More Fire Break time

Yes, the nice devolved government could not call it a "circuit break" as had been discussed in the media for England. The Welsh guys had to call it something different. It was more severe than the one that the equally lovely Nicola imposed on the central belt of Scotland so we had a while doing odds and ends on the boat and looking after the fluffy hound. That involved a few soggy walks and Izzy had a couple of "bad hair days" drying out afterwards:

Maintenance stuff - well, the port side of the gas locker has the dubious pleasure of being next to the void that contains the exhaust for the Webasto boiler that we have for heating. It got removed when we renewed the exhaust pipe recently and as there was no heat insulation on it, we procured some rather good stuff  (have a look at  Zircotec website) and stuck it onto the board:

Nice finish, shame it will not be seen again unless we need to tinker with the heater exhaust.

The heat exchanger on the wing engine also had a treat, drained down some coolant, took off the end cap and had a look to see if it needed removing and having a serious clean out. It was not too bad:

Looking into the tubes with a little borescope they were not badly fouled at all but there were some bits of impeller and general gunge in the end cap which were removed:

The end of the tubestack got a quick clean and then was rebuilt using the original unpleasant hose clips that the Northern Lights factory / the Nordhavn builders used. They are both guilty. We will replace them one day:

Not going to drag that tubestack out for a serious clean up yet. The genset might get more TLC though depending upon how the inside of the tubes looks. However, thanks to where the genset is mounted, the tubestack will not pull out of the "easy end" - ie the one just above the alternator. It is too long and would hit the bulkhead before it is clear of the housing. This means dismantling the other, trickier end which is linked to the exhaust elbow and dragging it out that way. We repeat our frequent moan about the genset not being fitted a bit further forward as it easily could have been!

Before the "Fire Break" here in Wales we raided the local Deere agricultural dealer and collected a few parts that we and Captain Rae needed. His were posted off, and the new torsional damper got some paint to protect it for the 5 years that it should be spending on our main engine.

Getting the old one off and this on is quite a performance though.

What else? Well, more dog walking in lockdown (sorry, Fire Break) and some tinkering with the settings on the Victron inverters that were fitted last year using the program on a laptop connected to them:

They had seemed to be charging at too high a voltage during the absorption phase although the voltage was exactly set to the Lifeline AGM book figure. (By the way, before you ask, the 70 amp charge shown on the app is for one inverter so the pair can put out 140).  After lots of checking voltages, configuration etc it boiled down to the way the Victron units compensate for temperature being a little less sophisticated than the way the lifelines like. The issue was sorted but the new domestic waterpump that we fitted during the lockdown earlier this year:

does not like high voltages. 28V or so and the control electronics go crazy, unlike the older similar Jabsco pump which still runs happily at that and higher voltages as did the Marco pump that we had to replace. 

Some investigation revealed that this is a known problem with the vFlo 5 pumps which have now been discontinued with no direct replacement. Wonderful. We now have a battle with Jabsco on our hands. We only bought the thing as during lockdown getting the big Marco pump that can handle the head of water involved was mission impossible as Italy was pretty much closed. So now, when on shorepower or running on battery alone we can use it. When under engine or when the batteries are recharging via the inverters, we switch to the older pump. Good job we have them mounted in parallel with power and plumbing swap over capability!

Izzy, quite naturally, took all this in her stride:

and continued to worry more about food, walks, playtime and cuddles. Smart dog, we are learning from her.