  Wanted to do some varnishing (OK, “Cetoling”), but the weather wasn’t cooperating.  Fog and threat of rain.  Instead did a bunch of the “little” projects that are always on “the list” but don’t get done.  Biggest among these was the dreaded chainplate sealing.  Taking the deck covers off the chainplates, digging out the old bedding compound and resealing all.  Takes about an hour per chainplate times four!  Backbreaking, as you are on hands and knees removing screws, prying covers off the deck, digging out old bedding, etc.Also removed and replaced the anchor washdown pump.  I had “fixed” the old pump that had seized, but it seized again and I decided just to buy a new one.  However, it sat on the “to do” list for about six months since it wasn’t a big priority.  When I finally got to it this week, it took about an hour and a half.     Some other small but important stuff:  Bringing my collection of flares up to date.  Now I’m legal till 2013 (but what do I do with the other 15 year old flares?).  Taking all three fire extinguishers for pressure testing, reloading and re-certification.   Now Charisma’s 100% legal if stopped for inspection by the Coasties.Also, fixed the head which again broke.  This time the water inlet refused to work.  As I thought, it turned out to be the float valve.  Took off the bowl, “jiggled” the float ball, reassembled and voila, it works!  Nice to be able to pump water again and not have to pour fresh water into the bowl to flush.

Yep, the complete disassembly of the toilet!The head over a period of months was having a harder and harder time pumping out.  Finally it stopped flushing, so no other alternative other than taking it completely apart to find out the mystery of the marine head.I've never taken one apart or seen one taken apart, so this was completely new territory.  I removed the intake and discharge hoses (yuck), and rubber-banded a plastic bag over the discharge side since it went directly into the holding tank.  Then unbolted the head from the floor and took it outside into the cockpit for further disassembly.Once completely taken apart, the problem become apparent.  There's a rocker valve that pushes a float ball up to seal the air into the toilet that allowed the pump to go from pulling water into the bowl to sealing it and pumping water out.  The rocker had a set screw that had come loose, which allowed the rocker to slip.  Hence the whole discharge function stopped functioning!OK, $80 worth of parts from Groco later and I was ready to reassemble.  (As a brief aside: the Groco rep I talked to on the the phone was the person who actually built my toilet back in 1998!  Talk about customer service).Everything went back together quite easily with the exception of a leaky gasket.  In plumbing there's always a leaky gasket!  In this case, it was the gasket that linked the toilet bowl to the base. I had tightened it too much as is often the case in plumbing problems.  Once you over-tighten a gasket, it collapses and you're out of luck.  I took the bowl off-worried that I had broken the porcelain by overtightening, but hadn't-removed the gasket, cleaned it and put it back on.  Then reassembled the bowl "loosely" this time.  Re-attached the intake and discharge and pumped.  Leaking.  Tighten the bowl a little.  Still leaking.  Tighten a little more.  Leaking, but a little less. Tighten a liiiittttlee more.  Leak stopped.  It's a fine line.Toilet works better than ever and leak has stopped.   All in all, not as bad as I thought it would be and another adventure complete!