The Journey -
Rosy has an engine!!!!

On 8th September we acquired some more bits of steel from the steel yard  - again, no invoice, and merely a tip required to the chap who spent 20 minutes cutting it up.  This steel was wire-brushed, Owatrolled and red oxided.

Then on the 11th, the main engine bearers were welded together.

On the 12th we moved boats around on the canal, to give a space next to Jeff's peniche - on which resides the crane.

And on Saturday 13th September ...

We laboured down the towing path for 100 metres with the pallet truck bearing the engine, and unscrewed the pallet from the engine.  The engine has two lifting points, so we shackled the chain hoist to the engine, and the jib of the crane to chain hoist, and started lifting the jib.  At first, of course, nothing happens, and instead of the engine rising, the peniche merely tips over.  Once the forces sort themselves out, the engine rises fractionally. 

At this point we had to remove the four engine legs, as the side hatch on Rosy isn't wide enough for them.  Then there was a 30 minute break whilst the legs were carried round to Rosy and the engine room made ready.

The new engine went in nearly as neatly as the old one went out.  The delicate work was done with the chain hoist, as it gives much better control than the jib of the crane.  Once the engine was inside, the legs were re-attached, and then the delicate job of lowering the engine onto the bearers - which of course, caused Rosy to sink a bit, and the peniche to rise a bit.

And ... clunk ... there it was.

Now for the hard bits:

• Align the engine
• Weld all the bearers into place
• Attach the keel cooling system
• Attach the raw water pump
• Attach the fuel lines
• Measure, buy and attach the Morse controls
• Rig the electric loom and wire in the new alternator
• Redesign the extant exhaust system
• Remove Rosy from the water to drill the raw 'in' hole, to clean and black her bottom and to weld on some new anodes (if necessary)

In the meantime ...

The walnuts are beginning to fall, and it promises to be a good harvest.  And the fungi are appearing - one picks them, takes the haul to a pharmacy, where they chuck out the nasty ones, leaving you with the good ones - tonight was new potatoes, with fungi lightly stewed in a minimum of white wine with added, gently melted, onions and garlic served with lashings of lightly scrambled egg.

Fanny's bit of open ground where we play with the Aerobie most mornings has burst into flower with tansy - useful, apparently, for rubbing onto raw meat to keep the flies away.

Over the last few months, some of the little water skaters have been going loopy.  There is quite a crowd of them on the canal, quietly whizzing around, but every now and then, one jumps up, and dives head first onto the water, using the meniscus as a trampoline for three or four head-bounces, before resuming a more gentle, skating life.  I assume that it's the young males showing off ....

I've been meaning to mention for some time that Peter and Jill Lawson have a boat (Angélique) here.  Peter was one of the founder members of the original canals mailing list, so it was good to, at last, put a face to the name.  They over-winter ashore in South Africa.

C'est tout!!

Toodle pip!!

Bill