grendel

well I went and paid my mooring fee, and have had a wander around Norwich, I managed to purchase a whistling kettle to replace the now non whistling one that fell off the cooker going round the yellow post Thursday.

despite being plugged into the electric all night the boat next to me started up its engine at 8am, and just sat there running it. by 9am I had had enough and despite the drizzle it was time to cast off ( this is the same boat that told me yesterday that he was in neutral and out of gear while mooring, despite the evidence to the contrary as two of his crew vainly struggled to hold the boat against the key heading, due to the prop wash.) never mind, it was a good few hours trip from Lodden to Norwich, where I have just arrived, threading my way around the swans, and canoists, and people in a row boat, who were in the middle of the river, and managing to spin on the spot, today will be a wander round Norwich, once again I have managed to get on one of the electric posts here.

well I have had a nice relaxing afternoon without internet, Griff turned up with BA a short while back and we shuffled a boat up to give him room, I used the showers mid afternoon while it was quiet, but really after the 6 hour trip to get here its just been relaxing and having a quiet afternoon, Peter Rabbit 2 is a good movie I found.

chedgrave was fine a month or so back, but doesnt have the electric point and showers

well its taken me half an hour to be able to reply, but today saw me depart the waveney just short of geldeston at 7.30 am, plan was to arrive at reedham at low tide so I could catch the tide both ways down the waveney and up the yare, anyway I have ended up on the staithe at Lodden, there were plenty of spaces and the batteries dont like the fridge running all night without being on shore power, so i was lucky and got on a post with 59p left I actually arrived at reedham about 15 minutes early so had a little remaining tide to punch. tried to point out to a mooring vessel that leaving it in gear in tickover was making the shore crews job more difficult. as the boat was determined to leave the quay heading. anyway i am here, though the internet speed is useless.

up bright and early, went for a quick dip and now sitting watching the sun rising from behind the trees, while the kettle boils for coffee.

John, the wiring is beyond redemption, we are planning to do a full rewire, and that was the last original set of lights, so we will make do with LED battery ones until the rewire. the fuel issue was some horrible waxy sludgy slimey stuff in the bottom of the filter, it was last changed (we found ) quite a while ago. I had tested for air flow restriction by cracking the filler cap open, and it wasnt that.

well the waters not that cold, so i found a swim spot just round the corner, with a tree root to assist getting out, als i found i can just drop my swim ladder off the quay heading and use that to get in and out by the boat, so a couple of quick dips have been had.. more to b e had later.

Tonight's mooring

well a quiet morning, winding down the wooden boat show, and attend the boat Jumble, Water rail now has 2 new blue fenders to add to her collection, after lunch it was time to get packed up and head somewhere, Geldeston staithe was my preference, but it was already taken, with 3 other woodies along that straight, also the weed was quite bad along there, about turn and backtrack, eventually ending on the quay heading where the logs are on the bank, then a quiet afternoon watching the canoes, paddleboards and dayboats passing by.

Thats a shame, it would have been nice to meet you. Well this morning up at 5.45, hit the beccles shower block early and was back to the boat in time to see my cats feeding on the wifi camera i had set up that links to my tablet, not that its as good as being there in person, but I can talk to them over the link. Cheese on toast and coffee to start the day off, I have not planned much past this morning, but I have only paid for two nights here, so technically unless I extend that, I will be heading off on my travels later today, then at least I will have more to report to everyone out there that reads my posts.

Well while model Broad Ambition was on display I managed to bump into the model, and Purdey model who was sitting on the bow was catapulted into the water between Water Rail and Malanka, sinking to the bottom, even at low water its too deep to go fishing around. I have also put out a shout for assistance with the deck light wiring, the wires are just 0.2mm thick, (with the insulation removed that drops to 0.1mm) an electronic engineer has just had a look and shaken his head saying they wouldnt normally deal with wires that thin, but has at least made some useful suggestions of how to manage it, tests will be made.

well connection here at beccles isnt great, but we did have the model out on the river today, I also have a zoom meeting for my astronomy club tonight. this isnt going too well due to signal drop out. its been a busy day chatting to people and showing them around the boats, so not a lot to report from today.

