Thursday 29 May 2014

Stalked, fanned out, washed out and green boats

OK…. it was one of those days when only the crazys and hirers move.  We were quietly sitting inside when in the distance a grumbling whine could be heard getting closer.  They must be stalking us!  Those damned vegetation cutters went past three times.  They appeared determined to ensure all the boats on the moorings were green.  That’s the third time in the last 7 weeks we’ve had the mowers and whipper-snippers (strimmers) go past and only once did they not cut the vegetation beside the boat.  After they had finally departed I donned my wet weather gear and went out to clean all the cut grass off the side of the cabin.  Better to remove it with a broom and canal water whilst it’s still soft and wet.  Hopefully all this lovely warm rain will wash the canal water off the paintwork.  Actually I don’t think the cut grass on the paintwork is much of a concern.  What does cause me some grief is the thought that the strimmer might violently flick stones against the paint.

It was “clean the back cabin day!”  The bed was stripped along with the mattress covers.  Everything needs to be washed which has resulted in the Candy working hard for half the day.  Jan actually stopped doing laundry because she had run out of room inside the boat to get it all dry.

With the mattress and bedding removed it was possible to reach the storage area underneath.  Everything was removed which gave me the opportunity to look inside the bilge.  Bone dry but full of cobwebs! Smile  Then the area was repacked before taking the cover off the electrical cabinet.  I gave the area a vacuum and decided to replace one of the 12V air circulation fans.  It was running slowly and I realised one blade was missing.  We have a couple of spare fans.

The damaged fan is the one that sucks air into the cabinet.  As you can see from the above photo there is a build-up of dirt on the blades and frame.  The extraction fan is in the same condition.  I actually take comfort from this working on the principle that if the dirt is on these fans then it’s not on the fans inside the inverter.

What might have been a very simple task became slightly more complicated by the fact that the wires on the replacement fan are shorter than the original.

The local weather forecast for tomorrow looks the same as today so I can’t see us moving.  Not a problem…… we’re not working to a timetable!

1 comment :

Peter Berry said...

Tom, count yourself lucky the strimmers did't do the edging right up to your boat. They did ours once when we weren't in attendance and the strimmer had also removed large areas of paint from the gunwales when we arrived back.