Ardrossan, Glasgow, Webasto (not a place, the heater) and a bit of maintenance too

Sure enough, the Boatcraft folks knew about Webasto heaters in a way that we hadn't seen before. As the man said,  "we use plenty of heating up here but I am less used to working on the air con units". Must be Scotland.  Our heater is a chunky 12Kw device that heats water like a domestic boiler:

When they stripped out the device (not simple as it had been mounted hard against the transom by the installers) the heat exchanger was sad and rusty. Probably because water had been getting into the unit from the exhaust -  the exhaust hose and silencer were full of the stuff.  How?  Well,  it looks like the exhaust that was renewed by Osmotech about 18 months ago didn't have a big enough swan neck to prevent it. We will know once the new heat exchanger arrives and the guys strip out the existing exhaust to check it.  We feel lots of pictures as evidence and an argument with Osmotech coming on.....

Enough maintenance misery (even if this was due to poor previous work).  The town itself is pretty sad with the regulation few local shops and bars.  However,  the walk around the bay to Saltcoats is lovely,  with views over to Arran and the Ailsa Craig. We didn't take the proper camera so you just get this phone picture -  sorry:

We had a good day in Glasgow, catching the train from Ardrossan after the strenuous 3 minute walk to the station. Like Norn Iron, the trains are pretty new and impressive compared to the kind of antique stuff we used in Cardiff:

Good prices too compared to the South of England -  we get why independence seems like a good thing with the level of investment / subsidy that there is.....


As always, we enjoyed the city and the dodgy knee managed over 6 miles walking too.  Progress! At one stage, walking around the Merchant Quarter, we thought that we were back in Norn Iron seeing the excellent murals:

The lack of guns and masked men on them brought us back to reality though. Lunch timing was perfect,  just inside and ordered when the heavens opened. If you want a cheap lunchtime deal with OK quality food, try Bacchus Glasgow.

We wandered around one of the stranger museums there too -  the Glasgow Police Museum. Interesting -  everyone thinks that Robert Peel started the whole police force thing but Glasgow had one by the time Robert Peel was 12 years old.  The retired policemen who staffed the museum seemed very proud of this.  We thought it just showed how lawless the place was.  Best story from one of them -  a man who parked on a double yellow line with lamp-post signs too and then argued with one of the "old time" coppers was told "you saw the line, ignored the sign so pay the fine".  Not sure if that kind of smart comment would be allowed today.  

Maintenance News:

All standard stuff,  nothing exciting.  The captain treated the main engine to some fresh oil and a nice new filter - it was just over 6 months since the last change.  Strangely, although they had a waste oil disposal tank, there was no place to dump the filter. Didn't think that putting it in the normal household waste was a good idea so it stayed on board in a nice zip-lock bag.

The Seagull water filter cartridge was renewed too during a soggy day.

Horribly expensive but they do an excellent job.

Then, we got very keen,  moored port side to (the Nordhavn is asymmetric and has no walkway on the port side so this is a rarity)  and polished the port saloon side.  It took a while though as we were moored alongside the walkway and everyone wanted to come and chat about the boat -  first Nordhavn to visit apparently.  Friendly place but hard to get anything done quickly!

One very positive piece of news.  The power supply in Ardrossan was very unreliable (and very expensive too at 22p per Kwh!!)  Each time the entire pontoon popped owing to a faulty connection somewhere else and was then switched back on, the Mastervolt soft start unit worked perfectly allowing the isolation transformer to power up gently without upsetting our little 16 amp shore connection.  A good piece of kit that makes us less concerned about shorepower glitches when leaving the boat for a few days.