Hot Water Tank Salvage & Repair | sailboat Refit in Alaskan Shipyard (Long Form, Slow TV)

An hour and sixteen minutes in the shipyard — salvaging, cleaning out, and fighting to reinstall the hot water tank aboard our 80’ steel schooner Alaskan Gypsy.

This is long-form, slow-TV style boat refit: no shortcuts, no fast edits, just the real step-by-step battle.

What’s inside this tank? Mud, rust, broken zincs, plumbing problems — and eventually, some kind of victory. Along the way you’ll see:
• removing & salvaging the old hot water heater
• flushing years of sediment & corrosion
• replacing the zinc anode
• fighting with stubborn fittings and leaks
• warm water washing dreams
• struggling to hook everything back up again

If you like real DIY boat repair, the gritty details of refit life, or just long-form shipyard “slow TV,” settle in for the full watch.

Related long-form refit struggles:
• Packing Gland Fail (“The Gland Won”) →    • DIY Fail: Packing Gland Struggle on a Stee...  
• Rusty Rudder Post Wrangle →    • Rusty Rudder Post Wrangle | DIY Steel Boat...  

00:00 – Intro: Hot Water Tank Salvage Begins
06:00 – Pulling the Tank Free from Its Spot
12:00 – First Look Inside: Mud & Sediment Everywhere
20:00 – Zinc Anode Check & Corrosion Concerns
28:00 – Flushing Out Years of Rust & Crud
38:00 – Scraping, Rinsing, and Salvage Work
50:00 – Plumbing Problems & Wrong Fittings
1:02:00 – New Zinc Installed, Tank Back Together
1:10:00 – Final Hookup Attempts (and Leaks!)
1:15:00 – Wrap-Up: Lessons Learned from the Hot Water Struggle

Kool Kats by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...