Really strange weather today, one minute we have glorious sunshine, and I'm going round opening doors and the rear sliding hatch, and the next minute it's hammering down hailstones like peas and I'm dashing round closing doors and hatches.
I'm happy to report the engine installation is finished. The engineer eventually arrived on the Thursday after my last blog, he fitted the air filter and temperature sensor and we ran the engine up to operating temperature. We agreed not to change the injector as the slight misfire seems to have cured itself and in fact the engine runs very sweetly once its warmed up. It's a bit smoky at first starting up but clears fairly quickly and runs smoothly.
I've been out of the marina 2 or 3 times and up to the Handsacre winding hole (turning point) and back, a distance of about 4 miles total which gives the engine time to get up to temperature and gives me chance to get used to the sound and 'feel' of how the boat responds to the BMC.
It's certainly got sufficient power to push Bracken along at a steady pace. I have experimented with different amounts of throttle / revs. Around 1800 rpm seems to be around brisk walking speed, 1200 rpm seems good when passing moored boats, and 2000 rpm is good for water skiing ! (just kidding).
One thing I have noticed when pushing the boat at around 2000 rpm is the apparent lack of 'wash', I don't know whether its Brackens hull design, but even with a good bow wave there seems hardly a ripple following the stern. All good fun tho.
I spent last Sunday afternoon down in the engine bay fitting a remote greaser to the stern gland on the prop shaft. I bought it on Ebay a few months ago and finally got round to fitting it. It is solid brass, weighs a ton and looks like it came off the Titanic! Amazing how deceptive photos can be, it looked quite small in the photo.
Anyway it does the job perfectly.
For those of you who don't know what a remote greaser does, well it does what it says on the tin, that is when you turn the 'T' shaped handle down maybe a turn, grease is forced through a pipe into the stern gland thereby not only lubricating the propeller shaft but packing the gland with grease thus preventing water from seeping up past the shaft and dripping into the bilge.
The other job I've been doing is fitting an inverter so when I'm not connected to the shore power I can still run my fridge freezer.
The inverter converts the 12 volt battery power to 240 volt mains power.
I fitted a 1500 watt pure sine wave inverter which should be strong enough to run my fridge freezer.
I fitted the inverter in the engine bay, quite close to the leisure batteries to keep the battery cable runs as short as possible. The power cable from the inverter then enters a socket in the saloon and has a remote on/off switch just above it.
Just above that switch is a socket where the shore power enters the boat.
As you can see in the photo the orange plug, (which is connected to the consumer unit) is plugged into the shore power at present.
If I disconnect the boat from the shore power because I'm going cruising, then I plug the orange plug into the socket marked INV, switch on the inverter and all works as normal.
I wanted an idiot (me) proof way of never confusing which power I was plugged into and this was the best way I could come up with.
Had my INR check today, (rate at which my blood clots), all ok there, and on Friday I have my 8 weekly check with my Oncologist consultant/surgeon, Mr Laugharne who is a thoroughly nice guy, at Derby hospital. So fingers crossed all will be ok there.
Well that's about it for now people.
Best wishes to all, bfn.
