Boat work was lacking recently and I have chosen the anchorage here in Portsmouth to catch up a bit on the same. Glad we do not have any major repair or maintenance items on the T0-Do-List rather plenty of small things to fix, maintain or improve.
It already started yesterday, when I volunteered to spend an hour in the water at 26.3℃ (!) to clean the waterline from algae. Starboard side is done, Portside to follow. Next will be the propeller, some seacocks and then finally the bow thruster, which is the biggest job. Besides removing the biotope in the funnel I have to replace the anodes as well. Overall the antifouling gives a good impression and shall last until autumn. Nevertheless I would next time apply four layers instead of two going on a longer journey in warmer climate.
I am a bit suspicious about the starting process of the generator. My seventh sense tells me that it takes two to three crank turns now before it starts while two weeks back it came on the first turn. Took the noise insulation hood off and did a general inspection. All found in order, so this item needs to remain on the monitoring list. Perhaps nothing to worry about but after a while on a boat you develop an incredible sensitivity against noise and smell as any of the two can be an early indication of trouble. Cross fingers.
A very strange item on the list was the broken lid of the aircon strainer. It is directly mounted on a seacock and therefore sits below the water line. I was shocked when I discovered it a few weeks back especially as I normally keep seacocks in open position. In this case, I closed it immediately and did not even dare to touch it until this morning. After replacing it, the aircon got a flush while the generator was humming anyway. The light bright spot in the middle of the right photo gives you a view through the hull down to the bottom of the sea.
It remains a bit of a miracle how this lid can burst. Excluding mechanical force it can only be temperature or age or perhaps a combination of the two. During our recent long motor sail from St. Vincent back to Martinique we got quite high temperature in the engine room, more than usual and that could have contributed to the cracks.
Soon I will replace the plastic version with the bronze version for peace of mind going forward. I rather lose the visibility into the filter unit but have a solid metal lid installed.
Tomorrow is another day (Monday!) to proceed with the works!
Fair winds…
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