Of general interest to anyone who has replaced sea cocks in the past few years:
An A-30 owner posted on the A30 mailing list that he recently the handle break off a five year old ball valve sea cock. A bit of research after the fact revealed Groco has a recall on several models manufactured a few years ago.
Groco had some valves made in China and they (the Chinese manufacturer) used subgrade materials for the valve stem.
From the Groco web site (
http://www.groco.net/ and click the link "IBV-FBV Service Bulletin") :
GROCO's design for the imported valves series shown above specified a high-grade stainless steel valve stem. We have discovered that the stem material used in some of the valves manufactured between 2004 and 2006 may not have complied with our specifications. Valves with out-of-spec stems may not be suitable for salt-water use. Since the non-compliant silver color stems may fail when the valve is actuated we wish to have all such valves removed from service. GROCO will supply replacement valves at no charge.
The site also gives instructions for how to check if your valve is recalled (silver valve stems bad, yellow ones good) and how to return/obtain a replacement. It seems you have to send the bad one back for them to replace it, which means paying yard fees while waiting for the new ones to come. Becky posed the interesting question that if you bought a replacement outright (to save the delay and it's associated fees), if they would reimburse rather than replace.
If we have some of the recalled valves (from out 2008 haul-out), we will pursue that route.
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