Greenock farewell time

Remember how we said that after the exhaust muffler replacement we just needed some good weather to set sail? Well, this was on offer:

followed by this a day later:

So, we stayed put in the shelter of James Watt Dock and used the last couple of days with the hire car to do all the heavy shopping things that are harder without transport.

During our various excursions, we spotted this stone penguin in a garden:

Not sure if it is looking after the egg properly though, it can be cold up here and the egg looked very exposed and a bit blue. Patrick insisted that we post this picture as he has been feeling a little ignored recently. He also thinks that we should adorn the Defender with something like this to make it more "his car":

Poor deluded penguin.

We went for a wander around Stirling and wondered why we had never done so beforehand. Many wonderful old buildings:

statues:

and some inventive locals including one who put a cute little pretend clock tower on the top of his garden shed:

(Maybe we should say garden hut as we are in Scotland of course.) The captain particularly liked the inscription on one building (hard to read all of it thanks to the sun and shade but worth the effort):

The captain will try to enforce this when the crew ignores an order whilst underway. His chances of success are, realistically,  not high.


Maintenance news:

The little engine battery alternator that we had ordered many many weeks ago finally pitched up. Prestolite supply here is pretty dire unless the part is already in the UK stock and their tracking of deliveries from the USA to the dealers seems feeble. Very unimpressed with them. The supply of repair parts is reported as equally hopeless by some alternator overhaul specialists too. So glad we now have a spare domestic alternator for the main engine as an 8 week lead time could really cause trouble if the bearings went (it runs on the same serpentine belt as the water pump).

Fitting the little alternator wasn't straightforward. Getting the pulley off the old one and onto the new needed some tools that were not on board so he had the delight of wandering into a local garage (that mainly fixes taxis, enough said) and asking one of the mechanics if he could spin it off using his impact gun. The guy was very helpful and suitably critical of the kind of folks who drive and basically abuse the taxis he has to fix. We have seen some of them out and about on the local roads. The mechanic was right.

Alternator fitted with a new drive belt and the mounting was shimmed a little to try and align the pulleys better:

No need to play the battery parallel game underway any more. Just got to check the charging voltage is OK when we fire up the engine now. It might well need adjusting upwards to suit the AGM batteries.

We also (finally!) sorted out the cold idle problem with the RIB outboard. The strange heated wax pellet thing (called a Primestart in Yamaha terms( that manages the enrichment until the engine is hot had been misbehaving for ages. It started fine but needed some throttle until warm to prevent stalling (a bit like temperamental old 2 stroke engines!) A new Primestart was not much cheaper than a whole carburettor so that it what it was treated to. The first repair for it in 8.5 years so no big complaint.

Exhausting stuff

To prepare for the new exhaust muffler fitment Anthony (aka Biscuit), who has replaced a muffler on a 47 before for Nordhavn Europe, kindly called and gave us the benefit of his experience. Summary was " it is a horrid job". He also advised us to cut an access hatch in the stack moulding behind the vent grille at the bottom to give decent access to the bolts on the lower flange of the muffler.

This was going to be messy - bits of fibreglass and dust floating around so the captain prepared for battle with lots of PPE involved (the hat was to avoid the strong sunshine - unlikely in Scotland we know but true!):

You could say that he looks way better than normal but that is a little unkind. Accurate but unkind. By the way, the protective gloves were added later - just in case any health and safety types are reading this....

The hint from Ant was a good one as you can see from the "after" picture below:

giving decent access to the bottom of the muffler and the dreaded bolts.

The Nordhavn Europe, Harco and DHL folks did a good job getting the new exhaust to us in a week, and it kind of filled up the saloon floor nicely:

The foot ruler laying on top of it gives you an idea of scale. Yes, it is BIG. Heavy too - 50 odd kilos to lug around. The crew was a little unhappy at the new addition to the saloon furniture.

There had been a big debate on ordering a stainless or another carbon steel replacement. The captain was tempted to the stainless version especially as we'd been told that it wasn't significantly more expensive than the standard unit. Problem was a 4 week manufacture time and then shipment to us. Not ideal - 6 weeks in Greenock. It also messed up some autumn plans. We also had no proof of how much longer a stainless muffler would last - stainless does not like the temperature variations it would be exposed to in a muffler longer term and several "engineering" folks advised against one.

The clincher was advice from the Nordhavn Europe folks on price. The stainless unit was around 3 times the cost so, we opted to take the ex-stock standard unit and we will give it a serious TLC regime. They seem to corrode from the outside in mainly with water being held against them by the lagging wrap stuff. As the new wrap is way way better then the original and fitted via straps and D rings, we can remove it when the boat is not being regularly run in the winter to prevent it trapping moisture against the metal. We will also give the muffler an occasional paint job. If it lasts 10 years like the original one which was totally ignored, that will be OK.

With the help of the very good guys from Swordfish Marine in Holy Loch, the old muffler was removed leaving a big gap between the two pieces of pipe:

Having a crane makes dropping in the new unit so much easier:

So, with the muffler in place it was good to fire up the engine again - mainly to help cook the new paint on it not just to check for leaks.

A fun day was then spent touching up the paint on it and covering it with the new wrap from the excellent T and M Supplies guys. The new silencer wrap is just miles better (OK. Kilometers better for some readers) than the original stuff. It fitted very well too:

 

The only challenge was that the original wrap on the flanges had to be reused and it was in a very sorry state:

So, it was temporarily wired in place and will get replaced this winter (T and M's workload permitting that is)

We very happily refitted all the grilles and recovered the RIB which had been launched to allow proper working space. Good to know that the boat is ready for sea again. Just need the right weather now....