Well after having being thoroughly examined Alacrity passed her BSS examination……………..I didn’t think that she would fail but …..there could allways be something.

As I have changed around the battery connections to balance the heavy draw from the inverter I found that the lids covering the batteries don’t fit, yet another thing to do for the BSS.

So new lids have been made and a new box to house the two extra batteries. You need to be a contortionist to get at Alacrity’s batteries as when I have to top them up. I still haven’t modified the cupboard above them, that’s another job.

 So fitting the lids and extra battery box was to say the least a trial well that’s now done and all is ready for the BSS.

Well you’ve heard of the joke about the gynecologist who decorated his hallway through the letterbox, that’s just how I felt when I decided to repaint Alacrity’s gas locker.
Alacrity’s Boat Safety Examination is coming up soon and I noticed that one of the things they were looking at were rusty floors in gas lockers because there may be pinholes in the plating allowing LPG to get into the bilges with possible dire results.

The floor in the locker was sound and just needed the loose rust sweeping out. I painted the cleaned floor with Kurust then two coats of International primer and then the whole locker with two coats of Danboline.

I was lucky that it was a hot day the Kurust dried converting the rust and leaving a great base for the primer, but it was a killer trying to reach in and paint. I used two paint brushes taped onto lengths of dowell to reach the corners and with my head and one arm in squeezed in the hatch managed to get a great finish despite a headache due to the fumes.

I even managed to get in a bit of fishing (I didn’t catch anything) while I waited for the paint to dry !!! 

Im going to fit some Dri-Dek Tiles to stop the gas cylinders resting directly on the locker bottom so hopefully keeping it rust free for the future.

Its that time again, Waiting for me on the door mat when I got home was my licence renewal form from BW, always a welcome sight  Not.

Included was a notice telling me that I needed to renew my Boat Safety Certificate, minor panic ensued for a few moments while I located the last inspections paperwork. Since nothing has changed hopefully all I need to do is check that there are no obvious faults.

What I did notice was the warning that late payment now gets hit with a penalty of £150 OUCH !!!

The “Oddest” tool in Alacrity’s tool box is a Drive Belt tensioning tool I bought from Justoffbase about four years ago. It hooks around the alternator and allows you to put tension on the drive belt using a half inch square drive bar while you nip up the mounting bolts.

It saves on bending screwdrivers, bleeding knuckles (when said screwdriver slips) and damaging a very expensive Alternator. It fits into the smallest space where getting other forms of lever are not practical.

So what is the “Oddest” tool in YOUR toolbox????

Bones in her post Gas Struts Help  February 11th was bemoaning the loss of one of a pair of gas struts she was going to use to help hold up her new bed on the good ship bones.

I knew that somewhere in the depths of my garage I had an unused set of struts that I was going to use to hold the bonnet up on my offroad Land Rover  Discovery but had decided that there was no space to install them. So what better than to donate them to the Bones Bed Appeal they are a bit shorter than Bones’s original ones but hopefully they will do the job.
I should have known better than to post them off on Friday the 13th sent First Class Post they took a week to arrive.

A few months ago we got a free pack of Phillips energy saving light bulbs from British Gas and as I had tried these so called “Eco bulbs” a few years back and found them next to useless they got filed in the garage.
I only decided to use the freebies because two of the bulbs in the wall lights in the lounge blew at the same time and as usual I didn’t have any spares.

I was pleasantly surprised, the new generation of “Eco bulbs” strike up quicker and seem to be a lot whiter.
The only thing I found was that you need the next wattage up to get the same light output i.e. 40 watt old bulb needs a 60 watt Eco bulb but with an energy consumption of only 14 watts and an expected life of over 6 years whose to grumble.
When I went in to Waitrose today the bulbs were on sale at £1.49 buy one get one free.

As the saying goes ” If you want something doing properly do it yourself “. Well if I had done it myself I wouldn’t have had to replace the inline extractor fan in the bathroom at home.

When we had the bathroom rebuilt we chose a Plumber who was highly regarded in the area and he did a very good job on the bathroom but I guess extractor fans were not his strong point. The fan was fitted in the most inaccessible part of the roof space when I say fitted thrown would be more accurate.

This fan was two years old when it met its maker and looked as if it had been pumping sewage. If when the plumber had installed it he had taken note of the installation instructions, he would have supported the ducting with a small fall to the outlet and not allowed it to sag. I emptied out over a gallon of disgusting water from the duct work.

I have to say now after replacement it now has a gradual fall to the outlet and is supported and lagged to help with the condensation. The replacement unit cost me £30 and took about three hours to install thats including removing the old unit. I expect it to last more than two years now.

If you are having problems loading the Canalplan AC website and you are using Internet Explorer 7 its due to problems with this and other sites using Sitemeter…………………….

There is a fix for this its simple………. If you go into your internet explorer security settings and add the following to restricted sites then the page loads.
Go into tools – internet options – security – click on restricted sites and click on sites then enter http://*.sitemeter.com  click add then close then click ok……….close internet explorer then re open it ………..Job done

You should now be able to see Canalplan AC and other sites that were affected………………

I have to thank Lesley and Joe from NB Caxton and John And Kathy from NB Marmaduke for the information and recommendations they have made for comfortable easy chairs and their suppliers.

So it looks like we will be going for the chairs from IKEA.

I looked around B&Q today for solid wood flooring and liked the look of the 150mm wide natural oak planks.

From a laying point of view there would be less planks to glue and fit but I think that the wide planks look better in a narrow situation, I do stand to be corrected and probably will be.

So my next task is to find out the best way to fit the flooring, find a local supplier and buy it.