Winter/spring 2012

Last updated LastMod

Its now mid January 2012. The Icicle Cruise has come around again. I'm trying to get the boat into a clean and tidy state to go up to Rickmansworth at the end of this month. So in fact I have 1 more working day on the boat. I want to finish getting the doors on either side of the engine room. I had put the door to the bedroom on ages ago but found a problem. It wouldn't open fully when the fold down bed was down. See video in August 2010. I mentioned then that Julie had come up with the solution of cutting the door down the middle and making it bi-fold. This I have now done. Except I didn't cut the original door down. I made a new door for the bedroom side of the engine room and kept the original door for the back cabin end of the engine room. I made a short video of the door fold action here
http://youtu.be/WP6k85RgL2o
I have fitted the back cabin door too now. I find the engine noise quite obtrusive when cruising so now will be able to close off the engine from the back cabin. I could close the rear doors and the slide before to achieve some quiet but had to open the slide every time to adjust speedwheel or reverse. The Victorian brass handles arrived today so I will be able to fit them this Saturday.

I have added to the engine page also with a piece about my thermostat housing improvisation. I will also see on Saturday if I have been successful with this.
I finished early today so went to the boat and fitted the brass handles and lock set to one of the engine room doors. ( I bought all the sheets of plywood at the same time, from the same place. Its amazing how many different colours of wood there are.)
12th February 2012
The Icicle cruise has come and gone again. 8 boats went this year. It was a great weekend apart from losing a Walkie Talkie in the canal, a low branch snapping off my radio arial and the gearbox overheating again. I had to be towed along for a couple of locks until the gearbox had cooled down again. More detail on this in the engine section.