Heady moments

The toddler settling in to Hythe activities continued unabated upon our return to Bucklers Hard. Apart from one little heady interlude that is.

Some time ago, the heads (toilet for the non boating types) in our cabin decided to misbehave. The little lever that operates the electronic flush mechanism stopped returning to the vertical position and became rather weak and floppy. A worrying disease. The lever then seemed to randomly operate the flush and emptying process which is far from ideal. After some examination of the exploded parts diagram it looked like a spring in the control box had failed. Amazingly, despite the age of the unit, a replacement spring was available from the USA via the UK Raritan distributor.

That just left the fun of fitting it and hoping that a broken spring was the only issue. We had asked Colin the BA Captain man (yes, man not transvestite) for any advice on heads removal in a Nordhavn 47. His reply was not helpful but very sensible - "Not a job for the captain, get Yann and Biscuit from Nordhavn Europe to do it!" You can tell he is used to having lots of ground crew to fix his big Boeing toys.

Digging the loo out is fun. Just enough slack in the hoses that connect it to the waste and fresh water systems to pull it forward by just under the width of a hand. Think about that......  Oh, and two bolts that fit it to the base unit that are not captive and just want to fall out once you undo them or try to refit them.. Did we mention that the two bolts don't have a proper head on them so you can slip a spanner underneath the platform to hold them? Instead they have a screw head fitting and you can't get a screwdriver anywhere near them to stop them spinning? Yup, fun and frolics.

Amazingly the rest of the job went well. The control box is wonderfully simple:

- some microswitches and a simple rod mechanism to operate them. The broken spring was replaced and the unit rebuilt and refitted. It all worked well afterwards. In case you have an illogical burning desire to peek behind our heads, here is a picture for you:

Does that make you feel better / has it enriched your life? We hope not.....

What else have we been up to? Well, plenty of house sorting out, lots of RIB use and a TGT (The Guided Tour) of the engine room for a couple of Swedish guys (one worked for Volvo Penta, the other used to work for Nimbus and they were mightily impressed). Also had a day of oil changes (main engine and gearbox, wing engine and gearbox, genset) which produces over 40 litres of waste oil that had to be ferried ashore by RIB and then emptied into the slowest oil tank we've ever used. It was brand new but oil drained in via the grating so slowly. Emptying the old oil involved holding the 20 litre drums at shoulder height whilst pouring it very very gingerly. That deserved and got a G and T afterwards. Surely we don't have to explain G and T too?

We plan to head off soon and use the boat as a boat rather than a floating accommodation block. Bet the weather changes....