A dab of paint

Yesterday, we finally made it out of the marina and tootled off down to Tixall Wide for a spot of painting. I'd been persuaded that bilge paint was the way to go for the floor of the paint locker, so in the afternoon I got busy with a wire brush to clear out the remaining grot, and liberally dosed it all with Rust Exit to treat the bits that had suffered from too much sitting water. I also wanted to see how this stuff behaved when sprayed from its bottle, prior to using it on the hull where Erin Mae's blacking had worn through and allowed some rust to develop.

With that task done, we decided to stay at Tixall Wide overnight. That gave us a calm spot from which to recover from Murray's Wimbledon exit, a splendid evening backdrop to enjoy Federer's progress, and the opportunity to observe how the batteries coped with a day in the wild. Considering that we watched a fair bit of tennis, and left the TV on standby overnight, I was really pleased with the result. I've been learning more about interpreting the battery voltage shown on the control panel.

This morning I got busy early with red primer on the base of the paint locker and then, after breakfast, began to tackle the worn blacking on the hull where we'd collided with too many obstacles last summer. This was the first time I'd handled bituminous paint, and it was runnier than I expected. I had a limited target – I'd not enough paint to do the whole hull above the waterline, and it's tricky painting the hull when you're moored along a grassy towpath. I was resigned to its being obvious that I had done a patch-up job, and to the new paint looking much glossier than the old, but in the end was pleased with the result. So we pulled pins and made our way back to the marina for a late lunch. In the afternoon it was back to the locker, and a good coat of bilge paint.

I've been impressed with the paintbrush-preserving BrushMate box I bought last year. Brushes I used in the summer have survived until now, and could be used for these jobs, without seeing any white spirit. Well worth the money.

So I'm gradually getting more confident with painting-on-a-narrowboat. But the next phase will have to wait until mid-August. In another post I'll tell you why.

Cannock Chase and a curry

After a chat with marina Steve, I decided to (a) check out the price of Hammerite for the paint locker (he thought it was pretty expensive stuff) and (b) see whether I could get a metal brush attachment for my drill, to help remove the final gunge before painting. Since that meant a car trip, we decided to combine it with a walk over Cannock Chase. 3 miles in cloudy conditions was very good for the muscles. Hardly anyone else was out, but we found ourselves passing, and dropping in on, the German war cemetery. Over 2000 are there from each of the two world wars who had died "on British territory". We were trying to think how that could have happened in the first war, but didn't stay long enough to find out.

Coming home via B&Q, we found no Hammerite – the assistant explained apologetically that they were about to re-stock it but it wouldn't be on the shelves until tomorrow. They had a couple of metal brush attachments, but at a price designed to send us away again. So all we got in Stafford was the wherewithal for a curry, and very nice it was, though I say it myself.

So still no painting, but I'll see whether I can dodge tomorrow's rain enough to remove the final gunge by hand and start the treatment of the small amount of surface rust in the locker.

Paint locker

We'd intended taking Older Brother Nº 2 and wife for a trip up the Caldon Canal in May, and to do a bit of idle cruising on our own in addition. None of it worked out. The weather put paid to the first plan, and a series of events for which we had to be elsewhere the second. But we wanted to get Erin Mae spruced up, and managed to get up about a week ago. A good spring clean on the inside was matched by a thorough wash of the paintwork and a coat of polish. The green bits come up nicely, but the red undergoes a transformation from the dull and slightly chalky effect of the winter's weather.

We'd also wanted to take her out for a spot of experimental painting – not allowed to do any in the marina. In particular we wanted to touch up the bits where the blacked parts of the hull are showing the consequences of too much contact with lock walls. Everyone says not to worry about that – it's a normal and natural result of cruising. But it leaves some bare bits along the rubbing strakes where surface rust is looking unsightly. Of course, the fact that it's also evidence of the steerer's ineptitude has nothing to do with the decision to work on it. It's more to do with getting a bit more experience in working with steel bodywork (or so I tell myself).

So, in preparation for moving out, I checked out the contents of the paint locker, only to find that the one or two tins had been losing some of their contents. The locker is at the front of the boat, protected solely by the cover-board I made a couple of years ago. Although it has a drain-hole it inevitably gets a bit wet inside, and a couple of tins had clearly corroded. Varnish or bitumen inside the tin doesn't stop the outside rusting. The result was a layer of gooey stuff all over the bottom of the locker, sticking to the bottom of all the tins, etc. What a mess! So everything came out onto newspaper and I spent most of the day scraping goo from the bottom of the locker and the base of all the tins. It cleaned up pretty well, but now I have to work out how much dried varnish or blacking I should remove with a metal brush before giving the base a coat of paint. And I have to decide whether to use red oxide primer plus bilge paint, or Hammerite, as the previous owner did in the other locker. Any comments would be welcome.

