General Witterings -
WOOFs and POOFs on Rosy

'WOOF' in this context does not refer to Jess the Woof, but to those 'Well Off Older Folk' who one sometimes sees on the canals in their glitzy floating palaces.  I'm certainly not one of those.

Instead, I have to admit that I'm a bit of a POOF - a Poorly Off Older Folk.  But then, aren't we all?

This has been a funny old week.  We had two days off, when everything shut down.  Tuesday was the 8th May, and is a holiday here to remember VE day, whilst 9th May was a religious holiday (Assumption?).  This weekend is the local AquaFest, so we've all been cleaning and polishing our boats.  Unfortunately, most of the aqua is not in the canal, but is dropping out of the sky.

The cruising season is now in full swing.  Julian in the nb 'Santanna' came by - our paths seem to cross each year.  A large hire boat crewed by some our American cousins came into the basin and moored up, helped by the ever attentive Port Captain.  Great consternation and much swearing by them and lots of "This is unbelievable!!!".  They eventually moved to another mooring.  The problem was that at their first mooring, their electric cable wasn't long enough to reach the shore side electricity tree.  Unbelievable, eh!!  'Electra' came along, with Graham and Jill on board - fair weather sailors, who live in UK (Brixham) in the winter, but cruise the canals in the summer.  And the American crew of the Dutch barge 'Aloha' arrived in from their winter quarters in Hawaii for their 15th(?) 16th(?) year of summer cruising.

Then Will et al arrived on a cruise from Hilversum(?) or Hildersheim(?) - Radio City - in Holland.  Will runs a political discussion TV show, where the set is a mini House of Commons.  He's taken five months leave and is on his 'Grand Cruise'.  So far, he has had visitors to help out as a crew, but he is facing a bit of single-handed cruising, and is a bit worried about it.  He arrived in the basin with the main, roof, grab-handle hanging loose, so I helped to fill the screw holes, straighten out the stainless steel tube, and re-mount the up-stands that supported the tube.  He had no tools on board.  'et al' were a Dutch couple.  She is a 'classical singer' (contralto) who earns a few Euros by singing at funerals.  His is a tenor, but earns his living in insurance.

BULLS-EYES

Then we had adventures with the bulls-eye.  This is a glass lens - flat on one side, steeply convex on the other - embedded in the roof of Rosy, that helps illuminate the back cabin.  It is mounted with the convex side uppermost.  Unfortunately, although it captures light, and nicely illuminates the cabin, it also concentrates the light on the way through, and focuses it, by chance, on the inner roof lining.  I discovered this early on in my relationship with Rosy, when I smelt burning.  I solved the problem by putting a very thin wash of white emulsion paint on the flat surface.  (Some folk try to solve the problem by roughing-up the peak of the convex lens, in an effort to dissipate the light, but this does not solve the problem, as it is the whole convex surface that captures the light).

However, there has been some correspondence about bulls-eyes in the waterways press, suggesting that we are putting them in upside down.

Hence I removed mine, intending to re-install mine 'convex side down'.

The bulls-eye is kept in place by a brass ring that clamps the bulls-eye down onto the roof.  removing the bolts was not too bad, and levered off the ring and bulls-eye.

Then it became obvious that installing the bulls-eye the other way up was not possible.  The profile of the brass clamping ring is carefully designed to clamp the bulls-eye 'convex side up'.  Anyway, as an experiment, I rested the bulls-eye, in place, convex side down, and went down into the cabin to see the result.

In terms of illumination, it doesn't seem to matter which way up the bulls-eye is.  Both ways work equally effectively.

In terms of setting the cabin on fire...

When the bulls-eye is convex side down, the light focuses further away from the lens - in Rosy's cabin, around about on the top of the head of a person about 5 ft 6 inches tall standing underneath it!!  I put my hand up to the lens, and was quite surprised at how much warmth was generated near to it.  There is something in this solar power!!

So, out with the silicone sealant, and back on with the bulls-eye as it was.  Putting it back on was a bit of problem, as holding the nut inside the cabin, whilst screwing away at the screw head up on the roof is not possible for a non-gorillaized person - luckily I was helped by Graham from Electra.  Ah!!  And then I had to put a thin coat of white emulsion paint on the inside, flat surface of the bulls-eye, as I'd cleaned off the old coating.

Incidentally, there is something deeply satisfying about gunning in silicone sealant.  It has been suggested that this is very much a 'bloke' thing.

On the assumption that guns are bloke things because they allow one's personal influence to be extended (either to the range of the gun, or to the range at which one can fire with reasonable accuracy) then I don't equate silicone sealant with power and influence.  Though I have to say that using silicone sealant from a squeezy tube is not nearly as satisfying

I think it's more to do with silicone sealant being simple to work with, making difficult, skilled jobs (like using putty on windows, and making bath-to-wall joints) easy, and hence giving even cack-handed people a feeling of constructional accomplishment.

Perhaps there is also a Freudian element in it - pumping out a powerful, white stream, that does its job to everyone's satisfaction!

I'd better leave it there!!

Many grateful thanks to Molly Mockford of Pagination Associates who designed and maintains this site.  She can be contacted at molly@pagination.co.uk.

Toodle pip!!

Bill