Good and not so good!

It’s mostly rained today and we accordingly came to an early decision not to move.  We have no timetable to meet so we can afford to wait until things improve.  One might almost feel sorry for the boaters passing us in the rain, except the majority don’t reduce their speed to ‘tick-over’!  Jan suggested we consider passing boats at the same speed but two wrongs don’t make it right!  I put out a ‘spring line at the stern which has had an effect but it’s too shallow to get Waiouru against the bank and consequentially we end up with list.  

The Hurricane is continuing to perform faultlessly and we’re optimistic hoping it will continue.  My assumption is the last problem was caused by my overfilling the diesel tank thereby preventing air bleeding out of the fuel.

In between showers I went down the weed hatch to complete a temporary modification.  What I find good about the design of the weed hatch is it’s separate from the engine bay with access obtained from the stern deck.  If it was in the engine bay then there is a potential risk that the hatch cover could loosen and water enter flooding the engine compartment with the further possibility it might result in the boat sinking.  Having a separate weed hatch eliminates this risk.

If the handle is turned anti-clockwise it loosens the screw thread and allows the white bar to also turn anti-clockwise from under the black locking plates.  When the ends of the white bar are clear the handle, bar and hatch cover can be removed from inside the weed hatch.  This provides access to the drive shaft and propeller.  It’s a good concept!

The not so good part of the design is the bar can actually work loose allowing the canal water to surge up into the weed hatch chamber.  There is no danger of this sinking the boat but it makes a hell of a noise.  In my opinion the design isn’t quite right.  Instead of the white bar being secured under a piece of angle iron at each end it should be a piece of inverted ‘U’ channel.  That way the bar would not be able to twist out from under the end catches.  I’ve devised a temporary solution.

The 3” G clamp prevents the locking bar from turning.  This is actually the third clamp we’ve purchased.  The previous two were purchased from the 99p shop and snapped under the strain.  This is only temporary and the permanent solution is to modify the angle iron to ‘U’ channel.  It’s not a major job.

I’d be interested to know if this is the standard weed hatch design for a Wilson-Tyler shell?  Actually there is one more issue!  The hatch baseplate doesn’t fit flush over the hole in the uxter plate.  As a consequence we get canal water surging around the bottom of the weed hatch compartment when the propeller is turning.  We might try to minimise this by fitting a heavy duty rubber/foam strip around the edge of the hatch baseplate in an attempt to seal it.

Looking at the weather forecast for tomorrow, it’s more showers.  Somehow I think we’ll be staying where we are!