Hello.......

.....it’s me again.

It’s been a while since the last post; I’ve been doing a few jobs but nothing that required an immediate blog update and they have kept me busy and tired.

It’s that rust again, anyone who has been following this blog for a while might remember that two years ago I painted the engine bay, an horrendous job, after finishing it I was very pleased with myself but rust began to reappear some few months later and I found the product I had been sold was not the correct one, I wasn’t happy. So the time has come to sort out the horizontal areas above the engine ( I believe the correct term is the ‘swims’), they have suffered most as they were the worst to begin with, but first I had another little problem to solve, the enclosed area of stern deck held water, the boat builders soloution was to drill a hole in one corner, this worked but the water flows down onto the swim before ending up in the bilge where the pump deals with it, the upshot was a more or less permanently wet area on the swim where my starter battery and other bits are stored, this was not helping the rust problem!

So the first job was to put a fitting in the hole and connect to hose to it taking it straight to the bilge, whilst doing that I repainted the bit of stern deck which was also showing rust again.

Fitting in the corner prior to repainting the whole area (again!)

No picture of the finished job as I put my folding bike back without thinking (it’s stands in this area) and could not be bothered to move it out again just for a picture.

On Saturday 27^th it rained, fairly hard!

Happy gardeners, I understand.

So on Sunday I started on the work below deck, I had to disconnect the starter battery and remove that prior to preparation and painting, it was a dirty dusty job, what isn’t on a boat! In this situation I am trying Owatrol Oil as a rust inhibitor followed by two coats of Hammerite, fingers crossed that it lasts more than two years, I replaced the starter battery and it’s wooden enclosure having raised it of the swim with a couple of supports.

I am often amused by my own stupidity, to remove the worst of the rust I used a mini angle grinder with sanding disc, to do this you need to remove the safety guard, care is required, I managed to 'nick' the knuckle on my right index finger, not badly, but enough to warn me, I then proceeded to nick the knuckle on my left index finger, oh well at least they match, almost perfectly actually!

A trip to the plumbers merchant prior to moving this morning to Apsley, the next job is one I am not looking forward to, the other swim area holds my hot water tank, for some reason unknown to me the cylinder is called a calorifier in boating circles, and it has to come out, there are no drain off or stop valves ( very useful!) so it will be cut through a pipe and panic, anyway I have bought the necessary fittings and will tackle it tomorrow if the weather is dry.

This bit was not painted last time

This bit was!

 As you can see the rust is apparent, when I painted two years ago I did not remove the cylinder, it was a job for ‘later’, now is ‘later’, with the lack of space as an added (but not unusual) problem, it should be ‘interesting’ to say the least, wish me luck.

So the trip this morning was short, just a mile or so and two locks, nothing of interest really and I am back in Apsley, the water service tap is a few hundred yards ahead of me so if all goes base over apex I can at least fill a kettle!

Just a picture of the cruise

 Current Mooring:

A bit 'arty'