Illustrated Post!

A picture's worth a thousand words, or so they say, but over the last week the internet signal here has been too slow to upload photos.  But today we have a brief window of clement weather so I got the job done.

First here's a shot of Herbies diesel spill rail rearing up like a cobra now it is removed from the engine and replaced by a shiny new one, which hopefully will not leak fuel. See the offending split in the cobra's head.

Next another jobette.  Rick has kindly offered to refurb our aft hatch cover which as some may recall is unusual being made of wood and hingeing rather than sliding.  The outer fibre glass skin is intact but the wooden sides within have rotted badly over the last twenty something years.   Here's the worst of it.

Replacing the wood without breaking the fibreglass skin will be a non trivial task, one I am not competent to carry out with any degree of finesse.  So while Rick does the refurb at his house, and it'll take quite a while, I've made a crude temporary cover  to hopefully keep the rain out. Here it is in its test fitting today.

It ought to keep out a modest amount of rain.  Whether it would survive in the sort of continuous deluge we've suffered this week, I'm not so sure.  In the background you can see the old hatch cover and its rotting sides.

And as if that wasn't enough, I've been prising off Herbie's wooden handrail tops which have also rotted in places.  I've repainted them on several occasions but in a number of places they are past that. The question now is, do I make and paint and fit new replacement rails or just clean up and repaint the steel beneath, which in truth are just the normal raised rails most other boats have.  I think it will all depend on how smooth I can get the steel which, although perfectly sound,  is somewhat pitted in places.  Getting a good surface on that might be more work than making new handrails.

Either way, cleaning up the steel will need some power tool work, which we're not supposed to do in the marina because of the noise and dust so I'll just take the boat out onto the canal towpath nearby.  Don't hold your breath for the finished job folks.  It'll be a while. Still, I've taken the first bite out of the elephant.  It always gets worse before it gets better.

Blimey, you must be thinking, poor old Herbie's in a state ain't she?  Well only in parts, and it's nothing that can't be fixed with some TLC and a lick of paint.  She's still a very sound boat with a reliable working engine, a decent hull and pretty decent inside.  The external problems are all weather related and might be expected in a twenty three year old boat.  How would you look if you stood out in all weathers for twenty three years?

During the Great Rains this week Herbie rose several inches towards the sky, but she's already back at a more typical level.  I guess CRT have been busy somehow getting rid of the excess water, although I daresay that might be at the expense of the river Cherwell which has burst its banks all over the place.  From what I can see from the weather maps, Cropredy has been pretty much  in the middle of it all.

Ill winds and banjo jokes

Well it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, so they say, and that's true for us this week.  The rain has at times been biblical in its intensity. So it's fortunate that because of an engine problem we've not been out cruising. and stranded somewhere behind a flooded lock or some such.  Herbie is going nowhere at the moment and it's all the fault of a banjo.

Now orchestral musicians make viola player jokes -somebody has to be the butt of the professional humour,  but with musicians of a less highbrow nature, it's banjo jokes., the most common being "What do you call a man who can play banjo but doesn't?  A gentleman."  There are dozens of these, one of my favourites is about the man in the pub who suddenly rushed out realising  he had left his banjo on full view on the back seat of his unlocked car, but when he got to the vehicle it was already too late.  There were already four more banjos there.

Why am I writing this rubbish?  Because I have discovered the cause of Herbie's diesel leak from the top of the fuel filter.  I had thought it was just that copper washers needed replacing but on closer inspection, the union, called a banjo,  that returns unused diesel from the injectors via the spill rail is split open.  In fact me tightening the screw to try and compress the suspect washers only made it worse.

Fortunately we are not too far from Calcutt Boats who hold extensive stocks of parts for BMC diesels, so after a half hour car trip each way I now have a shiny new spill rail complete with all its five intact banjos.  £45, so not too bad as these things go. I'm not going to fit it myself partly because I'm not sure how tight to tighten the nuts without doing further damage, and because I have learned from experience that the first time you attempt a job like this you often discover it ain't as easy as it looks, but mostly because the new rail has to be bent into shape to reach to top of the filter and I don't want to break it in the process.  So a man called Martin who does such jobs here at the marina is going to do it. He tells me he's done the same job a few times before so that's reassuring.  Martin would have done the job by now, but who wants to stand in an engine bay open to the elements in a deluge?  He now says he'll be here tomorrow (Friday) when according to the meteorologists we should have a dry morning at least.

Meanwhile Gertie the kitten has been keeping us amused, or is it the other way round?  Anyhow we're glad to have her here.  I was worried about her jumping on the coal stove when it was lit, but she seems to have the common sense to keep her distance, so that's a good thing.

