We stayed on the boat this weekend as we had booked a marine engine mechanic to supervise Sally servicing the engine on Sunday morning.
We also had to finish a number of jobs that I had started earlier in the week. These included relocating the bow thruster panel and engine control cables from the port side back to the starboard side, installing the gas monitoring alarm, installing two LCD TVs with dvd players, installing the dvd car stereo, putting the oven back and putting the nav station back together.
Moving the engine control from one side to the other wasn't as hard as I expected and didn't need new control cables which was a bonus. It did involve climbing into the transom locker which is huge, I'm sure there would be enough room for at least 15 boat people! The bow thruster panel hadn't ever been installed on the starboard side and I always get nervous when I have to cut holes into things, especially boats! All went well until it came to sealing it in. The tube of clear silicone had dried out long ago and all that was left was an old tube of black. As the nozzle had dried solid I stabbed it with a screwdriver and applied it as best I could. What a mistake, I got a little on my finger and then next thing I know it is on the seat, the wheel, the compass god knows everywhere. When you try to wipe it off, it transforms into a foot long smudge! Anyway, I got it fitted and cleaned up my mess.
Installing the gas alarm proved a little more difficult. As boats are so compact and perfectly formed, running new cables can be a mammoth task. Out came the oven, which looked clean and sparkly from above but was fatty and dirty on the back and sides, cupboards were taken apart and cables run, then because they didn't reach another route had to be found. The gas alarm is not the sexiest bit of kit, but the
Pilot one we are installing has a solenoid valve at the cylinders which will shut off the gas as soon as a leak is detected. The boat has been set up to run off both butane and propane gas but the gas locker is a real mess of hoses and regulators and was one of the items raised on the survey. I have been trying to figure out a tidy solution when I came across
GasBoat which make a multi-fuel, multi-cylinder regulator which should really tidy things up. I have got one on order and will finish of the gas system when it arrives.
As the previous owner is a hardcore yachtie he will probably cringe at the thought of a TV being installed in the boat, but it is going to be our home for the next while, so a few creature comforts have to be added. In trying to be as energy efficient as possible, Nick the surveyor recommended a 19", 12 volt Grundig TV/DVD combo. I hunted one down on eBay. The picture quality is not great and they don't get the best reviews, but it should do. We had decided to have one in the saloon and one in the master cabin. The other day I was in a large electrical store, (sorry can't tell you which one for fear of incrimination - read on) and found a nice 22", 12 volt JVC TV/DVD which has much better picture quality. So I picked up one for the saloon.
On Saturday we installed it and it looked great. I just plugged it into 240v for the start to try it out. The next afternoon I thought I would wire it up properly. I made up the new cable and proposed to just run it off a spare reading lamp which had been removed. All I can say is don't come gambling with me! Both wires are the same colour and I had a 50/50 chance of getting it right. Of course I got it wrong and we got a fried TV. Oops. Lucky it was a major electrical store and when I took it back on Monday and said it didn't work, they gave me another one, no questions asked.
As the post title suggests, we have been having beautiful blue sky days recently but this does mean the nights are frigid. We woke on Sunday morning to ice in the marina! Thank god the boat has a good heater.
We believed that the past owners had regularly maintained the engine, but we couldn't really be sure. So we were really keen to have the engine serviced properly.
We were recommended a local mechanic, Clive from Owen Haisell, who was very accommodating and agreed to supervise us while we did the service, well Sally actually! Clive was brilliant, thoroughly explaining how the cooling system worked, how the fuel system worked, areas where hoses were rubbing and likely to chafe through, little tricks, what to do and what not to do. And of course Sally was fantastic. While I sat back and did nothing, Sally extracted the oil, changed the filter, refilled the oil, replaced the raw water impeller, changed both the fuel filters and tightened the belts, all without swearing or dropping a drip of oil.
Next we have to do the same with the genset, but that can wait a couple of weeks.