Out and About and All that Gas

Having got through the trauma of loosing Mum and Dad and the weather finally abating we decided it is time to leave the marina for this season.  

Yesterday, Monday, was the first real break from the strong winds and rain.  It was a perfect winter's sunny day with only a little wind.  Our destination for the day was Chas Harden Boats by Iron lock.  

Our oven thermostat appears to have stopped working as the oven temperature was a constant 300C despite what ever setting we called for.  Chas, being Gas registered, agreed to replace it with one we had got from the manufacturer.

Before leaving we treated AmyJo to new stern fenders as the original had finally started to collapse and was not really protecting the rudder.  This time, however, I decided to go for a tipcat and button with the hope this would be more robust and protect the rudder better.  So far it seems to do the job well.  I've still to remove the excess chain but for not this will have to do.

New Tipcat and Button fenders

The cruise to Chas Hardens is not far, about a 2 hours cruise.  Depite the cold temperature the sun had some warmth in it for once and with the light wind it felt quite warm.  As always we revelled in being out on the cut again.  You just cannot beat the feeling of elation as you turn onto the cut after a spell in a marina.  Yesterday was no exception.

This morning (Tuesday), Chas came to the boat and we soon had the oven out.  Fortunately Fernwood had the forsight to fit armoured flexible cable from the gas pipe to the oven so it was a simple matter of pulling the oven forward, disconnecting the gas pipe and electric cable then lift out onto a table to work on it.

Replacing the thermostat, howerver, was not as simple.  As you can see Chas had to almost completely dissasemble the oven to get it out but after 2 hours he got the job done.

Chas completely stripping down the oven to get the stat control out

Back off the brown stain in the lagging is where the stat probe enters the oven

Finally the thermostat is removed

The replacemet thermostat and temperature control ready to be installed

So now tonight we'll see how we get on when we cook dinner.  Thank you Chas you've done a great job!

After early rainfall the wind has returned but the sun is now out making yet another lovely day.  Just as well as another cratch cover zip has gone and will not do up.  As we are not far from Nick's Canvas and cover workshop, Nick is now replaceing the two Portside (left hand) zips for me.  This means all zips on the cover have been replaced.  To be fair they get a lot of use as we enter and leave AmyJo several times a day via the front.

Whilst this is being done I've put up a temporary tarpoline.  It is not perfect or pretty but does the job keeping everything dry while the cover is away.

The temporary tarp

So now we're out of the marina for the season hopefully will have something to post about.  We are formulating our summer cruise later but we have a re run of the Anderton lift cruise planned shortly to look forward to, hopefully with better luck and we can get up and down the lift this time.

Oh and I almost forgot.  The new double glazed port holes have now all been fitted and are a great sucess.  There is a noticeable improvement in warmth inside AmyJo and condensation is almost non existant even when its really cold outside

Total distance:3.50 miles Elapsed time:1h54m15s Locks:1 Bridges:6

Average speed:1.84 mph (2.36 lock/mph)