12.6 and falling

My experiment to see just how much our battery bank loses overnight powering just the fridge via the inverter yielded a somewhat inconclusive result. I disconnected the mains lead, and the voltmeter showed 13.3 volts, dropping quickly to 13.2. That seemed OK for fully charged sealed batteries. After 8 hours the voltage was down to 12.6. I'd forgotten to disconnect the mobile broadband unit, but it probably takes relatively little.

Now some of the charts I've seen on the internet would suggest that a 0.6 volt drop overnight is an appreciable amount of the batteries' capacity, so I rang the Evesham battery people to ask them. Unfortunately, Steve Smith the boss, who's been very helpful in the past, is away till after Easter. Eventually I spoke with Curtis, who installed stuff for us last June and is a mine of information. He thought the voltage drop wasn't excessive. So we haven't taken the batteries to Evesham, and the timing means that we probably now won't, unless plans change and we cruise down there later in the year.

Well – I'm back to thinking about getting (a) a proper battery monitor, and (b) a solar panel. Everybody who has them says they are really worth it. I think the battery monitor is probably first on the list – some genuine data would be really nice. It's the uncertainty that taxes the emotions.

41-14-4-14

41 years ago today we tied the knot. So we celebrated by exploring the wonders of the A446, M42, M40, A34, M3, M27…  And as for our anniversary lunch, it was a couple of splendid ham salad granary rolls made to order by Janey at the Spar in Great Haywood, washed down (the rolls, that it, not Janey) by an Americano and a Flat White at Cherwell Valley services. Wonderfully romantic! However, we did find time for a celebratory meal yesterday – venison casserole at the Hollybush Inn in Salt.

Tonight, having continued the celebrations by going through the post that had accumulated in our absence and paying on line for a new tax disc, it will be a magnificent stir fry by yours truly, with turkey breasts from the freezer, and not-too-out-of-date veggies that have either been to Great Haywood and back with us, or patiently awaited our return. It's amazing what a good stir-frying can do to slightly elderly veggies, especially with a pot of Puttanesca sauce and the addition of a handful of cashews and black olives.

But that classy and expensive restaurant along the coast will have to sit in ignorance of our tastes for yet another year.

Make do and mend

I'd left a rag under the union on the water pump that I reconnected last week, and it showed that there was some water escaping. Hardly a leak, more of a seep. So I acquired some PTFE tape, something I don't think I've had occasion to use personally for a couple of decades. PolyTetraFluoroEthylene, as I recall. Turn off the stop-cock, drain the pipes, undo the union, apply some tape, do it all up again, take it all off again to get rid of a kink I'd put in the flexible hose, apply more tape, do it all up more carefully, and turn on the stop-cock so we can have a restorative cuppa. It's amazing what can wear you out. Take photo, replace rag with a dry one so I can check for seepage in the morning.

Then it's on to the two window catches which had come unstuck. Some 5-minute Araldite saw this one back in place in the bathroom (time will tell how effectively it's now attached).

But the other was more complicated – the turner wouldn't turn.

Eventually I found that the two sides screw together and managed to unscrew them.

Inside everything was very sticky, for no apparent reason – the parts were meant to be separated by plastic washers, and I can't think why these should have deteriorated to an adhesive state – perhaps the previous owner had stuck them together for some reason. So next week we'll pay a visit to my favourite hardware shop in Christchurch and see whether they can be replaced.

Erin Mae's hardware is a funny mixture of stuff you can buy in B&Q, and things which appear to have been custom designed and made in Poland. Mending them seems to take you back to first principles – the ones used by all our friends back in Brazil in the 80s who could repair almost anything. But that's also the sort of thing at which my favourite hardware shop in Christchurch excels.

April, come she will

Or rather, come we will. A winter's silence on the blog reflects several happy months at home in the New Forest, and Erin Mae's survival of the storms and floods. The marina has a webcam about 20 metres away from her, looking straight up our jetty, so we were able to check that those fearful winter winds were doing no damage.

Last week a quick overnight trip with the first of the gear for the new season, and the chance to do a good spring clean of the interior. This was the first time I'd de-winterised the boat myself, and it turned out to be a straightforward affair, with little more to do than re-connect the water-pump, re-connect the shower-head, re-attach the water filter and open a stop-cock or two. I think it means I'll do it all myself in reverse next winter – I suspect that most of the workshop-rate time I was paying for consisted of waiting for the water tank to drain.

Now we have a few days during which we're getting other things set up and will hopefully get the chance to do a little painting – that's the scary bit. Also, now that the batteries are fully charged, we want to see the effect on them overnight of running just the fridge, with the mains disconnected.

So – here we go again. This year's going to be completely different, but we're very much looking forward to the it all as the adventure resumes.