Finally launched

Tui was launched in Hull Marina yesterday.  The engine started straight away after I bled the fuel system. Once launched I checked the seacocks and the stern gland and there were no leaks. The cooling water was happily coming out of the exhaust and I set off.  Before I got far the engine overheated, and the cooling water was not coming out any more. Barry, who is in charge of the boatyard operations towed me to the harbour wall in his launch. I checked the impeller and it was fine. I couldn't see anything wrong. Barry in the launch and Richard in a Rib towed me round to the berth. Eventually I worked it out. One of the hose clips on the suction side of the sea water circuit was loose. This means the pump was sucking in air and couldn't self prime. That tightened up it worked fine. One more fault I now know how to diagnose!

I just signed up to a new nice simple boat tracking site I saw on SV Delos's web site Farkwar.com. Here is  Tui






Max prop and stuffing box

The engine back in and we are nearly ready to go back in the water. The stern gland needs repacking. The propeller needs greasing and the anodes fitting

Picking the gland packing out of the stuffing box using an engineer's scribe

Here is the packing material picked out. It was in fairly good condition

Prop shaft anode. This model has a copper protrusion to improve electrical contact

These are the grease screws on the Max Prop Classic. You take them out with an Allen wrench to fit the Zerk grease nipple. This grub screw was damaged so I took it out with a screw extractor

Prop Protector rope cutter and anode fitted

Practicing with a litter grabber

Thanks to many boating friends who suggested ways of retrieving  lost phones and other precious things from bilges and other places I might float - test them (after the phone bilge float test incident last weekend) . A litter grabber from a pound shop looks like a winning option! Indeed fellow Oyster owners report that they are standard equipment. Here I am practising with it at home.  A child's fishing net sounds like a good thing to carry too.

My daughter suggested I fit an auto inflating key buoy  to it too.