Time flies

Well it’s been an interesting week, on Monday I returned the hire car and had a pleasant public transport journey back, the first in many years, I picked up some supplies and got back to the boat.

Smart Gauge Fitted

I finished fitting the Smart Gauge battery monitor and uplugged the shorepower line to see how things performed using just battery bank and engine, after all that’s how it will be when I get moving.

On Tuesday about 2:30, the Smart Gauge was showing the batteries 64% charged so I ran the engine to see how long it would take to get back to full charge expecting it to take a couple of hours. I must stop assuming things!
4 hours later the Smart Gauge was showing 67% charged, at this rate after an evenings use of electricity it would take 2 days running the engine to get back to full charge, something was wrong, a look at the voltmeter told me the charging rate was woeful.

So Wednesday morning a shout out to Arthur, he soon located a broken cable in the charging system and left me to repair it. A run of the engine after repairs showed that to be ok and hopefully now all is well.

Wednesday afternoon saw me removing a leaking porthole to investigate and repair, it seems the problem is just the sealant breaking down, so after rust removal and priming I have put a temporary cover over the hole (black bin bag) and will reseal it and fix it back temporarily when the rain stops, the internal liner is swollen due to the water being soaked up into it, so a new liner is necessary, all four portholes are in a similar condition so at some time in the future I will source new liners, probably non-timber, and carry out the repairs permanently.

Internally Water Stains

Saturated and Swollen Liner 

Thursday was a spending day, sourced an anchor, anchor chain, anchor rope, centre line, 2 mooring chains, 2 mooring pins, 1 replacement fender, life-ring, life jacket, most of which are only necessary for the rivers I will be on occasionally, oucccchhhh....... still have to find a plank and pole somewhere locally. Moved the boat to the diesel point, 122 litres, oucccchhhh....... moved the boat back to it’s mooring and with a much lighter wallet I decided by 3pm to call it a day.

Today, Friday a fairly nice day weather wise so I decided I would refit the porthole, and while doing that wash that side of the boat, of course as soon as I started it began to rain, anyway got it all finished eventually, looks better for a wash,

Unwashed Left Side

Washed Right Side

and hopefully the porthole will hold out the rain until I do the permanent job on all four of them. The shopping from yesterday arrived, I just hope I never have to use the anchor in anger, the anchor is heavy enough, add the chain, and the rope, hoisting it over the side will just about be ok but how I would recover it after the danger has passed is beyond me!!! oh well at least fitting the centre line was easy.

Must get moving, Chilli Con Carne to cook, wine to open......