Boat Blog: Odds and sods
Posted by indigodream on 12 July, 2009
Saturday 11th July
Very odd! We had a phonecall from a stranger yesterday telling us that Indigo Dream was moored on a water point and to inform us that they had moved our boat out of the way. Bit of a mystery – when we left Indigo Dream two weeks ago she was moored a 100 yards away from the water point on a legitimate towpath mooring. It turns out that some sod has pulled our pins, setting the boat adrift, someone else has rescued her (thanks!) and left her tied on the waterpoint.
What amazed us is that we left her tied with springs fore and aft with a total of FOUR mooring pins banged into the ground as far as they could go. Now, how fast do you have to travel by in order to drag out four pins, or is it just adverse ground conditions after the rain (as Maffi pointed out recently).
Anyway, Richard has gone to the boat today and she’s undamaged despite the adventures she’s had without us – phew.
He’s also serviced the engine and did a bit of wiring. We have an Isuzu engine and manage to buy most of the filters (air filter, oil filter, 2 extra fuel filters) from AllParts, a car accessory shop in Croydon. The one part we have yet to find is an oem version of the fuel filter on the engine. When get that from a chandlery we pay the same for the other 4 filters from the car garage. Shame as unlike Bruce we change our filters every 250 hours. Our oil pressure gauge is a bit strange at times but he found a loose connection so hopefully that is sorted. Our vetus stern tube needs to be greased once a year so that was done – takes about 5g of grease. The gear box oil was so clean that you could almost pour it straight back in ….
It’s a long story but we’ve had to delay the start of our holiday until Tuesday. We’re getting desperate – we haven’t had a proper cruise for almost a month and our feet are losing their webbing…….
Bruce in Sanity said
Hang about – I change the oil and oil filter every 200 hours, equivalent to 3,000 miles on a car. (Oil is cheap, engines are expensive.) It’s the fuel filter I’ve been less systematic about, though have now settled to every 1,000 hours.
How often do you change the drive belts? I suspect about 2,000 hours is right, but haven’t formed a final view yet.
Cheers
Bruce
Bruce in Sanity said
Whoops – 200 hours = 6,000 miles, not 3,000.
ATB
B
indigodream said
Hi Bruce
Sorry that was a bit unprecise – I meant to refer to the rarity with which you change your fuel filter! Our previous shareboat had lots of problems with dodgy fuel so I am paranoid about fuel filters, have lots of them as per Tony Brookes notes (http://www.tb-training.co.uk/13bfuel.htm#bmn48) and religiously change them as per the engine spec. It is a bit sad as the sedimentor filter is very cheap but so far I have yet to find a non chandlery alternative for the main fuel filter that is mounted on the engine. That one costs me as much as all the other filters put together!
Drive belts: Well yes that is an interesting question. I keep spares on board, check them regularly but have yet to even have to adjust them. I will let you know what happens when we hit 2000 hours!