tcm
...
Just back from two weeks on the boat.
I knew i had an exhaust leak with bits of soot appearing near the stbd inboard exhaust, and thought it was fixable with big circlips. So i got eight of them made in case the others needed fixing the same way. Puttem round the leaky one, insulated a bit with grp lagging, then some aluminium foil. Looked ok, but on the channel crossing to Deauville two weeks ago last saturday, the soot blew through showing I had not pluged the leak.
So, next day, sunday before last, i took it all apart, and found the leak, which was only a millimietre, in exhaust pipe. Fixable with gun gum and a brace thingy, i reckon. Monday we rented a car to Caen, found Castorama and lots of other shops, so bought the gear to fix it.
Tuesday all ok. Remade the laging around all the exhausts with the new aluminium tape.
Wednesday i could finally get round to the main event which was to put more soundproffing in the engineroom. I did this all day wednesday, or at least until i ran out of tape.
Thursday, i had agreed I wd sort out the hot water. On this boat, the immersion is the only way to heat water, no "calorifier" to use engine for water heating, which is either a bit crap, or possibly sensible since the immersion units are central under the saloon. But my tightgittishness does resent using power to heat the water and not being able to use residual engine heat for anythiong except drying towels. Now, partly to save £££med lecky, and partly cos I have heard of several just left on max going pop, i had lowered the tempertatures and switched off the second boiler (and shut the inlet outlet valves). Obviously a bit too much tho, ahem. Don in the bilge i took the opportunity to chuck away load of superluous shelving the manufacturers had made, all very nice but heavy in marine ply and sprayed white, but which all needed dismantling each tiem anyone needs to look at the hotwater switches. Seems a bit excessive having so much storage, and the bilges are clean anyway for storing things. Well, they were when i had finished with a bit of acetone.
friday dismantled the pesky guardrails to refit the stancion one in the corner. I had to take this apart as the screw conecting it to the upper rail had fallen out over winter. But i needed six extension bars to reach the socket screw inside, and they had to be short extension bars to allow them to be dismantled on the way out. This time, armed with requisite extension bars, i could do the job, but had to get lots of help to pull it all to bits, then do the nut-tighhtening, and reassemble.
Saturday, off to St vaast. I put the sunpad cushions out to make sure it sounded very quiet, not just a bit quiet. It rained. Sunday i positoned and repositioned the cushions to dry them, and then cleaned up the engineroom. With all the soot now sorted out, we could have clean engines, so bit of boat removing fluid and water gave us clean engines and bilges about four hours later. I was very careful with the water, not to spray madly, with all the electric things - don't want to electrucute ourselves, or make things go very wrong, of course.
Monday, the electric things went very wrong. The service batteries were nearly dead. Heck. Shorepower seemed to use loads of amps and then blow, and genny didn't seem to make DC things better, only AC. I must have busted it with cleaning the engines, oh hell. After a morning of pressing buttons and resetting shorepower i called some lectricians, who called some other electricians, who came after lunch, then another hour later, and who then traced all the magic confusing cable diagrams and found that only one genny charges (not the one i was using) and so the engine clean ran down the batteries with bilge pumping, and the shorepower couldn't chargem up. Only wanted thirty euros so i gave them fifty which is still dead cheap for two peeps onsite for an hour and a half, i think.
Tuesday, went to the little Ile Tatihou, les than a mile offshore. Excellent example of how to waste a whole pile of taxpayers money, incl building a restaurant that is empty, of course. We guessed the admin password ("admin") and checked up on the weather. On the way out i said that it was a bit easy to guess, and four of the six receptionists rushed off to change it, or praps just have a meeting. Got back from tatihou in the rib, and found its engine full of water. Rigged up extension to roving bilge and pumped it out.
Wednesday, after finally sorting out the proximity magnets on the tender garage, we went rockpooling. Thursday cleaned the boat then rockpooling again, but better on Wednesaday when we found five fanbelts. No crabs tho, incredible change from when i was little lad when you'd get nipped by things all the time. Felt as tho the rocks had been boiled for soup stock and chucked back on the beach.
Thursday, time to return to UK. Just time to clear a slightly-but not very blocked bog, by blowing through with a pipe, and all sorted. But the deck stinks, and there are drips from the radar arch. Hell, that's where the blackwater breather vents, which i found when opening the "flush blackwater tank" tap but of course without running the discharge pump in St Tropez old port, hence drenched the gawping bystanders with raw sewage, so could have been worse. Blowing through when the blackwater tank is nearlyy full blasttis it all up the breather. Opened the radar arch up, rinsed and boshed bleach around, back to Yarmouth.
Oh yes, and we were on the fule quay, so a chap wanted to raft up for fule no prob. Cept i thought they might be probs when his crew (swmbo) didn't adjust fenders from pontton on the way round, then she threw me a fwd line and he carried on drivbing the boat - even tho no wind. Thinks he wanted me to tie off the fwd line and then yank on it down the side of the boat. No thanks matey, threw his line off, toldim to reset fenders and learn to drive - mainly when rafting, stop the sodding boat as the two come into contact. But he hated being told how to drive, especially when son#1 mutters "ahead stbd side" and then i say the same.
Friday, in Yarmouth, the dinghy wouldn't start, so a man came down and found the isolator was working, bypassed it, then i used special gunk to patch the leaks. In the process, i stepped on the swimming platform shower and busted it, so replaced it back at port solent. Logged in the Square Mile internet, wrote this post, then lost the whole thing. Back home, typed it all again.
Nice weather tho, and i am just about gaining on the boat, i think.
