Storms, Hythe, old times (well, not that old) and preparing for an operation

Sometimes, you get to be almost famous for 5 minutes. Well, this is the best we can offer. Have a look at Nordhavn Europe website link  We need to discuss the copyright on our images though. 

A planned cat sitting trip to Hampshire was cancelled when Ann and Martin, the owners of said cat, were pretty much forced to move house rather than go off on vacation. The joys of the English approach to house sales with a chain of buyers involved. Instead we headed to Hythe and stayed in Toddlerville for a few nights. We had the delight of a trip to the local waste recycling site (better known as "the tip / dump" to we older folks) where we were treated to rudeness by the rather grumpy staff. If anyone can explain why a waste recycling centre doesn't take glass bottles and jars, that would be of interest.

More fun was a trip to the Nordhavn Europe offices in Swanwick marina and lunch with the team there. It kind of made up for the lack of royalties on our pictures. We also visited the Golden Arrow folks in Southampton to collect a couple of the wildly expensive ZF gearbox filters. The credit card shivered gently. Luckily one was to replace a filter we had given to Martin (Mr Malaspina) and the other was a spare for him. I calmed the credit card down with that news.

The captain visited the farm run by the supermarket chain Waitrose. Not for produce but to meet a couple of reprobates that he used to work with. Lovely location, nice cafe / restaurant and shop too: 

We did the "old retired characters" thing, were amused at some of the stuff that Chris had in store (eg old Rover Financial Services calculators - he had never worked for them and claimed to be storing them for Mr Bishop) and much enjoyed catching up. The captain is now convinced that in comparison, he is not a hoarder. Chris admitted to having every bank statement filed away bar the first two, since he opened an account at the age of 15. It would not be nice to mention his age here but that lot must take up several ring binders.

We haven't mentioned the goddog for a while - well, the poor girl needed an operation to remove a (fortunately) benign lump from her head. We met Anne and conehead as she is now known for lunch and admired Izzy's new look. We brought a lamb bone and watching her manage to chew it and remove the marrow whilst in the cone of shame was most impressive (and very entertaining too). She did look quite forlorn:

We are pleased to report that conehead has now been removed though and all is well.

Being social continued with refreshments and cake at a neighbours in Hythe and a dinner out in Barry with Simon (the man renovating his "Norvette" - a Corvette 32) and Nikki before returning to batten down the hatches. Yes, yet another storm was on the way.

Here is how the Windy website saw the incoming wind pattern:

and yes the more red it gets the worse it is. The different thing about this storm is that nearly all of the UK was getting clobbered.  The resulting wave heights were pretty evil:

and in case you are wondering, the white bits to the west of Ireland are even bumpier than the red bit! It was forecast to peak with over 10 metre waves. We just made sure our mooring lines were OK, the RIB cover was secured and stayed inside. Friends in Northern Ireland reported it as pretty horrid. One sent us this AIS track of the route the Stena ferry followed at night when approaching Belfast: 

Yes, it was too windy for them to attempt entering the narrow channel up to Belfast and to dock so they did several circles just north of Bangor waiting for things to calm down. The passengers must have been so happy / violently ill.Guess what, two days after that storm, the next one came through just to amuse us..... We are getting more and more bored with this weather pattern.

Maintenance news:

Since the captain is going to be slightly incapacitated from the end of January when he gets shoulder surgery, we tried to complete most of the must do maintenance tasks before the boating season starts. Hence the genset and wing had fuel filter changes, a gearbox oil change for the wing, the genset was due for and treated to an oil and filter swap and the main had fuel filters swapped too. Quite a pile of old filters to dispose of. A new filter for the Seagull water purifying thing will be needed soon and we must admit to having almost ignored the RIB outboard - no winter oil change took place. The one saving grace is that it did very few hours last year so the oil will not be too contaminated yet. That will have to wait until the Captain has a properly functioning shoulder once more. 

And then it was 2024 - how did that happen?

We had a quiet Xmas planned, bar a lovely Xmas eve dinner with Simon and Nikki at their house. As it rained and then rained some more, we didn't even get off the boat on Xmas day. However, it was a good one.

Between Xmas and New Year, Martin and Inge who own the other Nordhavn 47 here (Malaspina) were around so our social activities picked up, taking them to Castell Coch and then to Cardiff central for their massively delayed train to London.

