The Journey -
Hot Days on and off Rosy

Foreword dated Saturday 9th August

I've been having both computery problems and spam problems.  I have a spam zapper which is proving quite effective BUT I lost some proper e-mails last night, some of which were in response to "Rosy's Back".  If you have e-mailed me since 31st July, please be kind enough to re-send your e-mail.  Apologies and thanks.

Please don't forget that these witterings are supported by (and archived on) a web-site at www.billybubbles.demon.co.uk.  This site is maintained by Molly Mockford, who puts in much time and effort in keeping it organised.  Apart from these regular notes, there are sections on Boating in Europe, cookery (including an X-rated section - Yes!!  Really!!) and lots more.

I'm always happy to receive e-mails, but plain-text only please - NO attachments, photos, Word (or other) documents or HTML.  I connect via mobile phone, which gives a S - L - O - W (and, hence, expensive) connection.  Non-plain text messages take significantly longer for me to download - it can easily cost €3 or €4 or more to download an e-mail with a ***!!!* photo attached to it - so I zap them instead.

Right ...

We've had a busy week, here on Rosy, though not much of it affected Rosy herself.  She is still engineless, and installation discussions are still on-going.  The current problem is cooling.  Rosy has an eight-square-foot skin tank - hot water in at the top, cooled out at the bottom, baffled with a bleed valve at the top, and a header tank.  This was a bit iffy with the Kelvin over here, where the wider, deeper canals encourage one to put on a few more revs - as do the currents on the rivers - and where the air and water temperatures tend to be bit higher.  I had envisaged a two-pronged attack on the problem.  Phase One was to put in another skin tank on the opposite side of the hull, such that it could be switched in and out of the cooling circuit.  Phase Two was to insert a raw water cooled 'Bowman' type tube stack (designed, I think, as an oil cooler) such that the cooled water from the skin tank(s) ran through it just before it returned to the engine.  In normal circumstances, the Jabsco type electric pump that would pump the raw water through the Bowman would be off, and the Bowman would be doing nothing.  If the engine temperature rose, the pump could be switched on, and it would start cooling the returning water.  The boat Longfellow has such a system, and it's very effective, giving a 20 degree C drop in temperature when it is switched on.

However, another option is now being considered.  Why not keep the single skin tank system as it is BUT add on a raw water cooling system by inserting a tube stack into the exhaust manifold (it's a Polar one and designed for a tube stack), raw water being driven through it by an engine driven pump.  This would give me the efficiency of raw water cooling (without the raw water circulating round the engine) and the skin tank would give some protection in the event that the raw water system became blocked.

If anyone has any comments on this system, I'd be pleased to hear them.

Then the Long family arrived for a three-week session on Falcon.  Their arrival coincided with the start of the current heat wave, so they were wilting when they arrived.  Cold beer plus a barbecue cheered them up a bit.  They arrived with some goodies, including a Screwfix order, a Zire (as a replacement for my invaluable, but dying, Palm III) and a quantity of anodes which cost mega-bucks over here (one wonders why).

Unfortunately, I couldn't enjoy their company for very long, as I'd agreed to help Jeff move a boat from Decize to here (Montchanin) and we set off the next morning.  It took us two and a half interesting, but pretty wretched days.

The boat was about 12m long, a typical cruiser, twin-engined, looking a bit like a Bayliner.  Whilst the Bayliner is a boat to yearn for, our pig wasn't.  As a sea boat, it has too much superstructure (and, hence, windage) and not enough draught (though on the canal, it has too much draught).  On the canal, the twin engines are a problem as the bank-side propeller inhibits mooring.  It's a planing boat, so the props are unprotected from super-market trolleys and the like.  The fly-bridge position was open to the scorching sun, and the plastic seating burnt one's bum.  Seated, one couldn't reach the engine controls.  Standing, one could, but then one had to crouch down to reach the steering wheel.  And there was no flat surface for the essential tea/coffee/beer.

The downstairs steering position did not have the fixed chair behind the wheel - it was to one side - and, again, one couldn't reach the engine controls from a seated position (pretty essential in a sea-way when one is continually tweaking the engines to ride the waves).  At least one could reach the wheel when standing, except that one's forward view was then masked by the headlining, so one still had to crouch down.  Further, ones 'straight ahead' view was bisected by a length of vertical window framing.

From both positions, the wheel had zero feel.  There was no obvious centre position, and how far the rudders turned when the wheel was turned I still don't know.  At low speeds she was pretty much unsteerable - certainly totally hopeless for getting in and out of a lock.  Luckily we had very little wind.

As with all such boats, the curve of the bow, the sheer of the sides and the square transom are all very lock-unfriendly.

So she was liability on the canals, and unseaworthy in anything above a Force 2 or (possibly) 3.  I guess she looks pretty(ish) (if a bit top heavy) when she is lying alongside or at a mooring, and I guess she could be fun on flat water or small waves (say in a harbour, or on a lake, or an inlet/fjord protected from the open sea) but all that is pretty limited boating.  I suppose that her owners love her, and I guess that new she must cost up around the hundred thousand pound mark.  I'd cheerfully give them a couple of thousand for her, but only for the profit that could be made when she is sold on.

Anyway, Jeff, moi and Fanny the Wooflet completed the voyage, with, I reckon, a record in France for liquid intake.  Leastways, on day 2, I quaffed five litres of water, lemonade and fizzy mineral water during the day, and three litres of beer in the evening.

OK now.  Attention all ex (or current) military logisticians.  One of the real treasures that David Long brought out with him was a gift from Dick 'Kelvin Engines' Goble in the shape of a grease gun - the old straight, easy style where one merely places the nozzle on the nipple and then pushes hard (even the most basic of blokes can do that!!) This one, though was special in that it was coloured deep, bronze green and had a label attached.  The label is about 6cm by 3cm, one end has a reinforced hole and a bit of string and the long sides are serrated where it has been torn off from the long strip of labels, and written on the label is written in pencil: LV6 MT1 4930 99 802 3650 GUN QTY 1!!!  A genuine label with the proper vocabulary section, NATO stock number, designation and the denomination of quantity!!  I KNEW all that training was worth it!!!

That's all for this week, folks.

Toodle pip!!

Bill