Public bathing and the moorings

After almost constant rain during the night the towpath was looking decidedly muddy and flooded.  That’s when two of the locals appeared and started bathing outside the galley porthole.  This one was particularly cheeky and spent some time attending to their ablutions.

The moorings here at Brownsover tend to be very busy; particularly during the summer.  On one side is the park with water point, rubbish bin and elsan.  these are 24 hour moorings.  On the opposite side the moorings aren’t as nice but you can stay for14 days.  Of course during winter the 24 hour moorings revert to14 days.  We’re on the 14 day moorings and rather bemused by  the actions of the boaters opposite.  They have all been on the 24 hour moorings since we arrived.  There are plenty of vacant moorings on our side but they are apparently well settled.  Actually one boat left the 24 hour moorings yesterday…… for 15 minutes.  They are back on the same mooring but facing in the opposite direction.  I guess that will fool the CRT Checker!

This afternoon I walked back to the Argos store in Rugby to collect a second Ebay purchase.  We’ve bought two N52 Neodymium magnets for a small project.

N52 is the most powerfully rated neodymium magnet and these are 30x8x2mm.  Despite their size, it proved to be quite difficult to pull them apart.   My plan is to use them on the shower door.

We have a large (900mm wide) glas swivel shower door which has plastic coated magnetic vertical strips down both the door and jam.  The magnetic strips hold the door closed.  Except when the boat lists or rocks the magnets aren’t sufficiently strong to hold the door closed.  This was recognised during the fit out and a tower bolt was fitted to the top of the door to hold it closed when the shower is unoccupied.   

Recently we allowed the large port (left) diesel tank in the bow to get very low and as a consequence Waiouru developed a slight list to starboard.  That’s when we noticed the existing magnetic strips would sometimes fail to hold the shower door closed. 

My plan is to fit the two neodymium magnets to the top of the shower door with construction adhesive and see if that makes a stronger connection.

One there on the door frame

 

And the other at the top of the door.

Neodymium magnets are very brittle and can easily shatter if hit so I need to ensure the two surfaces don’t come into direct contact with any force.