When will the weather improve? When we have a sauna!

So, the plan looked like relaunch on Monday 12th at early o'clock to catch the high tide. The hoist crew were coming in very early so we could be afloat at around 7:30am. Tiring just thinking about it. On the preceding Friday, late evening, a somewhat annoyed captain received a nice email with invoices for the work done, confirmation that the shaft was fitted and the calorifier plumbing was completed. Unfortunately it also said that the new transducer had not been fitted for various reasons but that it could be done during the March lift out. The captain graciously replied telling them (again!) it was needed ready for an electronics refresh and that it should be done on Monday with launching delayed to Tues / Weds. Patience is always needed in dealing with marine businesses...

In preparation, the captain again braved the Blue Islands ATR service in the (old) colours of Flybe. Discovering that Flybe themselves are now up for sale only adds to the frisson of excitement / terror involved in using them to get anywhere ever.

To cheer up Captain Rae, this time it was a different aircraft, G-ISLK, Dating from 2000, this plane has a slightly less exotic history than the normal one on the Southampton service (see prior post) having been rattled around by Air Dolomiti. To try and prevent comments about ugly aircraft pictures, this time you are only getting the tail and the queue of brave passengers:

As you can see we were sent out to the plane before they were ready for us. So glad it wasn't raining.

Arriving into Guernsey we landed and made our way towards the apron. Then we stopped and waited and waited. A full 5 mins with the little turboprop whirring away and burning fossil fuel in a way that makes our Nordhavn look like a Green Party advert. Why were we waiting? No idea. We landed at 10:13 and here are the departing aircraft movements:

Nothing moving there. How about arrivals?

nope, no big queue in front or astern of us. Happily the delay in reaching our stand meant missing the once every two hours on Sunday direct bus to St Sampson. This trip was starting out well.

On Monday the sounder was duly fitted, replacing an older Furuno fishfinder unit. Good job too as it looks like the original fit was a poor one with a chunk of Sikaflex trying to level up the through hull fitting. The rather better M and G man ground away a little GRP on the inside and got it seated very nicely:

The new high capacity bilge pump to back up the temperamental Jabsco diaphragm unit was in place and very neatly plumbed and wired in:

Hard to spot in the bottom of the deep bilge area. The new calorifier was most neatly installed too:

Leaving a day for the sealant around the transducer to set, a Wednesday launch was booked. A weather window overnight on Thursday would allow time for sea trials, adjusting the stuffing box as the new packing wears itself in and generally checking that all was well before making an overnight crossing back to the Solent area.

Then it all went wrong. Excited to use the huge new calorifier to make some hot water for on-board showers, the immersion heater (also new) was switched on. The thermostat on it must have been faulty as it duly overheated the water in the tank, produced lots of pressure and caused one of the nice new pipes in the picture above which are rated to 100C and 6 bar pressure to split. The noise and resulting Turkish bath in the engine room was wonderful.

Luckily, there are no electrical things in that area to worry about so no other damage was done. Since the calorifier had been subject to pressures way above the design specification it means replacing the attached pipework and putting a new replacement calorifier in. This is not a 5 minute job (2 elapsed days) but the new unit had to arrive first.

Time to fly back rather than live in mid air for a while with an ever diminishing holding tank capacity free.  A most irritating problem, not the yard's fault this time but it just extends the out of water period. Good to let the hull dry out a bit we guess although the epoxy used with the Coppercoat probably stops that! Refits / replacements are such fun.

Back to Guernsey

Since the delivery date for the new shaft went back by one week each time the calendar went forward by one, a decision had to be made. Unamused by the Clements engineering folks' inability to confirm a date and the poor / missing communication from the Guernsey folks, a decision to refit the old shaft and then swap to the new one in March was made. We were planning a lift and scrub job then - it will just be a couple of days longer now. We hope.

The brave captain flew back courtesy of Flymaybe once more, on the same knackered 16 year old Blue Islands turboprop. It started life with Air Tahiti and now the poor thing shuttles to and from Southampton every day. Hardly the same sense of glamour! No picture this time as Captain Rae complained about "having to look at that ugly aircraft" in an earlier post. You can blame him for this big boring chunk of text that isn't broken up by a nice purple plane picture.

On arrival, the captain found that the M and G organisation had obviously "back ended" a lot of the work. So much for dropping the boat over during their quiet period! Still, things that had been done were very well done. The new deflectors / cutters for the stabiliser fins:

that were fabricated to replaced the corroded originals. These have an anode on to help them survive longer. The new calorifier with twin coils was in place. A very snug fit and a huge capacity (75 litres) so there should be no complaints form the fourth person to have a shower in the morning about being chilly:

The huge Vetus calorifier had one obvious drawback - a twin coil unit as requested but some muppet had designed it with the connections to one coil at each end of the device. It will be such fun getting to the inboard connections when they decide to leak a bit as they surely will over time:

As you can see from the first picture, there is some plumbing left to do - another example of leaving tasks right up to the wire and typical of marine industry organisation. That one was particularly frustrating as it meant no hot water on board. The captain was given a key to the workshop toilet and shower area. It was lovely. Or something like lovely. Once upon a time. Perhaps.

The ground plate for the radio was removed and renewed. It had degraded badly (very pink) and the bolts fell apart nicely when they were being removed:

Headless indeed and all ready to cause a little leak.

The poor gearbox looked a bit lonely with no coupling and shaft connected:

but the engineer started the work to refit the original. Even when the work is completed, a relaunch in the forecast weather was not practical:

Swinging a heavy Nordhavn in the hoist with 30 mph winds is not fun. With 60 mph ones is just impossible. Even if we found a lull in the wind that fitted with high tide times, we would then have to ride out the coming strong gales in St Peter Port harbour and that is not especially well sheltered.

So, the boat stayed high and dry and a plan for a relaunch on Monday 12th was hatched, around 7:30 am to fit with the tides. The captain enjoyed a nice flight back on bonfire night, watching the various firework displays from above seated in the same little bored ATR aircraft. Even tiny Alderney had bought a few sparklers.