Nice And Toasty Once Again

Last weekend whilst at Torksey our MV Airo 5 heater suddenly decided not to work, whilst displaying its fault code that there was something wrong with the glow plug pin. This needed sorting thick and fast for the oncoming forecast cold snap if we wanted to continue to use Moonshine away from our home berth.

The heater was removed last week, and we gave this a thorough clean and decoke. The heater after three years of service since it's original installation wasn't in that bad condition, but if left any carbon build up could result in problems in its efficiency. We contacted our original supplier who hadn't had any problems with having to supply a new glow pin and recommended we test said glow pin on a car battery independent of the heater to test if this was indeed the problem. On contact the pin worked as it should do so therefore we were now left thinking the ECU had gone faulty or hoping in vain that the glow pin socket had worked loose from the ECU and was not making good contact. Before doing anything else we recommissioned the heater on Moonshine to see if re-establishing a good contact would solve the problem, and thankfully it did. We can only think this is yet something else that has a tendency to vibrate loose with the movement of the boat whilst at sea or in choppy conditions. We decided once the heater was working properly once again to spend the night on the New Junction having our first BBQ of the year. It was nice being able to wake up the following morning in a toasty warm boat. 

 

Plan B and the Old Fashioned Way

Having had to alter our cruising plans this week after our unsuccessful attempt at getting through the bridges in Lincoln, we decided to head up the River Trent to Newark and beyond as our plan B.

The moorings in Newark were practically deserted apart from two small cruisers, one of which apparently had broken down but they were not moored economically and not using the mooring space wisely, however we still managed to get on the Kiln pontoon and access the electric and water facilities. 

 

Heading on up towards Hazelford we had to moor low side whilst a work boat carried out repairs within the lock to the lower paddles, but after an hour we were soon on our way making good time through Gunthorpe and Stoke Bardolph before the lock keeper finished for the day. The moorings top side of Stoke were deserted so we stayed here for the night as it is nice and peaceful.

 

The following day we departed Stoke Bardolph for the short run to Nottingham and Holme Lock. We had originally intended on spending the night top side of Holme Lock, however even though there was enough mooring top side this scenic place has in our opinion been spoilt by CRT's decision to allow the permanently moored boats to stay on what was a large visitor mooring. These boats were moved there a few years ago when the hydroelectric generating station was being constructed in the old lock, as their moorings all used to be on the lock island. This decision has drastically reduced the amount of visitor moorings, and looks unappealing as they have used Heras temporary site fencing as security and have spoilt a very scenic location. 

We gave the dogs a walk around the rowing lake (about 5km) before heading back down stream to our new favourite secluded location being Stoke.

 

On Good Friday we thought we would head back down stream to Newark hoping to beat the busy start to the Easter rush. We enjoyed another night on the Kiln pontoon, but having to improvise 'the old fashioned way' using 10 litre water containers to fill our water tank as we could not get near enough to the water point. This is another niggly fault, as the two water taps are towards the upstream end of this fairly long pontoon and could do with spacing out better. 

As the Easter rush started to arrive it was quite entertaining watching a cruiser attempting to squeeze into a 30 odd foot gap on the Kiln moorings with the flow behind it but aborting his bad decision at the last second. How it escaped any impact damage was a miracle. 

 

Easter Saturday we departed Newark bound for Cromwell and Torksey, passing Naughty Cal on her way upstream at Besthorpe. Amongst other craft heading upstream we encountered a narrowboat at Normanton Sunken Island which was well over on the wrong side. We had to slow down to allow it to get into the correct channel... there is a motorway sized sign advising which side of the river to be on, obviously he hadn't seen it or chose to ignore it, and didn't seem happy with us when we passed him as we refused to go into the shallow water. 

We spent a very blustery rest of the afternoon and evening on the pontoon bottom side of Torksey lock, and upon starting our boat heater in the evening this decided to play up. We think this just requires a replacement glow plug but will investigate this further, therefore the warm blankets were out once again out on the boat.  Apart from that we had a quiet stay on the pontoon, and we had a very early start to look forward to the following morning when we could once again stretch Moonshine's legs for her passage down to Hull.

