Friday 24th January
What a change to see blue sky and sunshine! But it was cold and very windy. Straight after breakfast Dave was down the engine hole to start work on changing the batteries. However … the photograph shows the problem.
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| Disconnected and ready for removal … but how? |
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| No shuffling room, left, right, forward or back. |
The straight lines across the top of the first photo are the slightly out of focus edge of the deck and the frame where the engine board sits. You can easily see that the batteries are tucked right under the stern deck. That might be manageable if they could be shuffled forward or sideways before being lifted, but of course they have to be secured for BSS certification – and ours sit solidly inside a purpose-built metal tray, meaning they have to be lifted up, at arm’s length, before they can come forward. And at 31 kg per battery – that’s nearly 5 stone, approximately the weight of our 7-year old grandson – well, discretion is the better part of valour as they say, so Dave reconnected them and came in for a cup of tea. Yesterday he had been chatting to a boater who had had to go up to Alvechurch marina to get his changed, and they needed to use a winch.
So we tidied up, set the fire ready for our next visit and packed the car. Bonjour is booked in for blacking in March, so I made sure (I hope) that nothing will slide about or tip over when she is towed up the slipway, and tied the doorknobs to keep the cupboard doors shut. Then we collected the remaining few bits from the galley and went home.
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| Cowering before the icy blast |
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