cornish crabber to russia

The first Job the engineer did was to take the old engine out and leave the inlet seacock open.... the boat was on the slip dried out with the tide out.... when the tide came in she filled with water! Angie went down and heroically pumped her out. The engineer helped with his electric mobile bilge pump and soaked Angie before being able to get it to work.....still, Worse things happen at sea.
luckily all the electrics are above the waterline except the batteries. Wiring is all routed along the deckhead.
It was quite fun to be involved in installing the engine. The engineer was pretty busy with other jobs so I measured up and modified the engine beds ready for him to come and install the engine. We now have a nice new 43litre fuel tank as well..... ah but she is no longer our boat.

We sold our cornish crabber on ebay to a russian gentleman. At first I thought it was a scam. The bidder had only joined ebay the day before bidding up to reserve. When the money started coming in I took it seriously.
In my description on ebay I had written that the boat could be delivered by sea to coastal europe. I got a few emails asking if we could deliver to Finland. In principle, yes, I replied.
St Petersburg is not far from Finland. I suppose the buyer didn't want to let on that he lives in scary Russia in case I removed the boat from sale.
So it turns out that the owners would like her delivered by sea. It's a bit of an adventure for them as well as us, I suppose. And overland transport is quite expensive anyway...
We have taken Galathea across the channel to Guernsey, Sark and Paimpol as well as to the Isles of Scilly over the past three years so we are confident in her seaworthiness. The engine and elicrics though were a cause for concern. The 1977 Yanmar Ysb8 was still very reliable if a little rough around the edges. It slips a bit in astern gear and you have to pull the gear lever to make it go backwards. And it is horribly noisy! So we got a new engine and put it in.... She now sports a Yanmar 2gm 13 Hp two cylinder diesel that came out of a racing yacht and had never done much work. This engine is quite old as well but seems to run very well. No smoke! The only thing was that when we tried out the engine first time, we didn't get ahead at all well. she would do two knots flat out.... hmmm. back to the engineer. The prop was unsuitable for the reduction gearbox.... so we got a new prop and now she pushes along lovely.
When looking for an engineer to put the engine in we tried our local one who does a lot of work for butlers (traditional boats) where Brixham Trawler pilgim is being re-built.... but they were busy and unavailable. So I went for one across the river.

More about that on my next post.