A frustrating day

 I'd rather not have too many days like today.  We got up at a reasonable (for us) hour and prepared to leave Banbury.  

Frustration number one:  

Just as we were unroping ready to set off, who should come gently cruising by but Adam and Adrian on Briar Rose.  We haven't spent time with them for ages and ages but neither of us had time to stop for a natter.  They were stopping for a quick bit of shopping before moving on and we were on our way to get to Cropredy for a planned lunch at the Mulberry Cafe in the village.  So quick greetings were exchanged but not much more.  Grrr!

We've been having trouble starting the engine in the mornings and by my brilliant deduction I could guess that it was that a diesel leak on top of the fuel filter was draining the fuel back overnight, so it was a bit like having to reprime the engine in the morning.  Anyway I had plans to fix it later.

Frustration number two:  

As we were rising in Slat Mill lock, I noticed that the red charging light was on.  What was more, all the gauges on the instrument panel has stopped working.  Maybe the alternator had failed, maybe the fan belt had broken.  Everything else was as normal - the engine was purring nicely, there was no smoke or steam from the engine 'ole.  Clearly an electrical fault.  We decide to limp on back to our berth at Cropredy marina which is a good place to be if you need work done. From our Smartgauge, it was clear that the alternator was working and the battery was charging.

Frustration number three: 

I noticed that the stern gland was letting in too much water despite me screwing down tight on the greaser.  Now I have a lot of water in the engine 'ole.  I made a mental note to tighten the packing bolts when we got back. (I did do it later)

Frustration number four.  

When we stopped, I could see diesel leaking ever more rapidly from the fuel pipe unions at the top of the filter. Tightening the bolt only seemed to make the matters worse.  I consulted my box of copper washers only to find I had none the right size.  A trip in the car to Halfords should deal with that in the morning. Hopefully by then the diesel will have drained back and I won't get a lot of spillage when I replace the washers.

Frustration number five:  

There was no one at the marina available to look at our electrical problem so they gave me the name and number of someone who could, but on the phone he said he was unlikely to get to us this week.  In desperation I looked at all the wiring connections and fuses that might cause the problem and found nothing.

Frustration number six:

I had another go at starting the engine and it fired up and lo and behold the problem of the charging light and the instrument panel had gone away.  It was all working fine! Don't you just hate it when electrics do that to you? No point calling out the man now.  Maybe me wiggling all the connections and fuses had settled something.  Too late to resume our cruise today and anyway I need to drive to Halfords in the morning and fix that leak before we go any further.  

So new plans have been drawn up for the rest of the week.  Stay tuned.

Out at last, and a real find in Banbury.

Herbie is in Banbury tonight.  We're out for a cruise with our son Peter. Want a good place to eat in Banbury?  Well we can really recommend The Old Auctioneer in Parsons Street.  We've walked past it many times over the years but only recently tried it out. Not only is the food and service really good, the atmosphere inside and the  set out of the garden yard at the back are a long way better than yer average boozer. It's now our favourite place in Banbury.

We ate fajitas which came out sizzling hot with steak or chicken and lashings of onions and peppers and little pots of sour cream, guacamole, salsa and grated cheese, and of course tortilla wraps.  There was well kept Timothy Taylors beer as well.  What's not to like? To cap it all, as the evening cooled at about eight o'clock someone flicked a switch and a roof slowly extended over the back yard area not unlike centre court at Wimbledon! I would show you  a video of it in action but that would take too many megawotsits so here is a still image

There were heaters over every table too so I guess it's an all season outdoor space.

Herbie is currently a boat of two halves, or should I say two sides.  The port side is the one where we recently repainted the dark grey panels and it looks very respectable.

Here it is just after painting 

 and here we are on our new berth where we can now access the starboard side

By the way do you like our new mooring spot at the end of the main basin?

As to that starboard side, I'm sorry to say it's looking incredibly scruffy. After fourteen years there isn't a lot of the old paint surface left. I hesitate to reveal it but here it is.

We haven't been able to get at that side of the boat until very recently and now we don't want to polish it because when we come to repaint it like the other side, we don't want wax on it, so it'll have to say looking scruffy until then.

Our new crew member Gertie the kitten has settled quite well inside the boat, but she's not used to the noise of engine yet so when we start up she runs and hides under the bed.  She's only just out of her pre vaccination quarantine and we've just started taking her outside, albeit on a lead until we are sure she knows where the boat is and won't get lost or run away.  Today in Spiceball park she has met her first squirrel, a baby rabbit and a number of bees.  All very exciting. one unfortunate habit she seems to have taken up is sitting on my laptop keyboard.

It's wonder I've got this post typed out without interruption.