Maintenance news & a radicalised Patrick

Well, as the longer distance trips are over for 2013 and we will be spending some time away from the boat, the time had come to do some pre-winter routine maintenance stuff.

Firstly, the main engine was treated to an oil change. About 250 hours running since the February oil and filter swap (lower than expected thanks to the various unplanned trips down south this summer). The official oil change time is after 500 hours for our engine but we like to leave her with some nice fresh oil for the winter period when she is going to be lightly used. There is an oil change pump built in:

and the filter is easily accessible (most unlike the average boat engine):

So, even the ham fisted Captain can complete the change in about 15 minutes. That is to pump out 20 litres or so of oil and then replace it together with the fresh filter. Simple job. We carry a drum of oil on board in case we need to change the oil in an emergency (eg split oil filter or hose) so we had all the necessary stuff to do the work too. (We've always used John Deere branded oil as it is sensibly priced from the agricultural dealers.)

We also gave the RIB engine a service. The irritation with the Warsash Marine gorilla that was previously reported was still fresh in the captain's mind but we cheated and pumped out the outboard oil rather than attack the immoveable drain plug. A winter job is to get a suitable socket..... Also changed the gearbox oil, lubed / greased the engine as necessary and gave it a good check over. That was a couple of hours work - again, not too stressful.

Patrick seems to have really settled in to the Welsh lifestyle. A regular son of Glyndwr now:

(For the non UK readers, have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_Glyndwr)

He will be the guard penguin again whilst we are away sorting out the bungalow in Norfolk. No idea how bad he will be when unsupervised bearing in mind his new radical pro-Wales stance. Hopefully he isn't silly enough to torch his own home? Perhaps we should change the port of registration from Fowey to Cardiff just in case? We are thinking of setting up a webcam to keep an electronic eye on him.

A last thought - one of the swans that lives in the marina keeps flapping past us trying to take off. He/she runs out of water every time and has to abort before crashing into the quay wall nearby. We thought swans were smart enough to realise that if they have failed to get airborne every day for ages, they ought to find a longer runway or give up? Or perhaps the marina is the swan equivalent of a Gym? All answers to this conundrum happily received.....