Advice on Princess

[Skysail]

Hi,

I have offered my assistance to the new owner of a 30 year old, 30 ft Princess moored near Marlow. This was a family boat but the previous owner passed away a few years ago, and it is being taken over by his daughter. Her aim is to get the boat to seaworthy condition and take her to France and the canal system next year. The boat started life at Harleyford then spent some years in the Red Sea, than returned to UK and was re-engined 10 years ago with twin MD-22s. The engines look clean and have been serviced regularly. Engine oil is clean, and the belts are tight. The boat has not been used much and was last lifted 3 years ago. Instruments will need some attention, eg a VHF, Echo sounder, GPS / Plotter (maybe a small one), But the general condition needs a lot of TLC, and there are several inches of diesel in the bilge! The seacocks are gate valves.

The owner is not experienced but is very keen and willing to get dirty hands. Being a dyed in the wool salt water raggie, I will be able to help generally, having just sold my own boat I need a project, and I can provide navigation and seamanship training. Hopefully this year we can get the boat fit to cruise the Thames, and look at the sea next year. I don't know enough about Mobos, but enough to think we need a good engineer to look over the boat and familiarise us with the engine systems in particular, and make a list of work. Putting the boat in a yard could be writing a blank cheque!

Can anyone recommend a good guy to do this in the Henley - Marlow area? Also any general advice about priorities and things to watch for?

There will be a lot of questions - eg this is the first boat I have seen with an electric cooker - run by a generator, which also drove the air con for the time abroad.

All help gratefully received!

Keith

 

[oldgit]

Is it a 30DS ?

 

[Skysail]

That's right, Princess 30DS.

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

Get the Boat Safety regs off the web and read through them. That will give you a good starting point of what you need to do to get a Thames licence, without which the EA will ensure you are imprisoned without trial or hope of remission in a strict regime punishment camp east of Teddington and used for ethically challenging and unconsensual medical experiments. And that's on a first offence and previous impeccable character

More seriously I would start off with the comments above on safety cert plus a list of things you can and wont tolerate if you were stuck on board for, say, 48 hours. That's then the core of your list of jobs. If that diesel in the bilge is really several inches of fuel then that is absolute priority as something has failed in or around the tank(s). It will stink the boat out (48 hour rule) and needs to be pumped into suitable ocntainers.

To give some idea of my 48 hour list:
Gas is safe and working
Engines start and run happily and charge the batteries
Bilge pumps work
Interior lights and water pumps work
Heads don't smell, or at least not outside the contorl of air freshener.

Other issues, eg dirty covers/hull, leaky windows, nav lights not working etc are fixable subsequently. One day my horn and nav lights will work properly!

 

[Hugh Foulis]

Are you certain its several inches of diesel in the bilge? Chances are its mostly water with the diesel floating on top, still needs to be removed but may not be as disasterous as a leaky tank.

HF

 

[Skysail]

Thanks guys.

I should have said the boat apparently does have a BSS and is about to receive an EA licence.
It looked like a high proportion of diesel in the bilge, its hard to tell, but point taken about water. When we get the midships bilge dry it will be easier to tell. The engine bilge is bone dry.

Watch this space....!

Keith