Gosport - the last episode (we hope) and a flyboy discourse

Still working on the basis of "escape from Gosport at every possible moment as it is Gosport", the eBikes have been relatively heavily used. On one occasion when Anne and Izzy were around, Izzy tried out the larger Brompton bag and had a little trip along the pontoon. She was quite nonplussed to start with as her owner zipped her into the bag but was quite chilled about the trip:

She did provoke several comments and glances from other folks in the marina, usually positive.

We had many trips to and from the hospital for Mr Toddler and carelessly we seemed to have left him in there once. That meant the poor guy missed out on the captain's birthday lunch in a nice New Forest pub. The crew and Mrs Toddler would like to point out that the glasses do not contain any alcohol:

Things got even worse for Mr T when the crew stole HIS chair in our Hythe marina house:

We are not sure if worrying about who was in his spot (most Sheldon-like) had any bearing on his rapid recovery and escape from the hospital. Back in Gosport, the marina carpark had a new attendant it seemed:

This young fox was not at all concerned about cars arriving or people wandering around. Having seen a few of the scarier Gosport human inhabitants, we think that the fox needs to be more careful or it could end up being cooked. 

By now, regular readers of this stuff will have met or heard of Martin (Malaspina, another Nordhavn 47) who is a training captain for Cathay Pacific. He flies what he reckons is a very pretty aircraft, the Airbus A350 and was rather proud of this picture taken recently at Hong Kong:

We are a little worried about what he was up to with his hands but will let that pass by. Now, Captain Rae (Albatross - Nordhavn 47) the ex Lightning fighter pilot, ex BA 747 and 787 captain calls anything that Airbus makes a "poxy frogbus" and offered this image from his 787 days as a comparison:

Feel free to let us know which plane (or pilot) you prefer in the comments section to help settle the "Poxy Frogbus versus Boeing" battle going on between them. We are still sitting on the fence on this one as we don't wish to upset either of the friends. You might have a little more freedom to express your views.

Since we were not sure what we would be doing, we had sadly refused the offer of two weeks Izzy sitting whilst Anne and family went away on holiday. Instead, Tina stepped into the breach and the little furry doglet had an Isle of Wight vacation. Tina kindly brought her over to see us:

but apparently this photo of the carer and the dog is unacceptable. Something about "always getting horrid pictures of me" was mentioned so the image is being shared with some personal risk involved.

Maintenance news:

Since Mr Toddler has had his maintenance, it is time for us to be nice to the neglected boat. The genset had an oil change and a few other tedious little jobs got completed, like lubricating the engine room fans, greasing the crane and giving the grey water tank a clean (another winner of a job). The new heating boiler was treated to a new silencer that got titanium wrap put on it to help reduce the heat transfer into the lazarette too.

The void through which the heater exhaust runs also had a treat - that area gets pretty warm and only had one little vent to allow the rather warm air to escape. So, a much larger vent hole and stainless cover were added to the inside of the transom. We were pretty amazed to find that the GRP lamination was an inch thick (or around 2.5cm for continental readers):

 

Built like a battleship indeed. The boat that is, not the captain's grubby thumb. You can see the insulated exhaust pipe tucked inside there together with the metal bracket under the plate that holds an electric downrigger for fishing.

Having the exhaust in the smallish void right next to the gas cylinders is not great but we struggled to see a safe / accessible place to move it to onto the transom, So it has to stay where it is with the outlet far too low on the port quarter. In rough weather the outlet needs to be blocked up to stop water getting into the exhaust, around the little swan neck and into the heater.  Again, not a great installation when the boat was new by the Hamble Webasto dealer.