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I knew i had an exhaust leak with bits of soot appearing near the stbd inboard exhaust, and thought it was fixable with big circlips. So i got eight of them made in case the others needed fixing the same way. Puttem round the leaky one, insulated a bit with grp lagging, then some aluminium foil. Looked ok, but on the channel crossing to Deauville two weeks ago last saturday, the soot blew through showing I had not pluged the leak.
So, next day, sunday before last, i took it all apart, and found the leak, which was only a millimietre, in exhaust pipe. Fixable with gun gum and a brace thingy, i reckon. Monday we rented a car to Caen, found Castorama and lots of other shops, so bought the gear to fix it.
Tuesday all ok. Remade the laging around all the exhausts with the new aluminium tape.
Wednesday i could finally get round to the main event which was to put more soundproffing in the engineroom. I did this all day wednesday, or at least until i ran out of tape.
Thursday, i had agreed I wd sort out the hot water. On this boat, the immersion is the only way to heat water, no "calorifier" to use engine for water heating, which is either a bit crap, or possibly sensible since the immersion units are central under the saloon. But my tightgittishness does resent using power to heat the water and not being able to use residual engine heat for anythiong except drying towels. Now, partly to save £££med lecky, and partly cos I have heard of several just left on max going pop, i had lowered the tempertatures and switched off the second boiler (and shut the inlet outlet valves). Obviously a bit too much tho, ahem. Don in the bilge i took the opportunity to chuck away load of superluous shelving the manufacturers had made, all very nice but heavy in marine ply and sprayed white, but which all needed dismantling each tiem anyone needs to look at the hotwater switches. Seems a bit excessive having so much storage, and the bilges are clean anyway for storing things. Well, they were when i had finished with a bit of acetone.
friday dismantled the pesky guardrails to refit the stancion one in the corner. I had to take this apart as the screw conecting it to the upper rail had fallen out over winter. But i needed six extension bars to reach the socket screw inside, and they had to be short extension bars to allow them to be dismantled on the way out. This time, armed with requisite extension bars, i could do the job, but had to get lots of help to pull it all to bits, then do the nut-tighhtening, and reassemble.
Saturday, off to St vaast. I put the sunpad cushions out to make sure it sounded very quiet, not just a bit quiet. It rained. Sunday i positoned and repositioned the cushions to dry them, and then cleaned up the engineroom. With all the soot now sorted out, we could have clean engines, so bit of boat removing fluid and water gave us clean engines and bilges about four hours later. I was very careful with the water, not to spray madly, with all the electric things - don't want to electrucute ourselves, or make things go very wrong, of course.
Monday, the electric things went very wrong. The service batteries were nearly dead. Heck. Shorepower seemed to use loads of amps and then blow, and genny didn't seem to make DC things better, only AC. I must have busted it with cleaning the engines, oh hell. After a morning of pressing buttons and resetting shorepower i called some lectricians, who called some other electricians, who came after lunch, then another hour later, and who then traced all the magic confusing cable diagrams and found that only one genny charges (not the one i was using) and so the engine clean ran down the batteries with bilge pumping, and the shorepower couldn't chargem up. Only wanted thirty euros so i gave them fifty which is still dead cheap for two peeps onsite for an hour and a half, i think.
Tuesday, went to the little Ile Tatihou, les than a mile offshore. Excellent example of how to waste a whole pile of taxpayers money, incl building a restaurant that is empty, of course. We guessed the admin password ("admin") and checked up on the weather. On the way out i said that it was a bit easy to guess, and four of the six receptionists rushed off to change it, or praps just have a meeting. Got back from tatihou in the rib, and found its engine full of water. Rigged up extension to roving bilge and pumped it out.
Wednesday, after finally sorting out the proximity magnets on the tender garage, we went rockpooling. Thursday cleaned the boat then rockpooling again, but better on Wednesaday when we found five fanbelts. No crabs tho, incredible change from when i was little lad when you'd get nipped by things all the time. Felt as tho the rocks had been boiled for soup stock and chucked back on the beach.
Thursday, time to return to UK. Just time to clear a slightly-but not very blocked bog, by blowing through with a pipe, and all sorted. But the deck stinks, and there are drips from the radar arch. Hell, that's where the blackwater breather vents, which i found when opening the "flush blackwater tank" tap but of course without running the discharge pump in St Tropez old port, hence drenched the gawping bystanders with raw sewage, so could have been worse. Blowing through when the blackwater tank is nearlyy full blasttis it all up the breather. Opened the radar arch up, rinsed and boshed bleach around, back to Yarmouth.
Oh yes, and we were on the fule quay, so a chap wanted to raft up for fule no prob. Cept i thought they might be probs when his crew (swmbo) didn't adjust fenders from pontton on the way round, then she threw me a fwd line and he carried on drivbing the boat - even tho no wind. Thinks he wanted me to tie off the fwd line and then yank on it down the side of the boat. No thanks matey, threw his line off, toldim to reset fenders and learn to drive - mainly when rafting, stop the sodding boat as the two come into contact. But he hated being told how to drive, especially when son#1 mutters "ahead stbd side" and then i say the same.
Friday, in Yarmouth, the dinghy wouldn't start, so a man came down and found the isolator was working, bypassed it, then i used special gunk to patch the leaks. In the process, i stepped on the swimming platform shower and busted it, so replaced it back at port solent. Logged in the Square Mile internet, wrote this post, then lost the whole thing. Back home, typed it all again.
Nice weather tho, and i am just about gaining on the boat, i think.
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