Sinking Feeling

We visited Moonshine on Friday evening and stayed aboard overnight.  Since our first proper trip of the season will be next weekend to York, Hull and Grimsby, Moonshine needed stocking up with enough wine, beer and other supplies to get us through a full week afloat.

 Ever since we have taken ownership of Moonshine, the port engine has always been worse at starting due to it turning over slowly.  This could be one of three things, either the starter motor or the supply cables and isolator switch.  Therefore, as a simple process of elimination we connected a direct feed to the battery (the battery is recently new) with 95mm² cable.  The engine turned over really fast, so that proved the starter motor is good, so the problem has got to be the cables or isolator switch.  When we have time this can be proved further by bolting the leads together at the switch position which will prove the cables and crimps, and if the engine still turns over fast it can then only be the isolator switch.
Another job on Saturday morning was to jet wash the non slip deck areas to remove ingrained black dirt.  We borrowed a good jet washer from Peter's dad and this did an excellent job.

When aboard we usually listen in to Goole Docks on channel 14 at tide time.  We were aware a cruiser had departed Goole for York, and we were surprised to hear the skipper in contact with Goole again requesting the assistance of the Coastguard and Humber Rescue as he was taking on water and had a list to port.  Goole Docks were very helpful and had him penned back in and South Dock Bridge opened to enable him to get back to the safety of the canal.  At this stage Humber Rescue was stood down as he had made it safely into Goole. 
We and another boater from Goole (Humbrian Sea) caught his lines and assisted with pumping out with the aid of our portable electric bilge pump. However our bilge pump along with their boat bilge pumps were unable to cope with the ingress of water.  More help soon arrived from South Yorkshire Boat Club (a club we are also still members of) by road to further assist.  It took 3 hours with 2 12v pumps, 2 mains pumps, a hand bilge pump and an awful lot of bucketing to lower the level and find the problem.  The port rudder stock had been forced up through the hull causing a massive water ingress.  The leak was stemmed to a acceptable level by using blocks and wedges to force the rudder stock back down.  A fellow club member arrived by boat from SYBC to tow the stricken boat back to Heck to be pulled out onto their slipway.  When she departed Goole the remaining pumps were just managing to keep her level for the 2 hour journey back to the club.  It was nice to see fellow boat owners rallying around to help someone in distress, but there again in a civilized society you would expect nothing less.

On Sunday morning we visited South Yorkshire Boat Club to attend their AGM and to collect our portable electric bilge pump from the stricken cruiser we helped the day previously, although we hope NOT to have to use it! 

The club is in the process of obtaining a park home type chalet to accommodate the existing bar staff they currently have on site. The existing chalet they are housed in has seen better days and nearing the end of its life. The above photos show ground works started yesterday in preparation of the new footings.

 

After the AGM we returned to Goole with Moonshine's tender, so that next weekend we are as ready as we can be to go tidal.

Since next weekend will be the start of the new boating season for most, we decided Moonshine's sphere fenders needed replacing for matching blue as opposed to our trusty orange fenders that are about 16 years old. The new fenders are a size larger than the old, however it was just unfortunate that they are not matching Anchor ones to match the exact colour of our other sausage fenders, but they are near enough.

Re-launch at Goole Boathouse

 https://www.youtube.com/user/PDUCKELS

On Thursday the newly cleaned fenders were brought back, and the gear covers secured with their screws and tie wraps.  The new B6 propellers were also fitted, and with the stern drives trimmed up Moonshine was re-launched at approximately 10.30am
 

 

This years lift out has highlighted a few minor issues, and hopefully next winter if we can afford it we will have the stern drives refurbished. The thread on the top of one of the stern drives which one of the securing screws goes into to hold the gear cover in place has gone and will need re tapping. Also since replacement of a single gear cover are around the £90 mark it was recommended by a fellow boater last year to secure these with tie wraps. We have double secured each gear cover, as last year we did lose one!

 

The O ring on the compressor air pipe was replaced during the week and reassembled.

 

 

After checking Moonshine was not taking on water, she was taken out onto the canal to make sure there were no obvious problems and that everything that had been reinstalled had been done correctly.  She returned back to her berth and was given a good wash.

Humber Princess

On Friday morning we returned to Goole Boathouse to give Moonshine a proper test run on the canal.  It was the morning of the solar eclipse and the atmosphere felt odd to say the least, knowing it was early morning but feeling more like late afternoon.  Once Moonshine's mast and vhf aerials were lowered we cast her lines and headed up the canal for the New Junction cut.

 

 

Once we were moored up at the New Junction and with the oil warmed through, this gave us the opportunity to change the compressor oil.  We are unsure of when this was changed last, however now we are catching up on jobs such as these, we can keep an accurate log of when these jobs were undertaken and when they will be next due.

 

 

 That's it for us this weekend considering it's only just started.  Next weekend South Yorkshire Boat Club will hold their AGM, but at this stage we are unsure whether we will attend by boat or by car, I suppose that will depend on whatever Peter's work throws his way to keep paying Moonshine's way.

What The Hell...BOAT...Bring Out Another Thousand!

