Ingenious

Problem Solving 101: Think outside the bulkhead.

33 years ago when Ben rolled off the showroom floor, he came from the factory with plumbing that used copper tubing to supply hot and cold water at the galley sink and shower. While copper's fairly durable, the fact that the plumbing was installed against the hull, behind screwed-in cabinetry and bulkheads, makes service and repair extremely difficult.

The solution to patching all those pesky leaks (mostly from my home-made flare fittings) is to run all new flexible hoses ... but how do you fish a 1/2" reenforced tube around a 90-degree corner when it's fifteen feet away? The only solution I'd come up with was tying a string to a cat's tail, and then try shooing it to move in the direction I wanted my new hoses to go.

Then this afternoon Barrett had a better idea.

Use an electrician's snake to fish a loose piece of thread all the way to the corner, and then use the suction from a vacuum cleaner with a long hose attachment to "pull" the thread past the corner. Once you've got the free end in hand then you tie a stronger length of twine to the other end of the thread, pull the twine through the corner, and finally attach the new hose to the twine and simply pull the hose through..

In five lifetimes I'd never have thought of that myself. Left to my own devices I would've sighed and had a go at the fiberglass with a Skilsaw instead. Creativity can be pretty cool when it comes to tackling what seems impossible.

Thanks Barrett.