And the lockdown dragged on and on so we did some stuff

 

After the rather large landslips in the car park and boatyard, the council got some contractors in to sort out the trees etc, just rather belatedly. As you can see, it was quite a job:

and when the cold snap happened the area where the trees and scrub had slipped and then been cleared exhibited some nice ice formations:

Cold weather meant some important jobs on board too - like preparing a big pot of vegetable soup for lunches:

and some spirited bread kneading to go with it:

The lockdown hairstyle seems very common - we saw it often on our walks. Kneading seems to help the crew's Fitbit step count too and it supported her victory in the weekly step count challenge.  Sorry Irene and Linda - you will have to make your own bread too.

Some prep work was done for the replacement of the heating boiler that we have mentioned before. After trying several options and so called "experts" we recognised that there was no such person. Many of them were typical of the marine trades - no reply or half a reply to an enquiry. Then silence. Luckily we had one person recommended by the owner of a lovely Oyster yacht berthed nearby. Even better, he was Gas Safe registered and handled air con units as his core business. So, the plan was hatched to get a replacement boiler, renew the gas piping from the cylinders to the hob and to get the aircon compressor re-gassed too. It was refreshing to find someone who was proactive and seemed to want to to the job for us.

The old Webasto DBW2010 and silencer  with the sooty area around it from when the exhaust failed late last year:

Stuart, the gas safe man visited and a plan on how to do the work was hatched..... Meanwhile, the strange and chilly weather did prompt some lovely skies which the marina  folks photographed and shared on their Facebook page:

Spot the Nordhavn time again. We also had a few canine fixes, walking Pip and Poppy for Lorna who lives in the marina. Pip is one of those cute and very cuddly dogs who can look tired so well:

whilst Poppy did the "I am alert and following every word of your conversation" thing:

She was bluffing.

The major excitement was when the crew had an SMS inviting her to book a Covid jab. The captain was unamused, as he is older he fully expected to get his invite first but it was not to be. The GP surgery even called her to chase up her booking on the day the SMS arrived. Impressive. It seems that she was deemed to be "at risk" and so had been prioritised. We have no clue as to why she is "at risk" but we didn't argue. A road trip to Hythe for her appointment ended up with both of us getting jabbed. The folks at the centre took pity on the elderly guy who had been left outside and so we both had an armful of Mr Pfizer's nice stuff together with three pages of "information" about it and the possible side effects:

which was strangely exciting. It felt like the start of the end of lockdown for us and certainly will reduce the frustration we have with numpties who insist on walking three abreast on the path and who cannot mentally work out 2 metre distancing. Roll on the 3 week period for the immunity to build up. 

Maintenance News:

As the possibility of actually using the boat as a boat got more likely, we embarked on some of the winter maintenance / upgrade work. First of all, the genset had the coolant drained out, the heat exchanger tubestack cleaned (there were a couple of bits of old impeller lodged in there), a new impeller and a new coolant hose fitted to replace the one that had to be shortened last year thanks to being damaged by a cheapo hose clip from the factory  A raw water hose also got swapped out as it had been crushed by an over-enthusiastic person with a hose clip. This was not the captain's fault for a change:. 

Although it does not look it, the hose on the right hand side is the new one.... 

Then the main engine had the same coolant drain job, before the oil cooler was removed and the two O rings inside it were replaced. The front of the engine looks strange without it:

Note the very posh drip tray collecting the remaining drops of coolant and bin liner bag protecting the engine start battery alternator from a bath. This is what the cooler body looks like:

and you can see the rather critical O ring in this picture:

That was the old one, suitably squashed into position. If they fail then you get a nice oil mix with the engine coolant . We had a small amount get in a few years ago but caught it before it meant a major clean out of the coolant passages in the engine. We were lucky. The O rings are on our regular preventative maintenance list and their time had come. 

Reassembled the front of the engine looks way better:

Since some oil had been lost, the gearbox oil and filter were changed at the same time. Easy enough to pump the oil out with our built in Reverso pump but the upside down mounting of the big ZF filter always makes a bit of a mess. Thanks to lockdown we could not take the boat out for a trip to check that all was well but the engine had a run in gear on the berth and things looked OK..