 

We caught a very early morning tide heading downstream towards Keadby, choosing to travel down on the ebb at displacement speed, meeting the flood near Keadby.  Once there was enough depth we opened Moonshine up and planed down to Hull passing numerous craft heading back from their Easter break, including another Seawings 355 'Odin' from Farndon. 

We did notice that Moonshine's prop wash and speed was not as it should be, this was rather concerning as our initial thoughts were that we had lost an exhaust bellow. Since we were spending two nights in Hull we had plenty of time to investigate the problem. From the dingy Peter had a good prod around underwater as best as he could and everything seemed fine. Our thoughts are that we had caught a stick or some form of debris across the outdrive and had been dragging this all the way from the Trent to Hull. We had no problems on our run back from Hull to Goole running at 25 knots through the water in less than an hour, including reducing down to displacement speed at Upper Whitton for 5 minutes to pass the 'UKD Seahorse' which was repositioning the 32B lightfloat so as not to cause any problems from our wash. We had excellent service penning in at Ocean Lock and once safely back at our berth we were on our way back home for lunch time. 

A successful week away and a good test for the newly refurbished outdrives. We just have the boat heater to sort now.

Attempting The Impossible

On Saturday we caught the pm tide from Goole to Torksey, planing to Apex Light then running at displacement to Torksey. We attempted planing from Derrythorpe, however we considered this too risky to continue at speed as there was far too much debris in the river.  We finally arrived at Torksey just as the sun set, and settled on the visitors pontoon low side ready to pen in the following morning. 

 

Sunday morning brought with her the warmest day of the year so far, and at this stage we were rather regretting not having packed our summer clothes, however this warm weather was all set to change on the Monday. We penned through Torksey Lock, watered up and set off up a very busy Fossdyke navigation towards Lincoln, passing our very first boat 'Chelmer' a Seamaster 813 which had just been delivered and relaunched in Burton Waters for her new mooring at Torksey... she was still looking exceptionally smart. 

 

 

After spending a night on Lincoln Visitor Moorings in front of the ever expanding university student accommodation, we decided it was time to attempt the Lincoln bridges.  We have made this journey on our previous three boats, however have always been unsure as to whether Moonshine would actually fit through. After careful measuring and deliberation with other boaters with similar sized craft we thought this surely must be worth attempting, as this would once again open Boston cruising ground up for us as an alternative route to the sea if weather conditions were not favourable. 

After an early start we lowered Moonshines mast and ariels backwards to create her lowest airdraft, protected the wheelhouse handrails and set vertical airdraft limit sticks on the forward rails...if these touched we would not fit!

 

 

 We carefully navigated our way through Lincoln's first low bridge, which gave us only a few  inch to spare above the radar reflector, if this was going to be problematic then the reflector could be unbolted. With the first bridge clear it was now time to tackle the Glory Hole.  At a very slow speed we ventured underneath the high street until the middle arch. This middle arch is the lowest point of the Glory Hole, and it was at this point the forward airdraft sticks touched, and this meant that the width of the wheelhouse would not go under.  We then had to carefully reverse back beneath the bridges into Brayford Pool to turn. 

We now have to consider a plan B for the week ahead, but if you don't try these things you never know.

The Season Starts Here!

Moonshine was relaunched two weeks ago.  After an initial short test run to Rawcliffe Bridge she developed a severe overheating issue on the starboard engine. This was rectified by fitting a new impeller at Rawcliffe which cured the problem, which we believe was caused by an airlock. 

 

This weekend we have fitted two new domestic batteries, as the others were completely shot. This time we have gone for two Lucas 655 type semi traction batteries with a capacity of 125ah each. These were a bit more expensive than the previous leisure type batteries, but we hope these will fair better... time will tell. 

 

This weekend we have had our first weekend of the season away on Moonshine at Pollington, and the engines have run perfectly, to the extent that the starboard problem child engine has actually run slightly cooler than the port engine. 

Hopefully next weekend she will run faultlessly out on tidal waters at the start of our Easter week long holiday break... fingers crossed...