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BOATY BITS:
Fu... Fu... Flaming port-holes.
Rosy is moored next to a nb called Falcon, owned by David,
a nice chap who some readers may have heard of (he holds a Ministerial
office).
Falcon used to be internally illuminated by 8 port-holes.
Due to a slight accident (David loaned Falcon to his brother, whose dear
lady wife decided to clean all the glass on Falcon) he now has 7 port-holes
and one port hole, the latter being stuffed with duck tape etc. etc. etc.
to keep the weather out. David had bought a new port-hole -
or at least a replacement one, and two discs of glass to fit. Why
two? Double glazing perhaps? No. The glazier needed
practice in cutting circles!!! I'd said that I would have a go at
fitting it in place.
"Silfilly me," he tholfought!!!!
I put off doing it during deep mid-winter, on the assumption
that one should wait for better weather before starting.
In the meantime, screws had to be bought. Problem Number
One. The brass screws on the other port-holes have enormous heads, and
the local screwery hadn't got any the right size. So I got some suitably
sized chip board screws instead.
I also needed some mastic. Now, David is a sensible
sort of a chap, and takes good care to keep at least one closed set of
lock gates between himself and him and the beautiful blue big briny sea
(a rule that I broke on Rosy. Once.) Hence the double priced
'marine grade' mastic was ignored. Instead, I bought the 'not quite
the cheapest' tube, lured by the 7 year guarantee that came with it.
The final piece of the logistics plot dropped into place
last Friday, when I emptied a bag of coal into Rosy's coal box, leaving
me with an empty placcy bag, from which I could cut a square piece, to
be taped over the port hole in the event of rainy weather arising whilst
the port hole was open awaiting fixation of the port-hole.
It's always struck me that a Sunday is an auspicious
day to start such a job!! A few days previously, I had offered up the
port-hole to the port hole, and pencil marked on Falcon's hull the top
hole. So on Sunday, I got the drill out and set to work.
Needless to say, the required 6mm drill was blunt, so,
after centre punching the required spot, a 3mm pilot hole was drilled,
widened to 5.5mm, widened to the required 6mm, and then the port-hole
was loosely screwed (!) into place. A similar system was used for
the diagonally opposite hole, and with these two points screwed down,
the other holes were drilled out through the holes in the port-hole.
From experience, I now know that I can't merely mark out all the holes,
and then drill them all out. If I do, the holes don't mate up!!!
Luckily, pure metal swarf came out of each of the holes, so at least the
port-hole will be firmly attached, and won't be relying on the filler
in the previous set of holes.
Now for the fun bit - the mastic. Tube of mastic.
Mastic gun. Nozzle. Knife (to cut the nozzle). Bowl of warmish soapy water.
Several old rags. Snip the tip off the tube of mastic, snip the tip off
the nozzle. Screw nozzle onto tube, place tube in the gun, start pumping
the gun. Aaarrrggghhhhh!! The mastic was a touch thicker than any other
that I've ever used. So much so that the pressure I was applying to the
gun caused the gun to flex, and my wrist to wear out. I eventually got
a bead smeared round the lip of the port-hole, in which to bed the glass.
I dropped the glass into place, firmed it home, moistened a finger in
the soapy water in order to smooth off the mastic.
Unfortunately, the mastic failed to respond properly
to soapy water. The mastic merely spread itself thinly and evenly, in
reaction to finger pressure. This was a problem as by now I had a finger
full of mastic, and a sizeable dollop had just dripped off the end of
the gun onto Rosy's front deck - which was where all this work was
taking place.
By now, both hands were contaminated with mastic, and
I had a dollop in my hair (I'd scratched my head wondering what to do
next!) Hand marks were appearing all over Rosy's paintwork, as everything
I touched turned to mastic.
The nearest, available, noxious fluid was the white spirit,
which I keep with the other bottles (of olive oil, vinegar, soy sauce,
Angostura Bitters, gin and Pastis) by the kitchen sink. En route to the
kitchen I passed the loo, and remembered that I needed a pee, so more
bits of me got masticked.
'Sfunny how a half-hour job can take most of the afternoon.
Bl... bl... blooming batteries.
All the clever folks say that a boat requires 2 sorts
of batteries. Normal 'car' type batteries for starting the engine,
and deep cycle, 'leisure' batteries for the 'house' - lighting, the
fridge, water pumps, radio etc. etc. The problem with this theory
is that the market for leisure batteries is relatively small and hence,
amp-hour for amp-hour, they are more expensive. They are also not
that easy to find, especially for a chap without a car.
18 months ago I put in three car batteries as the house
bank. Two are now knackered, in that each has used a litre of distilled
water over the past fortnight, and still can't hold a charge. I've
replaced them with cheap 'n' cheerful car batteries form the local(ish)
Auchan supermarket, and spent a happy afternoon fitting them. This
is especially good fun, as Rosy has a steel hull, and the batteries are
fitted close up against the hull. Tighten a nut a smidgen too much,
and the spanner touches the hull followed by a satisfyingly sudden crash,
a blinding flash, a shower of sparks, and the aroma of ozone.
Geography.
It has been bothering me that the local houses have marks
engraved on their walls recording the heights of record floods.
Indeed, the original lock house, standing beside the lock (with Rosy moored
BELOW the lock!!) has the biggie marked half way up the door post!!
This in itself is a bit worrying, but the mystery is the date of the flood -
June!!
It was pointed out to me the other day that the BIG Loire
floods occur in hot summers PLUS violent summer storms, when the sun melting
the snows on the Massif Centrale have extra rain water added.
However, floods are now not expected as the general level
of the Loire has been much reduced by the number of nuclear power stations
along its banks.
Toodle pip!!
Bill
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