New bellows were ordered from Asap Supplies and delivered the other week. New O rings and fibre washers for the stern drive filler plugs and compressor oil were ordered from www.keypart.com at the same time.

 

 

New Duo Props were ordered from www.trickettmarine.co.uk along with the trim tab bellows, these arrived early last week.  The old propellers have been tidied up and repainted and will be carried onboard as emergency spares.

Hopefully this will be the last major expenditure for Moonshine this year.

 

Antifouling where trolley slings have been

Grease applied

 

Stern drives reinstalled

The stern drives were reinstalled on Saturday along with the drive and exhaust bellows, the gear cables were also both connected at the drive end.  The trim tab bellows were also replaced, and everything has been greased for easy removal for next time. Fresh antifoul was applied to the areas where the trolley slings had been.  Earlier in the week the hull sides were compounded where necessary and given a full machine polish.

 

We fitted the refurbished turbocharger on the starboard engine last weekend, however one of the O rings on the compressor air pipe needed replacing.  One was priced up from Volvo and with delivery the price was approaching the £20 mark!!!!! Therefore, we found some 7mm cross section O rings from www.bearingstation.co.uk. Since the original O ring was an odd size we ordered x2 50mm ID and x2 60mm ID O rings as at this stage we were unsure as to which size was going to be the better fit, we then found the 50mm to be the correct fit at a total price including delivery of £7.80.

We intend to fit the new propellers and gear shift covers on the morning of Moonshine's re-launch which we hope to be this Thursday.  

Lift Out Maintenance

Wednesday's visit required the impellors to be changed.  These were pretty well worn, and since we acquired plenty of stock with Moonshine, these were quickly replaced for new.  The transom shields were cleaned and fresh antifoul was applied to these.

 

 

 

The starboard turbo which was dropped off for refurbishment at AET Turbos in Normanton on Tuesday (www.aet-turbos.co.uk), was collected on Friday.  The turbo was repainted in silver at the factory, however we painted the water cooled manifold Volvo green, but left the turbo silver as this looked very smart.  AET Turbos have a very quick turn around, within 48 hours.

 

 

New gear cables were ordered last Sunday from Asap-Supplies (http://www.asap-supplies.com/), again taking advantage of discount applied to our account for being a RYA member.

 

 

The old gear cables were removed with a length of thin rope tied to them which was pulled through the recess, which were in turn tied to the new cables to aid pulling them into place.  They were connected at the single lever control end, and the dash was reassembled. 
Fresh antifoul was applied on Saturday as the weather conditions were favourable, along with a quick touch up to the boot topping.

 

The stern drives were cleaned and painted with x2 coats of Trilux antifoul.  New fork bushes have been replaced as the old ones were very brittle and look as if they haven't been replaced for years.  New O rings and fill plug washes have been fitted, and the drives have now been filled with fresh oil ready for them to be reinstalled.
2 sets of duo props have been ordered along with a set of trim tab bellows, and hopefully these will be delivered by the end of this week.

Problematic Sterndrive Removal

 

On Monday Moonshine was lifted out of the water for her annual maintenance.  The first job was to drain the oil from the sterndrives and to remove them from the boat.  Even though her previous owner had paid engineers to do sterndrive maintenance for him, this proved very problematic as we concluded that all the mounting studs that secured the sterndrive had not been greased prior to assembly along with the steering tap that releases the helmet.  We returned home deflated with a potential headache of not being able to remove them in order for us to replace the bellows. 

After mulling the problem over that evening a simple tool was made to aid the removal. This comprised of a threaded steel rod with a nut at each end to draw the stud free of its mount.

The pin which secured one of the trim rams to the sterndrive was the most troublesome one and appeared well and truly stuck.  Hammers, long screwdrivers, grips, WD40 etc everything was used to help gain a small amount of leverage to get behind the pin to prise it out.  Eventually it was removed, but not before cursing Moonshine with the threat of selling her!

As you can see above there is no grease residue on these at all which tells us none had been applied as is advised in the Volvo Penta manual. Various split pins were also missing from within the drive.  Very bad practice on behalf of the engineer that serviced these sterndrives, apart from the cost of employing such engineers we are firm believers of if you want a job doing properly... do it yourself! 

Also yesterday the starboard turbo was removed and dropped off at www.aet-turbos.co.uk/ in Normanton West Yorkshire, for them to assess whether it would be more cost effective to either refurbish ours as is or to purchase a refurbished unit from them.  They will advise us further once they have stripped it down.

Both gear cables were removed as these are original and show signs of wear.  These have been measured to enable replacements to be ordered.

The anti foul which we ordered online was delivered yesterday whilst we were out and kindly taken in by our neighbour, let's hope today is as productive a day as was yesterday.

Lift Out at Goole Boathouse

We couldn't have chosen a worse day to lift out of the water.  Snow showers dominated the morning with a bitterly cold wind chill.

We hope to have Moonshine out for 3 weeks for general maintenance.  The starboard turbo needs attention along with the renewal of both gear cables, fresh anti foul and out drive maintenance with new propellers.  Hopefully nothing else will crop up which will delay a lift back in.