Tuesday 22 January 2008

Testing Times

Thought I would just introduce myself and family. I'm Angie, my husband is Allyn. We have a daughter Erin, and dog called Godrick (I'll explain later)

We have a 51ft Springer narrowboat called Serendipity that was built in 1992. We have had her for nearly 2 years, and are justing getting to understand all her mannerisms. We have spent most of the time bringing her up together, but the trouble with that is, when we renew one part, it seems to put a strain on another part. The latest things to fail are engine gauges, central heating boiler and pump out toilet seals. Once these have been sorted, it only leaves the engine to replace. !!!!!. I am praying this will NOT happen.

Although we are experienced narrowboaters, it has always been on holiday boats, so maintance was down to other people. So this has definitley been a learning curve.

We had her craned into Bristol March 2006, and thats when the fun started.

Our maiden voyage ended in us breaking down with a radiator hose coming loose and filling the bilges with water. This was a suprise on 2 fronts. One it came loose, two we were told that it was cooled via dirty water (from the canal)

Then when this was resolved, the engine kept stopping, but when left for a while it would start again. This was a problem we had for quite a time with no one being able to explain the cause (several engineers were left scratching heads over this). This was finally resolved in August 2006 by Devices when it was discovered that we had insufficent filtration of the fuel. By this time we have got very good at learning to drop anchor if we stopped in a difficult area. We still have a problem with the engine racing, but until engineers can finally agree on solution we are still dealing with that one.

We had to replace the over pressure valve on the hot water tank because it kept leaking and was stuck open, when we done this it still leaked, so we looked to the water pump and found it was running at too high a pressure, this was sorted. Great, but the pressure valve now did not leak, this gave us another problem. Our first holiday on her, end up with us replaceing the hot water tank due to the calorfier splitting in Bath. It could not take the correct pressure in it any more. Another bilge full of water.

We had to replaced the back of the fire after getting a cabin full of smoke. This was due to being used, and was the final straw for the cement holding the back plate in place.

Shower pump finally packed in on Holiday last year, due to rust from incorrect pipe fitted many years ago. - New Pump.

Get the picture!!!!!

There have been many other situations we have found ourselves in over the past 2 years that are too embrassing to reveal at the moment. A taster for you - trying to pull away from a packed pub in Bradford on Avon while stern rope still tied to the mooring ring!!!!. Audience was very pleased with that one. When I feel braver I will reveal more.

I also managed to dent the brand new railing (crusier stern) that my husband spent several weekends cutting sanding and varnishing. Big trouble for me on this one.

Gosh reading back over this I wonder why we are doing this, it must be love.

You will recognise if you see us as we are the boat with a dragon sat on the bow. I had enough of people saying it was a long boat, so I went with the Viking tradition.

Oh well, I will say goodbye for now, and will report back later regarding fitting new seals, boiler bit etc

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