We seem to have moved from early to late Autumn in the space of 24 hours this week. Yesterday, as I said, was gloriously warm and sunny, and today, though not windy, was overcast and very cold. Indeed, the predicted maximum temperature for today was lower than the overnight minima last week.
No matter, we still had some very pleasant boating, just needed to be well wrapped up, and it made the cup of soup with lunch not only justified but very welcome. What was also welcome was the discovery that the system by which heat from the engine coolant is used to warm the radiators worked extremely well, so that we felt no need to light the stove until we’d stopped boating.
It’s warmed up outside a bit now, so we’re too hot even with the Squirrel choked right down, but at least we’re not using huge amounts of coal.
As expected, we’ve come on to Weston; there were a couple of boats here on arrival at twelve, but one of them, Lee, has moved on. The other appears to have been left unattended for a bit, so we’ve tied just in front of it.
The rest of the day has been taken up with pottering indoors, moving more content onto the Kindles and the like. In addition, I changed the nut plus locknut arrangement on the stern gland for the Nylok nuts Peter got for me whilst we were in the yard, to see if that improves its performance. I suspect we just have a rather wet stern gland, and will have to get used to running the bilge pump from time to time. It may settle yet, of course. Sanity had a particularly dry stern bilge, so this is a bit of a change for us.
I trimmed Sheila’s hair just now, and we’ll indulge ourselves with the first stew of the cold season this evening. (There’s no link between these two events.)
We’re now rather ahead of ourselves, as we don’t need to be in Alrewas until Sunday, so we’ll just potter down to Great Haywood tomorrow, I expect.
2 comments:
I always said you were too fast. We are near Heritage, and the weather has been absolutely glorious today. Sitting outside this afternoon in shirtsleeves. Amazing how our weather can vary so much over a comparitvely short distance.
Just to cheer you up on the stern gland front, we've had 3 engine re-alignments and one new propshaft on nb Lark Rise since it was new in 1998. Only the last re-alignment - which coincided with the propshaft job, has appreciably improved matters, despite the Centaflex coupling and the comparatively low power output of 18hp. We still have a drip, even a small trickle at higher revs [e.g. on the river] but the bilge pump seldom fires more than once a day. I usually adjust the gland about every 25hrs cruising. More importantly, an extra twist on the greaser as we leave the boat prevents any significant water ingress while we're away.
Post a Comment