It's always the way when you're self employed, the work stacks up when you want to take time off!
Never the less, at the moment I don't have the flexibility to change the plans for the cruise as Jane cannot change her holiday booking and Rik is involved to.
So I've headed back down to Fambridge a day early so that I can tackle at least some of the more urgent jobs.
With the need to transport both my work kit and our personal kit for a two week cruse, the new Peckett Marine trailer has had its first outing. Whilst it slows me down somewhat that's really no bad thing and it's only fifteen or twenty minutes on the journey.
I checked in at the Yacht Station on arrival. The pontoon was rather full and the guys were all very busy putting in some temporary pontoons on the mud berths ready for Sunday's festival
Round to the marina, I nipped in to our lock store and chucked the outboard and oars in the trailer. Then I shifted our personal gear on board and folded up the cockpit tent temporarily.
A quick little job came my way which meant nipping back round to the yacht station. It turned out to be a simple matter of not having the right switches on and too many lights on one circuit. Still, it paid for a couple of beers and got me a lift back to the marina!
A word in the right places had us out on the travel hoist for a quick jetwash...
Most of the weed was, as I suspected, on the waterline but there was sufficient weed and barnacles on the bottom to make a marked difference to our performance.
The only drawback of having a quick scrub now is that it has taken off a lot of the active antifoul and it's almost inevitable that we'll have to come out for a couple of days in a few weeks time as she'll foul up pretty quickly now.
Still, that's a price I'm prepared to pay for decent performance while we're away. Dragging a load of marine growth all over the North Sea isn't my idea of fun!
I managed to back Erbas out of the travel hoist without making a spectacle of myself and motored round to the yacht station. Happily, with a clean bottom and prop, Erbas was trotting along very nicely hitting five and a half knots at 2600rpm.
With the only gap amongst the moored boats being somewhat less than Erbas size, Toby had suggested rafting outside the Dutch Barge on the upstream end of the outside of the pontoon.
However, I had a better idea! Orca was moored on the inside and I'm working on her tomorrow so I rafted up to her instead.
My next task was to sort out our tender which hasn't been used since last autumn. I fetched the oars, outboard and pump down from the car and set about pumping up the tubes.
They didn't need a great deal but search as I might I couldn't find the adaptor for the pump. The pump lives in the boot of the car permanently but of the adaptor there was no sign. Eventually, I resorted to wrapping self amalgamating tape around the pump nozzle which worked surprisingly well.
It was only when I removed the cap off the other tube that I discovered the adaptor stuck in the valve! It must have remained there unnoticed the last time the pump was used.
Then it was back to the boat for the can of petrol which happily I remembered to add some 2 stroke oil to.
Then it was back to the car for the kill cord which lives in the dashboard storage space.
Then, at last, I fired up the outboard. Or at least I did when, after several unsuccessful heaves, I remembered to turn on the fuel tap!
I popped out to our mooring to check the buoy tail that I'd noticed was on it. It had wrapped itself around the chain and I couldn't shift it.
No big deal, I later asked Toby if they could sort it en passant tomorrow as I expect to have to vacate the pontoon for the weekend due to the imminent arrival of numerous old gaffers, sailing barges and steam victualling vessels all of which are, unbelievably, deemed more attractive to the public than Erbas!
I finally got to stop for five minutes and make a coffee. Then it was time to decide between eating on board or heading for the pub. The pub won!
Never the less, at the moment I don't have the flexibility to change the plans for the cruise as Jane cannot change her holiday booking and Rik is involved to.
So I've headed back down to Fambridge a day early so that I can tackle at least some of the more urgent jobs.
With the need to transport both my work kit and our personal kit for a two week cruse, the new Peckett Marine trailer has had its first outing. Whilst it slows me down somewhat that's really no bad thing and it's only fifteen or twenty minutes on the journey.
I checked in at the Yacht Station on arrival. The pontoon was rather full and the guys were all very busy putting in some temporary pontoons on the mud berths ready for Sunday's festival
Round to the marina, I nipped in to our lock store and chucked the outboard and oars in the trailer. Then I shifted our personal gear on board and folded up the cockpit tent temporarily.
A quick little job came my way which meant nipping back round to the yacht station. It turned out to be a simple matter of not having the right switches on and too many lights on one circuit. Still, it paid for a couple of beers and got me a lift back to the marina!
A word in the right places had us out on the travel hoist for a quick jetwash...
Most of the weed was, as I suspected, on the waterline but there was sufficient weed and barnacles on the bottom to make a marked difference to our performance.
The only drawback of having a quick scrub now is that it has taken off a lot of the active antifoul and it's almost inevitable that we'll have to come out for a couple of days in a few weeks time as she'll foul up pretty quickly now.
Still, that's a price I'm prepared to pay for decent performance while we're away. Dragging a load of marine growth all over the North Sea isn't my idea of fun!
I managed to back Erbas out of the travel hoist without making a spectacle of myself and motored round to the yacht station. Happily, with a clean bottom and prop, Erbas was trotting along very nicely hitting five and a half knots at 2600rpm.
With the only gap amongst the moored boats being somewhat less than Erbas size, Toby had suggested rafting outside the Dutch Barge on the upstream end of the outside of the pontoon.
However, I had a better idea! Orca was moored on the inside and I'm working on her tomorrow so I rafted up to her instead.
My next task was to sort out our tender which hasn't been used since last autumn. I fetched the oars, outboard and pump down from the car and set about pumping up the tubes.
They didn't need a great deal but search as I might I couldn't find the adaptor for the pump. The pump lives in the boot of the car permanently but of the adaptor there was no sign. Eventually, I resorted to wrapping self amalgamating tape around the pump nozzle which worked surprisingly well.
It was only when I removed the cap off the other tube that I discovered the adaptor stuck in the valve! It must have remained there unnoticed the last time the pump was used.
Then it was back to the boat for the can of petrol which happily I remembered to add some 2 stroke oil to.
Then it was back to the car for the kill cord which lives in the dashboard storage space.
Then, at last, I fired up the outboard. Or at least I did when, after several unsuccessful heaves, I remembered to turn on the fuel tap!
I popped out to our mooring to check the buoy tail that I'd noticed was on it. It had wrapped itself around the chain and I couldn't shift it.
No big deal, I later asked Toby if they could sort it en passant tomorrow as I expect to have to vacate the pontoon for the weekend due to the imminent arrival of numerous old gaffers, sailing barges and steam victualling vessels all of which are, unbelievably, deemed more attractive to the public than Erbas!
I finally got to stop for five minutes and make a coffee. Then it was time to decide between eating on board or heading for the pub. The pub won!
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