Just as the world was waking up again on the 2nd, we drove to the Land Rover dealer near Hay-on-Wye to drop our car in for some work. We picked up a loan car, had a nose around the showroom and proceeded through flooded roads to a hotel near Tewkesbury. There was plenty of standing water, some deep areas to slowly wade through and generally, it was pretty horrid. We would have stayed on board if we hadn't been booked in to the dealer (sorry, they like to be called retailers now). Typically, during the worst weather in ages, we were not in our Defender with a 900mm wading capability but a Velar loan car.

The following morning we drove into Tewkesbury and went for a wander as the incessant rain had finally finished. There was plenty of water in places that it should not have been - the large car park was not really useful:. 

and camping or caravanning would have been tricky:

Luckily the Abbey was all OK and very beautiful too:

The rivers had well and truly flooded, up to the lower window level on this converted building:

and we doubt that anyone will be disobeying the "no parking" sign:

There are so many lovely old buildings in the town and there was a pretty famous boat builder too:

No, not the playwright, this W Shakespeare was famous for powerboat racing and for building speedboats. Have a look at Website history  for a bit more information on him.

We left the town and headed back to the boat, this time via the motorways in case the flooding on the prettier route had got worse. That proved to be a good decision as the day after we left, Tewkesbury was pretty much cut off. See this Yahoo news weblink

As it had finally stopped raining (the torrents were replaced by near zero temperatures and chilly winds), we dug out the little folding bikes and used them for trips around Cardiff and beyond. When the wind finally calmed down too, the boat had a much needed wash to remove all the green gunge that had grown in the strangest of places. A seriously tiring day's work. The boat needed a run out so we did our usual up and down the bay thing. When the crew fired up the kettle, we got the highest output from our domestic alternator that we have ever seen:

157 amps (it actually went up to 160). Normally when we are underway with the kettle on it hits 130 or so as a maximum but this time we were also running the heating system so the demand was higher. The alternator was pretty cold (as they heat up they always generate much less than their rated output). which helped it churn out so much power - it is rated as 175 amps at 24v so it is a pretty powerful beast.

Pottering up and down the bay, drinking tea was good until we tried to start the wing engine to give it a run too. It happily turned over on the starter but would not fire up. No obvious cause either. Bad words were said and we headed back to our berth. Here is the usual strange track we followed:

with the bend in it to follow the deepest water in the bay. Some areas get very shallow.

Although it was cold, the sun tempted us out on the bikes again, suitably attired:

and we consumed much needed coffee and pastries before returning and washing the salt off the little bikes. Cycling during the week is so much nicer than at weekends though, Why do so many people think they can walk / jog / run / exercise their dog on the cycle path when there is a perfectly good pedestrian bit too?

Maintenance News:

Well, despite the poorly shoulder, the captain needed to figure out why the wing engine that has been so well behaved for nearly 15 years decided not to start during our run around the bay. The starter would turn but the motor refused to fire up. A little investigation was undertaken on the basis that to run, old tech diesels are simple beasts, liking some air, a little fuel and a teeny bit of electrical power. There was no good reason why air could get into the filters / injection pump but that was checked first in case the system needed bleeding. Nope, all was good. The feed to the stop/start solenoid on the injection pump rack was disconnected and tested for 24v power when the ignition was "on". Only there was none. That suggested a dead "run" relay. The challenge was identifying which one of the two relays in the little box was for run and which for start. The Lugger documentation didn't tell us and the wiring diagram helpfully identified the wire colours but as they were all enclosed in a plastic chafe protector.....

Never having won the lottery, you could predict what happened. The first relay was swapped out for a spare and still no start. Then the second and the wing happily burst into life. Result. we left the new replacement in the start position too - they are of the same vintage and have been shaken around in exactly the same way thanks to the little 4 cylinder poorly balanced engine so it made sense to do a pre-emptive swap.

Here are the new relays in their home, before the cover was refitted:

For the folks who might just be interested, the one to the back (gearbox) end of the motor is the run relay.

Feeling happy the engine had an oil and filter change. Only when it was restarted, the new oil filter leaked! Not at all amused. It looked as though the filter had a little split in the sealing ring - not from over-tightening it either. So, clean up, put another oil filter on and all was, finally, well. The sore shoulder was unimpressed with so much leaning over the engine and "doing things". Yes, the filter and the relays are on the outboard side of the wing engine and there is a nice wiring loom running in front of the filter to make access even easier.