Baking complete for the morning, just got to cool a bit more before I can test them

A nice lie in this morning, it was 6 am when I awoke, so thats an hours lie in, up and straight to the Beccles Yacht Station showers, for a nice morning shower, most refreshing, then it was down to the serious business, cheese and bacon turnovers in the oven for breakfast, and time to get baking, bread ingredients measured out, mixed and kneaded, and the dough is now sitting in a sunny spot for 45 minutes to an hour to rise for the first time (or until it has doubled in size), boat tidying for the upcoming visitors started, canopy back and the model is back out on the stern on display, the start of show day at the wooden boat show. the smell of the fresh bread rolls will of course give me an edge when it comes time for votes to be cast

She has the fuel tap, then the water filter, and then we have the main fuel filter

today started with running out of data, i purchased a new 12Gb block and then found that i still couldnt get online, anyway, after some time trying I gave up and got water rail ready for the trip from Oulton Broad to Beccles, Dave turned up with the new fuel filter and with a little help from Griff, I managed to fit it and prime the system, I can report there was about 1/4" of waxy slimy something in the bottom of the filter housing, that obviously wasnt helping matters. anyway we did an engine test, and she started fine, ran her up to full revs and all seemed well, when we left oulton I did a quick engine test, a lot smoother through the speeds and 100 rpm additional on the max revs, result. chugged our way to beccles in convoy, and a spectacular sight it was indeed. it was while trying to get online at beccles I decided to reboot the wifi dongle, - Bingo, that did the trick, and i was back online, pleased to say that the throttle is now more responsive too, it used to need stepping the speed up by 200 rpm at a time, now we can get the steps between too.

Temporary lighting purchased at b&m in Beccles and fixed above the sink and cooker

it is a priority it was due to be done last winter, but lockdown prevented that, circuit is now isolated and dead, and will remain that way until replaced, I believe this is the last circuit containing that wiring, we hadnt spotted this as the screws to remove the light covers were painted over so had not been opened for a while, as we identify this type of item it is being retired. I will look at getting some of the battery LED lights as a temporary fix until we can get her out for maintenance/ rewire, its silly we have all of the new electrical panels all ready to go.

we had tea and cake at Shauns, now back aboard to watch the power boat racing and cook tea, steak and chips tonight. just waiting for the new filter to arrive to fit

I am not sure, I certainly won't touch this for fear of making it worse.

she has a Nanni 390 engine, 21 HP, 2000 rpm is 5 mph but we had 2 issues, one was that she was low on fuel, ( thankfully someone had a 30 litre container, which filled the tank , before we left,) so we were with the tide to Breydon, so never got to 2000 rpm, then I went flat out (testing purposes) for Breydon Bridge- 8.8 mph, @2600 rpm, then dropped back to 2400 trying to catch the front half of the fleet, about 2/3 of the way across i had to cut back to 2200 as she was struggling, after that i found that she was happy again at 2000 rpm, so fortunately with tide assist I managed to keep up with the fleet, we suspect that there is something restricting the fuel, so will try a filter change later (not knowing the last time it was changed. after arriving at Oulton Broad, I reversed onto a pontoon mooring (inside) all the way from half way across the broad, you need a good run at it to get her going straight) then it was time to try and find why the rear cabin lights had stopped working, so first check the bulb, one look at the wiring and I was certain I wouldnt be touching any of that circuit, that can wait for the rewire.

I dont know, there will be a close competition with all the nippers, nippers nippers and nippers nippers nippers too, she looked stunning as I passed her at herringfleet on the way down

Well that time is here again, departed home at just gone 7 and a 4 hour trip to Oulton Broad, then load up Water Rail, Assist Shaun Getting Manxman started, and then it was time to head out, just about midday, a slow cruise against the tide from Oulton to Breydon, Passing Nipper and Missouri star en route , and then half way across Breydon it happened..... The revs suddenly dropped, and I thought oh no, not on Breydon, dropped them down to tickover and reapplied throttle, it picked back up, but then slowed again, ok try it on a lower throttle setting , so dropped down to 2000rpm, fine happy here, so proceeded across breydon, turning at the yellow post, I thought with only 2000 revs this could be fun, I was just a few hours after high tide at this point, so once again had the tide against me, after lots of fiddling it transpired that 2000 rpm was all she was happy with, so it was a long plod up to Stracey Arms to meet the rest of the flotilla. when I arrived I re-checked the fuel, whoops I had misread the nearly full stain on the dipstick, I was quite low on fuel, which probably wasnt helping, so tomorrow it will be a quick stop en route to top up the tank, a 40 litre (max ) tank is not good for 5 hour cruises. also tomorrow it will be replace the fuel filter time. heres hoping as the return trip is with the tide all the way. More tomorrow.

when we are doing our drawings we are working almost exclusively with caps locked on, thus when the time comes to chat often we forget and just type away.