Well first to bring you up to date.
We’d bought Spirit at the end of January, and she
had a number of minor problems – the trim tabs weren’t
working; the engine was a b*gger to start, and when it
did start kept cutting out; the alternator wasn’t
brilliant; the carburettors needed servicing and virtually
constant adjustment, and various other bits and pieces.
We’d taken her out of the water to
be anti-fouled, have the trim tabs done and be signwritten.
Things being as they are, when the man jet-washed the
hull to get the old anti-foul off, he ended up spraying
a fine blue mist all over the superstructure, which of
course was left to us to sort out. That done, the next
thing to go wrong was that the signwriter let us down.
Despite plenty of notice and some reminder calls, for
whatever reason he wasn’t able to fit us in. And
of course we didn’t find this out until after we’d
removed the old name from the hull. So it was off to buy
a transfer-sign for Steve to stick on. And lastly, the
man that was going to do the trimtabs didn’t turn
up either. So it wasn’t a particularly successful
time. That said, the boat was put back in the water about
two weekends before Easter, and promptly the alternator
failed. If you live in Norwich and wondered what was happening
one bitterly cold March night as two people huddled over
a car bonnet connecting up jump leads to a boat, that
was us. This was the point at which we first started to
think that maybe buying a boat wasn’t such a good
idea. The next time we thought that was when we were quoted
over £400 for a new Volvo alternator.
New alternator fitted, antifouled, cleaned,
and transfer-written we set off back to Brundall for our
years moorings. My parents came up for the weekend and
we went out for a day, and we had a couple of odd evenings
out – all was looking good. Then Good Friday came
along and you may remember that it was a nice day, so
a trip on the boat was in order. We weren’t rash
– we went from Brundall to Bramerton Woods End.
On the way, Steve said that he could get the smell of
oil and thought that maybe the mixture was a bit on the
rich side; when we got to Bramerton he would check it.
On reaching Bramerton he duly lifted the engine cover,
whereupon he not only smelt oil but saw it too. Everywhere.
To say that we nursed Spirit back to Brundall
is an understatement. We were very unhappy, and just didn’t
know what way to turn. When Steve had a chance for a good
look he found that the crankshaft oil seal had blown,
which meant removing the whole engine to sort, which meant
getting her back out of the water again and so on. The
vision of enormous expense loomed before us. We started
hitting the internet in earnest., trying to find out what
our options were and how much we were looking at, bearing
in mind the age and the cost of the boat. And the rule
of thumb about not spending more than half of the value
of an item on repairing/improving it…
Mostly it made depressing reading. We were
left with a boat that we couldn’t use and couldn’t
sell. We first of all looked at putting a diesel engine
in, but that would have cost more than the boat did. We
then looked at a replacement petrol – best deal
we found was from Volspec at about £6800 + Installation
+VAT. Steve then thought about buying a replacement engine
and marinising it. Lancing sell marinising kits for about
£1200. Then came the issue of when and where he
would do this.
In desperation he picked up a month-old
copy of Yachting and Boating World, and saw an advert
for two Volvo AQ145’s for sale, for £500 each.
He rang to see if one was still available, and was told
that because he was the only respondent to the ad, and
the man needed to get rid of them, he could have both
for the £500. They had come from a Fairline Mirage
on the Thames and had only 360 hours on them. The only
snag was that they were in Swansea.
So we hired a van and trekked over to Swansea
to collect them. Even that was a depressing experience,
as on the way back we were overtaken by a police-car on
a mission, which threw up a stone and cracked the windscreen.
So we ended up paying nearly £300 for a days van
hire.
So we now had a boat with a useless AQ130,
and a garage with two AQ145s. During all the palaver with
the carburettors and the alternator and what the various
cables, switches and other things required to do all the
things already done, Steve had become well acquainted
with John and Adrian Bowman at MarinePower in Salhouse.
So he went and told them our tale, with the upshot that
they agreed to do all the necessary works including arranging
for Spirit to be lifted out, the removal of the old engine,
reconditioning of the new and complete installation. So
Steve took both the new engines up to MarinePower, with
the idea that out of the two parts they should be able
to make a good whole.
There was quite a delay before we actually
felt that things started to happen – they had picked
an engine and were stripping it down to component parts
and replacing main bearings, piston rings, various cables,
pipes and hoses plus all the consumables like seals and
filters as it was being rebuilt. They shot blasted and
repainted all the casings, so it looked like new. They
also fitted a loop in the fresh-water cooling system,
in order that we can easily fit a calorifier in the future.
We went up periodically to see it on the bench being re-assembled
then test-run. Also they had bought and were adapting
a trailer specifically to fit boats of our size on. Once
that was completed we received the call we were waiting
for; they were going to lift Spirit out and take her to
their premises in order to fit the new engine.
Now this is where the fun started. As we
were making such a big investment in the boat, we decided
to not skimp on the details, so we asked them to deal
with the leg as well – we wanted everything serviced
so it would give us reliable boating for the foreseeable
future. Because of differences with the way that the temperature/pressure
sensors worked we needed a new dash, (for example on the
old engine there had just been an oil light, and on the
new we have a gauge)and as luck would have it they had
one in stock; several years ago someone had ordered it
in and never come to collect it.
Also the old engine had just hung on the
bell housing, with no supports at all. The new engine
needed to be mounted, so they ran wooden supports into
the engine bay, covered them with grp and painted them
up. They were made in the form of a grid, so as to comply
with the BSS requirement for a sealed area for any oil
to leak into, so that it doesn’t get into the bilge
area.
We made several trips up to Salhouse to
see how work was progressing and keep an eye on Spirit
– she looked quite forlorn sitting there in April/May
as if she knew she should be out there skipping around
on Breydon!
Then we got another call, this time to say
that they’d found a problem. The previous owner
had obviously sustained some heavy damage to the leg;
probably reversed it into some banking at a rate of knots.
Anyway, he’d managed to put a dirty great crack
in the collar (the Out-drive Mounting Yoke) that sits
between the transom shield and the leg. And he’d
repaired it by putting a metal plate on either side of
the crack, filling it and painting it so that you would
never have known it was there – unless of course
you shot blasted it…
Again, Marine Power came up trumps for us
and managed to source a replacement one for us, but again
it led to a delay. All told it was mid-May before a Saturday
morning saw us sitting at Brundall waiting for a glimpse
of our baby to come swinging into sight behind a little
van. With great skill she was reversed down a VERY narrow
path to the lifting area, and little by little we saw
her being re-launched. One turn of the key and she was
away, and we pronounced ourselves satisfied.
We did call upon Marine Power again – to fit a new
gear control for us, as the original one was very notchy,
though this was a preference thing rather than a technical
need. It just seemed a shame to have something spoiling
our lovely new engine. And it does look lovely –
it is pristine in its bay, and really does look like new.
We have taken several opportunities to test
it out and are exceedingly happy with it. Spirit now ‘planes
quite happily and has quite a turn of speed when she wants
to. Also she is quiet and economical. Because we have
ploughed so much into Spirit we are in a position where
we probably won’t recover our expenditure if we
sold her, so we need to recoup our investment in use and
enjoyment of her – and we certainly are doing so.
We have managed to clock up 130 cruising hours in the
three months since she was re-launched, so we aren’t
doing badly!
Steve & Barbara
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