Sidetracked Again

Very busy over the last couple of days. Yesterday (Monday) it was down to Woolsthorpe depot to cut the grass and whilst down there  greased the hydraulic rams on  ‘Mudlark’ the new dredger purchased for the GCS.

In the afternoon it was down to Trudy-Ann to finish fixing the ceiling battens and plug the screw holes before trimming them off.

The plan for today was to give the new parts of the ceiling a light sand before varnishing and then remove the bow thruster battery and box in preparation for the rewire. Well the first part of that went fine, but I decided to leave the varnishing to last so the boat could be left without me throwing up a cloud of dust.

Before starting work in the bedroom I opened the forward hatch to watch the rain and spotted these poor so and so’s.( though I bet they don’t work for peanuts)

No brollies for them.

Removing the ballast around the battery box revealed such a pile of crud around the bow thruster tube I decided to clear it out.

That’s when I found it was damp – not what I wanted. The detritus consisted of partly rotted saw dust which was cleared out with a wet & dry vac. It filled the 20ltr container and that didn’t account for all the spray foam off cuts that were too big. The leak traced back to the two connectors at the tank, wrong side of the stop tap of course so taps run until system drained. It’s lucky that the rewire is finished at this end.

Not a very good picture but you can see how black the sawdust is here. I can only guess how long this has been going on. The sawdust seemed to continue under the BT tube so I cut a section of floor out between the tube and black water tank. Yep plenty more sawdust down here and a few bits of broken ballast.

That section cleared out to both sides and apart from the sawdust enough bits to make about eight con blocks, but when measured the space is large enough to take at least 48 paving blocks, so why are so many stacked around the toilet tank?

As they say ‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody no good’ with the tank drained down I was able to fit the sender unit for the water gauge.

Hopefully the space will dry out now that the muck has been removed and I'll have a go at removing some more when it’s dry. Used some treated timber to make a new batten to fix the water pipe to as the fact that it is not fixed down may be part of the problem. Down to the plumbers for some new fittings tomorrow.

Back to plan A and lounge ceiling varnished before departure.

That black thing on the wall just past the window is the carcase for the central heating room thermostat, decided it would work better there than in the engine 'ole.
Time for a boil in the bath.

Must remember to load the dehumidifier next time.