Eastbourne, large Nordhavns and the Xmas thing

As the crew's back was still pesky, a trip to Hythe took two days but was pretty pain free. Progress indeed. The captain then headed over to Eastbourne to join Alex and Gisele on their (we may have said this before) HUGE Nordhavn 55. To use an old song line "the weather outside is frightful" but all was good inside as you can see from the picture:

Alex and the captain had a few fun jobs to do - overhauling the old Jabsco bilge pump and sorting out a very slow to empty grey water tank. The first one went well. The second was one of those "fix one thing, find another" jobs.  A slightly leaky anti-siphon fitting was easy to fix. A new electric pump was fitted with a new joiner hose to replace one that was pretty bent about. Then the manual pump was a bit leaky and possibly having joker valve issues so stripping it down and resealing it in situ  was amusing. For all the wrong reasons. Suffice to say that it eventually came out totally, to be sorted on a bench instead. The tank senders were seriously grubby and jammed so they came out and got cleaned up too. For some inexplicable reason, a fuse popped and had to be replaced as well. The job wasn't finished so will be returned to another day.

Xmas was back afloat, but we were invited to a Czech dinner on the 24th as last year. It started strangely, Moxie, their fox red labrador, managed to bash her tail against all the doors, walls and furniture causing the tip to bleed. The continually wagging tail then sprayed the blood around rather dramatically over the walls, furniture etc. She looks so peaceful here, with her new Xmas present from us,  but earlier on it was quite a drama:

The Czech tradition of seeing the first star, then hunting for the golden pig was observed and once Nikki found the important animal:

a rather excellent dinner followed on. Happy times.

Xmas day was quiet - we felt the need to open some Camel Valley rose fizz to celebrate it though:

and although Patrick didn't get any, he still managed to look slightly the worse for wear:

It must just be an age thing for the poor guy.

Between Xmas and New Year we had an Aussie invasion. Ross ( he starred in here a few years ago on his last visit) and his fiancee Lucy came to stay. Only it was not the easiest trip for them. Train strikes over Xmas messed up the train they had booked to London and the weather then decided to add to their amusement. We collected two drowned rats from Cardiff station and thawed them out on the boat, helping their inner warmth with more Camel Valley stuff. It did finally dry up a little so Ross could venture onto the flybridge:

suitably attired in our wet weather gear. Lucy seemed to take to life afloat rather quickly and very well:

and was most interested in some of the strange beers that are on offer in the UK. Watermelon IPA was a hit:

and just for the record, Lucy is lovely, not at all an evil genius.

The IPA was not good for poor Ross though, who is a bit gluten intolerant now. Luckily we'd picked up lots of tips from Gisele on what to buy and so he didn't starve. It might have been a close run thing when he stayed with his grandma though as her man kept telling folks that Ross was "vegan free". No idea what that would let him eat. A walk around Penarth (in heavy showers of course) then a trip to Castell Coch to get some "culture and heritage" (and also to get out of the rain) occupied a day:

before we dropped them off at the station again for their trip up to Glasgow:

The boat felt very empty after they left, although the gin cupboard was better stocked thanks to a couple of nice bottles they brought. So much for the Xmas period.

Coolant, backs, paddleboards and another little trip

Upon our return to the boat, the captain wandered into the engine room and discovered a little pool of coolant in a place where it should not be. So, this post starts with boring maintenance stuff. For normal human beings, there is other info later on so skim read the next bit. For folks who like the captain to be involved in anguish, press on.

Naturally the errant coolant could not be from a leaking spare coolant container, life does not work like that. It was traced to the top of one of the hoses that lead from the main engine thermostat housing to the calorifier. A quick fix would be to just turn off the two isolating valves fitted before the hose and leave it but that would mean no domestic hot water is produced when running the engine. Something to do if we were in the middle of a sea trip but....

So, the first challenge is getting to the top of the hose that was causing the trouble. It is very close to the gearbox oil cooler hose fitting so that had to be removed first of all. You can see where the two hose clips had been fitted in the factory and the hose had a small split underneath these, just below the hosetail it was pushed onto:

You can also see how the cheapo hose clips had cut into the hose, were probably overtight and a trace of the infuriating black sealant goo that some idiot in the factory had applied when installing the hose. Grr. We've moaned before about the liberal use of sealant in areas where it has no right to be. This made removing the hose from the hosetail a real challenge. After a few bad words and some violence, it surrendered:

You can see the oil cooler connection (and the pad catching any drips from it!) that had to be removed first. 

Luckily there was enough free hose to allow the damaged part to be cut off and then for it to be refitted. The angle of the oil cooler elbow that you can see in the picture above was changed to allow easier access in future and the whole thing rebuilt:

Such excitement. Now, for folks with a more normal set of interests here is an update on the goings on, or lack of them.

The crew, she of the poorly back, had a fruitful appointment with a consultant spinal surgeon who told her that there was nothing wrong with her scan and that if his spine looked like that when he was her age, he would be very happy. Kind of a compliment and gentle put down in one accurate but not too carefully worded comment. So, she headed to an expert physio lady who gave her exercises and some homework. The homework was probably unlike any that had been set before - to take the boat out for a run. Seems that lifting those big fenders is good exercise.

Being an obedient type (well, for certain people), the crew then decided that we needed to burn up and down the bay a few times on a lovely still, blue skied but chilly day. The usual confusing track resulted:

and we made plenty of hot water with no coolant leaks this time. However, the repositioned oil cooler hose looked as though it might have a weep where it attaches to the fitting on the cooler so that will need redoing. The old "fix one problem, cause another" game.

To add to the annoyance, the wing engine exhaust elbow which had some suspect dark marks underneath it before, decided to show that it was unhappy - a little pinhole must have opened up as a tiny black stain appeared.. Time to renew it. The current elbow is a stainless steel version that replaced the original cast one in early 2014. We were not too impressed that the more expensive factory supplied stainless offering had lasted only a little longer than the cast iron original.

It hasn't been swapped out yet for the spare that we carry as we will wait until we have another new one shipped over from the USA. Just in case the identical elbow on our genset decides to fail too - replacing that during the winter is way more important than fixing the wing engine. This time we have gone for stainless again but a pattern part from a supplier that many Nordhavn owners have recommended. They produce good quality castings at way lower prices that the original equipment part. Have a look at HDL Marine website - they also seem to ship much more quickly too. Wrestling the exhaust hose off and getting to the one hidden bolt will be fun for another day.

Xmas seems to be setting in and despite the freezing temperature around 40 stand up paddleboarders braved the weather and dressed up for a Santa paddle event to raise money for the lifeboats. Impressive sight:

and they all paddled past us in various outfits and with various levels of stability on their boards:

You can just see the inshore lifeboat that accompanied them on their travels so it looked pretty safe.

The marina runs a "best illuminated boat" competition at Xmas time., As professional bah humbug types we didn't take part. You would expect nothing else from us of course.