Keeping busy in Gosport

We might have mentioned before how escaping from Gosport is one of the joys of being here. So, on a nice dry morning the little Bromptons had a trip to Fareham where we treated ourselves to a coffee. Going there you feel that you deserve it as it is gently uphill and was into the wind as well. We only use the eBike motor on the lowest setting for minimum assistance, honest! Well, apart from climbing the evil hills in Dartmouth that is. They attracted lots of attention parked up outside the coffee shop but we managed to stop the locals from stealing them:

For some strange reason, the gentle slope downhill on the way back was not noticeable as the wind had done a 180 degree turn and we were pushing into it again. Lots of effort just to get back to Gosport seemed so unfair.

Poor Izzy the god-dog needed a break as Anne was boarding another puppy. This time a labrador that was very lovely but wanted to keep licking Izzy's face. She was less than amused about this and was happy to escape with us:

However it might be her last visit as she disgraced herself on a walk. She ran across a field and started rolling in the grass, no yelling stopped her until we reached the scene and discovered that she was rolling on top of a dead rat. Rancid little dog. So, upon return she was treated to a good shower then "shrink wrapped" in her towelling robe thing to dry. Yes, there is a dog in there somewhere:

Maintenance news:

We mentioned before that we did a few bits and bobs to help out Martin and Inge - the owners of the sparkly Nordhavn 47 Malaspina. They had been suffering from electrical panel gauge failures, no surprise there really. In a moment of madness, we brought one of the sickly gauges back to our boat and tried the standard repair method that worked for two of ours but failed on two as well. 

For any Nordhavn owning folks or other lucky souls with Chi Tai meters who have not played this game it goes something like:

Pop the innards out of the casing and admire the big capacitor towards the front of the circuit board:

The one that has 105c written on it. Testing this capacitor it was clear that it had failed and gone open circuit:

So, the dead cap was unsoldered (tricky), removed and replaced with a new one which was soldered into place:

We took the meter back to Malaspina, plugged it in and found that it was still sick - we were too late to save it this time. Sorry Martin and Inge, we did try to be helpful. We were more successful in adding some more Stanadyne fuel additive to their storage tanks to help freshen up the fuel in there,  which thanks to Covid is getting on a bit. Not as old as us but "old" in diesel terms.

Having been half successful on someone else's boat, we moved on to tinkering with ours. The wiring connections to the grey and black water tanks are a bit "interesting". Bullet connectors that often pull off the weedy wires from the float switches:

As there is no wiring colour scheme, you have to remember / note down which wire goes to which connector each time too. Getting fed up with this game (we remove the tank sender to get access to the tank for cleaning purposes) the original wiring was replaced with a nice multiplug arrangement:

No more issues with unplugging and reconnecting. The black water tank will get the same treatment when the captain's knees and back have recovered.