1000 hour service

Not the longest religious ceremony on record, but attending to the needs of Erin Mae's engine. We motored down to Oxley Marine just past Autherley junction and Philip was on hand to do the job.



It seems to be a pre-requisite for working at this yard that you have a large white beard – Philip does, Orph Maple (oops! sorry, Orph) Mable the owner does, and Dave (who was working on another boat) also does. Philip's was positively trim this morning by the regular standards. His appetite for cups of tea and my best beloved's coconut crunch, on the other hand, remained undiminished as he got on with fitting new filters.



Oil came out and oil went in, and tappets needed no adjustment whatsoever.



I'd asked him to look at what might have caused the ignition warning buzzer and the tachometer (rev counter) to stop working, and that involved getting in behind the control panel.



A loose connection had probably caused the buzzer to fail, and that now seems to be sorted.



The tachometer, on the other hand, seems to have died, and that's annoying. Tachometers are extremely expensive (when compared to warning buzzers). They are also not stock items, so I shall have to wait for a couple of days to learn what the damage to my wallet would be. We've been getting along fine without the tachometer for the last couple of days, but it's not something I would want to be without permanently, especially when we're next on a sizeable river.

For the moment we've turned up the Shroppie and moored just south of Brewood.



It's a lovely neck of the woods. If the sun comes out tomorrow as promised we might just stay, let the solar panel do its job, and do a little varnishing, or even (dare I utter the word?) painting.