Germany calling......

The captain hadn't been back to Germany since finishing work with BMW Group in January 2013. That was not because he dislikes the place or the people in fact he really enjoyed both. It is just that not working seems to fill up the diary even more than before.

However, this omission was fixed by a whistle-stop trip to Frankfurt and Dusseldorf. Why those two and not Bavaria with the opportunity to say hi to the old work colleagues and practice the local "Bayerische" language that confuses and annoys in equal amounts? Well, some friends who we hadn't seen for over 20 years live just outside Frankfurt and having managed to make contact with them after losing all their contact details (they lost ours too.....) we had to go and say hello. For obvious reasons you have not met them in here before! Then there is the lure of the enormous Dusseldorf boat show too.....

For the benefit of Captain Rae, we flew over with his old employer in (to quote Capt Rae) a "poxy little frogbus". It seems that Colin did not enjoy his time in the short haul fleet on the Airbus 319/320.

Some time catching up with Debbie and Hajo and exploring the forest near their house was great. 20 years felt more like 20 weeks although the captain's wrinkles said otherwise. Hajo has a lovely classic car:

that is undergoing a little engine overhaul to prepare it for the next 48 years of its life:

To quote Bernie the old car collector extraordinaire, the timing chains look like they come from a Massey Ferguson combine harvester, not a car. The one part of a Stag engine that was over-engineered perhaps?

After a good walk in the forest, we took part in the German tradition of post exercise coffee and cake. Well, tea and cake in our case. Perhaps I should have taken a picture of Debbie's homemade treat a little earlier on though:

After Frankfurt, we took the Inter-City express train to Dusseldorf to meet up with Andrew and Linda (the Nordhavn 43 owners) and then to visit the boat show. Before you ask, we can confirm that we only bought food at the show, nothing else. Travelling through Germany at 284 kph rather made the local Cardiff services using antique Pacer trains that are nearly as old as Hajo's "classic" car seem a bit tame.

The show, called "Boot" (of course) at the massive exhibition centre was a test of stamina and shoe leather but great fun. We saw an ideal replacement for our RIB as a new tender:

A special boat show price of around 4,000 Euros was so tempting.Somehow we resisted it.

The trip finished off with a day wandering around the city and Altstadt area, taking Andrew and Linda to a typical German Brauhaus for a late lunch and then catching a cold (man flu of course) from her. That was less than ideal.

All a bit remote

Ages and ages ago, we figured that the wired pendant controller for our Steelhead crane was a single point of failure. The little micro switches in them have a poor reputation, especially if you go around dropping the thing or getting it wet. Having the crane immobilised whilst you try to dismember and repair the pendant or play around with jumper wires to bridge a failed switch was not appealing.

There is an alternative wireless solution but the equipment is wildly expensive from the Steelhead folks. You can buy the controller direct from the manufacturer Kar-Tech and make up your own wiring loom for it and that is a little less eye watering in price at $590 US.  Add some wires, three Deutsch connectors and you are in business. The kit looks like:

Pretty thing isn't it! We found one on eBay that had been bought by another Nordhavn 47 owner and used for his "identical to ours" crane. It had been back to the manufacturer for a repair and was away when they sold their boat. Hence it was available.  We happily bought it and then found that the nice Steelhead folks wanted to sell a new faceplate to us so there was space inside it to tuck the wireless receiver! What?? They even sent a technical drawing of it too:

Funny how they never mention that would be needed on their (feeble) spares website or in many emails about failing controllers with the Nordhavn Owners Group members. To add insult to injury, the plate they supply would be bare metal too, not finished in white 2 pack paint like the rest of the crane.

Together with Roland, the Steelhead engineer guru who has featured in here before, we figured that the receiver could be hidden up inside the jib of the crane and the original faceplate retained if the pigtail connector we needed to make up was long enough. We made up a Y lead so we could use either of the wireless or wired controllers.

Fitted into place the wireless controller just refused to work - the transmitter and receiver would not pair despite a report from the recent service work saying they both tested OK to specification. Perhaps the specification omits the chatting to each other test - that bit is vaguely important though. 

So. after many emails the device went back to them in the USA and had a new trigger fitted which cost way more than the original eBay purchase price. It came back, amused us for an hour or so to fit it and amazingly it worked.

So we now have two ways to send command signals to the crane and feel a little happier. Knowing our luck, we will probably find that a hydraulic line ruptures or a solenoid valve fails but at least using the wireless remote will be easier then the annoying cable which gets wrapped around you and itself very easily.

Xmas and all that entails

To be fair, it didn't entail too much, although there was a tail involved. The tail belonged to Izzy, our goddog who has starred in here many times. Her owners were off to Norn Iron over the festive period by dog unfriendly Flymaybe (actually they are not very human friendly either) so we were looking after her again. Such a chore.

The "I am here and don't forget it" look. Followed by the:

"I am still here and hoping for food" look. Remarkably similar really. We were very lucky this year and had an invitation out to Xmas lunch from Simon and Nika - a newly married couple too! They live aboard a beautiful 1970 timber yacht, simply beautiful:

Before lunch we had the ritual present opening time:

and to our pleasure we were gifted a companion for Patrick the penguin. Meet Debbie:

We think she is shy, she seemed a little stiff and "wooden" to start with but maybe some time with Patrick will thaw her out...... A Xmas morning walk with Steve (the ex waterbus man), Bron the spaniel and Rhiannon ended up chez Steve to wash the mud off the dogs and consume tea.

After wandering around to the lovely timber yacht, we (including Izzy) were royally treated to several courses by great hosts:

even if Simon seems to be busy cradling a full tummy. For us, walking back to the Nordhavn was a challenge too. Upon return, Izzy seemed to be in a similar mood:

To remove some of the Xmas excesses, plenty of walks around the bay were undertaken - the level of enjoyment for us was directly related to the weather. For Izzy it was more dependent upon how many sticks we threw for her to chase. At least there is a nice coffee shop at the end of the bay and Izzy just refuses to accept that she cannot share a chocolate brownie:

Optimism unrestrained indeed.

For New Year we were joined by Tina. We struggled through the Jools Holland TV show and his guests of variable quality to welcome in 2020. Melanie, singing "Look what they done to my song,. Ma " was just unbelievably bad but highly amusing. The years have not been kind to her..... Hint, watch this version, way way easier on the ears and eyes  You tube video from 1971

Izzy was most happy to have three people to fuss over her every need / desire / whim. We were happy to have a reason to go out for longer walks and visit some dog friendly pubs too although we did cheat and take the train back from Whitchurch after a 12 mile wander along the river:

The train was not that chilly Izzy.

Although we had an active time, poor Tina ended up in Barry hospital. Not the greatest place to be and some of the other "minor injuries unit" attendees were less than salubrious. Tina of course was just the opposite. She had hurt her wrist tripping over before Xmas and after lots of less than gentle persuasion agreed to get it professionally checked. It ended up in plaster pending a trip to the fracture clinic back on the Isle of Wight when she returned. To quote the nurse practitioner guy, "you have mushed it". A special Barry medical term perhaps, or a Gavin and Stacey special uttered by Nessa? No matter,  life continued:

WhatsApp messages became a one handed challenge in the coffee shop. So glad she is right handed or all communication from her might be purely by emojis for a while.