The lockdown continued so we had to keep amused somehow - watergate #2

Faced with many weeks of lockdown and pictures from folks we know in Asia who were"going about life pretty much like normal" we tried hard to avoid the being miserable about it all thing. Finding amusement in the local area was easy enough - the end of our pontoon is a favorite spot for the local fishermen to congregate, stalk their prey and then dry their wings afterwards: 

It does tend to turn the pontoon a little bit white but the marina guys are very good at cleaning up and we don't need that end anyway - this hammerhead is nicely longer than we are.

We also planned to get some electric folding bikes. Our antique cheapo folding bikes had been fine but the crew's issue with hills (both up and down) and advancing years made some assistance on the hilly bits tempting. There was plenty of time to research what to have and knowing Andrew (Mr Zephyros, the Nordhavn 43) made it so much easier as he is a bit of an expert. The choice ended up between a Brompton or a Gocycle. Every bone in the captain's body loved the engineering and design of the latter:

but the lazarette was not as keen. Folded they are way bigger then the classic Brompton and putting two of those, plus the Avon roll up dinghy, little Tohatsu outboard and spare oil etc into the laz was very very tight on space. No matter how many times it was measured up, the same reality struck, it was just too tight and getting to anything else in there (eg flopper stopper, wet and dry vacuum, stern gear, inverters, hydraulic pump for the crane, batteries etc) would involve dragging 2 bikes and a dinghy out.

A test ride on both bikes made the reluctant captain realise that the benefits of the Gocycle on the road were not worth the mayhem they would cause in storing them or trying to keep them safe when out and about.  So, it looks like we have to go for Bromptons instead, mainly because they do this:

 

and weigh a bit less too. Life is full of compromises but this one isn't too hard.

Maintenance news: (for those folks who really have had enough of lockdown and just want help to sleep):

Having had a Brexit import duty moan in the last post about the extra cost of importing a Marco fresh water pump, we struck lucky. A UK marine engineering shop had one for sale at less than half the normal imported price. It was old stock and so we risked the dreaded "seal on the pump shaft failing so the electric motor gets a bath" problem. It duly arrived (after they had sent it to the wrong address initially) and the fun of #Watergate2 was upon us. 

Working on the basis that nothing on a boat is ever simple, we were not disappointed. First of all we had to remove the failed elderly Jabsco backup pump and then move the working one into that space as it is too small for the Marco. Naturally Jabsco had changed the size of their mounts which meant some playing around with the original backing pad and pipe runs to get it snugly in place and far enough away from the little water heating boiler:

Then, to mount the Marco pump nicely in the vacated space, we had to move the salt water washdown pump for the anchor chain as far as possible outboard. The Marco has a very delicate strainer assembly and any nasty angle on the water inlet pipe attached to it causes distortion and encourages the strainer seal to leak water out or air in or both. So, the washdown pump was duly removed and parked for a while:

and the nice Marco UP12e fitted into place:

The pipework to the relocated washdown pump needed some trickery as the outlet is solid stuff - the blue pipe in the picture above - but it all worked eventually.  Well, sort of. After priming the Marco and enjoying the nice pressure and flow rates (plus the noise a bit like a jet engine spooling up when it runs), the captain was less amused to find air bubbles appearing in the strainer when the pump was switched off.

The so called "old stock" pump had clearly been fitted to something at some stage in its' life as there was some silicone style goo around the hose fitting that screws into the strainer and a very impressive 24v DC connector on the wiring together with some cable protection. That is not standard from the factory! The strainer had to be removed to be cleaned up, sealed with PTFE tape not whatever some bodger had in his sealant gun, and then refitted. Time to talk to the suppliers.... See, maintenance stuff is never easy. However, we regularly bless the decision we made years ago to have two pumps in parallel with a simple swap over involving two valves and a switch. Having no fresh water is no fun especially as the heads need it....