Plymouth Progress 2

Current Location: Ebley, Stroud, UK

For Christmas last year the girls bought us a night in The Pig on the Beach in Studland Harbour. However, as I was in the middle of chemotherapy our booking had to be cancelled. But now, superfit with an undectable PSA and my own personal trainer we re-booked on our way down to Mehalah. Thank you girls. We had a fab time!

And then it was on to Plymouth, again in appalling torential rain. We had Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday to fit in....a lot. Because Saturday was to be 'berth holders Christmas dinner'!

10 miles from Plymouth I realised I had left the socket set in Ebley. This was a critical tool for the next few days so Mrs Google led us to the local Toolstation where we were able to smoothly purchase a replacement in the pouring rain. The rest of Wednesday was spent opening the boat up, connecting batteries (one pole lost its thread so there's another job to sort), runing the 220V cable from power post to boat etc etc. But not before I had handed over the old cooker to the lucky eBay winner. He only lived in Torpoint so this turned out to be a successful transaction all round with Jon the Oven saving himself £40 of transport costs.

Then to work. Gilly filled the starboard water tank carefully ten litres at a time to spot where the known leak was. As the tank reached capacity water started to seep and then squirt out of the seal joining the top to the sides of the tank. NOT GOOD! And this in a new tank installed just before we purchased Mehalah. We've already alerted the supplier to the problem (and indeed the port tank may be leaking too) so we foresee a long, probably futile debate with him ahead. At least we know what that problem consists of now.

The worst 'squirt' from the new tank

Next day was 'oven and stainless day' with a visit from Mike and sister Ali thrown in. When the visitors arrived Gill and Ali began polishing stainless on deck in the drizzle whilst I set Mike to work on devising a system to install the new microwave kindly donated by Harry and Sandra, or to be precise, Sandra's aunt. The trick was to wedge the microwave in place so that it could not escape if the boat was turned upside down. Mike's prototype of a piece of wood in the receiving hole with small holes drilled in it to take the feet and then a second piece of wood screwed down from the shelf above was to prove successful the following day when adapted with thinner pieces of wood scrounged from the porthole project temporarily on hold. Thanks Mike.

Component parts

Installed

Delivering!

Meanwhile I was on a wild goose trying to get the cheek blocks for the main oven planed down by 5mm each. I had purposely not cut more off them back home in order that they would not be too thin so I was prepared for this. Otherwise they were ready to go. I had sourced these nice pieces of hardwood free of charge via Nextdoor a local virtual swapshop for services and goods. I wanted 10cm x 15cm x 3cm but it turned out the first little old lady who got in touch only had smaller pieces when I got there. Doh! Waste of time. The second respondent though came up with the goods and I sanded and varnished them up a treat. However....it turns out that 15cm is too short to go through a joiner's planer so in the end I had to purchase new pieces for cash in hand over lunch time far out of Plymouth. There's another two hours gone. Yes Gilly, I know I should have rung round first! All that meant that I was late to receive the stainless steel guy who was quoting for solid guard rails at the back of the boat to take solar panels and granny bars at the mast to stop old farts like me being swept off by a big wave. We had all of these on Petronella and knew we wanted them on Mehalah too.

After soup and bread courtesy of Ali it was back to work on the main oven. Wood was drilled, measurements were taken, measurements were re-taken and then we took some measurements. Each side of the new cooker has a rod sticking out of it on which the cooker swings. This is known as 'on gimbals'. When the boat rocks the cooker stays still. The boat moves around the oven - wierd when you see it for real, especially once you are used to the motion of the boat. So the trick was to get the brackets that support these two rods in just the right position from 1) front to back, 2) side to side and 3) level. The cupboards it was to fit into of course, weren't square themselves and the adjoining worktops not at the same height. And level was not level because the wind was heeling the boat over by a few degrees. In the end we said, bugger it, let's just screw the blocks on and hope for the best. And indeed it was the best. Here you go.....

The forward bracket awaiting arrival of the cooker

Up a bit...

It's in!!

So that was a great success. I just need to take out the new blocks and varnish them here at home and take them back with me next time we are down in Plymouth. As you can see it was dark by now and as Mike and Ali left so Dick and Mary arrived for a natter and a meal at our favourite restaurant, Suphas - fresh Indonesian food cooked in front of your eyes.

Friday was Mike Stone day. Mike had helped Dick when he was outfitting Alacazam here in Plymouth and we had asked him in one day to..

- Service the Beta engine
- Understand the Beta engine better (gear shift plate, lagging etc)
- Change oil in generator?
- Understand the generator better (fuel filter etc)
- Fix generator diesel leak
- Discuss proposed stainless work
- Review and resolve bilge pump situation
- Decide on shaft brake solution
- Look at skeg bolt
- Discuss approach to Aries bush freeing
- Experiment with Aries drive options
- Discuss dinghy, davits, steps, Aries options
- Review hose/jubilee clip replacement
- Look at mainsheet winch

Basically I was looking to shortcut the learning curve. Most of this I could probably have done on my won but with Mike on hand we saved loads of time and I know now to do the jobs properly. As it was we did all but the bilge review. Pretty damn good for one day's work. I was knackered by the end of the day and Gilly had spent much of the day shooting out to chandlers to buy the odd little things we needed like smaller jubillee clips, PTFE tape and tinned wire. The new Beta engine looks to be in good shape and tightening the negative battery terminal means she starts up like a dream.

Impellor housing

Oil filter

One of the Racor filters (some diesel bug here!)

Air filter

Guys. Are you really interested in all this stuff??

The diesel leak in the generator turned out to be, as I suspected, just the wrong sized clip and the impellor was the wrong one but that didn't matter because it didn't need changing anyhow.

We talked about how to install a shaft brake to stop the prop shaft rotating horribly when we sail. Mike has found a neat solution using a secondhand VW electric handbrake driven by a little computer called an arduino [yes Chris B, you know them well]. I'll source the brake for next time we are down.

Finally we addressed the 'back of the boat' issue. We need to sort out the location of the dinghy, the davits, life raft and the wind steering. Basically the wind steering (Aries) and the dinghy on the davits can't co-exist. What to do? Mike had a brainwave and we're going to make the Aries removable. That way we can use the dinghy on davits when we're at anchor and when we are passage making we would anyway put the dinghy on the foredeck and put the Aries back on the transom. Simples.

And that was that. Saturday saw us at the Christmas dinner where we met up with many of the others berthed in Sutton Harbour. The main action from this social occasion was that we must book our spring haul out sooner rather than later to ensure a slot.

Happy Christmas all.