One of the Facebooks groups that I follow is the Airfix Modelling Club. If you don’t know, Airfix is one of the companies that makes plastic kits of aircraft, military equipment, car, ships etc etc. I spent a lot of my teenage years building models of Spitfires, tanks and other assorted war machinery plus naval vessels and sailing ships. One of the predominant themes in the Facebook group is “The Stash”. Some of these guys are serious modellers and constantly…
As soon as one major project is finished, the next one is champing at the bit to get started, or recommenced, or finished, or something. We have known for some time that the batteries were just about dead. The main house battery hasn’t been holding a charge for some time and the smaller starting battery is probably near the end of its life also. The designations for which battery is the house and which is the starter are purely mine. …
Watch out seagulls! La Mouette now has an engine that works, however, as we all know, it’s not enough for a diesel engine to just go suck, squeeze, bang, blow. It also has to propel the said vessel through the water to destinations with palm trees. Well at least to get the boat out of the marina to where the sails can take over, and then go to destinations with palm trees. But I am getting ahead of myself here…
The range of skills you need to have to successfully maintain your boat is really quite broad. You need to be a rigger, an electrician, a carpenter, diesel mechanic, painter, sewer/seamstress, fibreglasser (or whatever a fibreglassing expert is called). These are just the basic skills – then there are some specialist skills such as welder/boilermaker, fitter and/or machinist. The mind boggles – how do you learn all this stuff? A lot of books on the cruising lifestyle suggest you go…
What started out as a dodgy gearbox in the Yanmar soon escalated. As previously described, we removed the engine from the Gull and dropped it off at the diesel workshop, Minards Diesel up in Newcastle. I had a really good chat with Neil, the guy who would be working on the old clunker and he really knew his stuff. Neil also recommended getting some head work done. Apparently you have to change the head gasket every five years or so,…