Thursday 27 March to Monday 7 April 2014

 

Joel returned on Thursday and cleaned the engine room and started preparations for the new engine.  This involved removing the old throttle and gear change cables and all wiring then detaching the plumbing between our hot water tank and the heat exchanger in the engine.

 

 

 

A blurred picture of Joel sitting in the engine room about to change the propeller shaft seal:-

 

 

 

 

Here you can see the propeller passing through the hull via the black seal.  These seals are critical items, they work hard and can get quite hot despite being seawater cooled.  They have to be replaced about every 500 engine hrs as a precaution.  This is normally done with the boat out of the water but Joel just took off the old seal (which resulted in a lot of seawater shooting into the boat), then quickly slid the new seal on and bolted it up.  Then he pumped out the water.  Do not try this at home!  New seal in place – on the right is the hot water tank:-

 

 

 

 

 

The engine room cleaned showing some of the other pipe runs for the hot and cold water to the galley, heads and aft deck shower (nothing to do with the engine, they just pass through the engine room):-

 

 

 

 

In the meantime the marina needed us to move elsewhere but as we had no engine we had to be towed by one of their dinghies.  I manned the wheel and pretended to be in control.

 

On Friday more men turned up to lower the new engine on to the boat.  A reverse of the earlier process of course.  Lowering in to the cockpit:-

 

 

 

 

 

More bits were taken off to lower through the companionway:-

 

 

 

 

 

Then dragged around the galley and lifted into place in the engine room.  Here it is bolted in and the propeller shaft connected but no pipework or electrics yet.  That would have to wait until next week as, being France, no work is done at the weekend:-

 

 

 

 

The place was a bit of a bomb site whilst work was done.  So we had been eating out a lot!

 

 

We got them to clear up the mess so we could have the boat back for the weekend and cook and eat on board.

 

On Monday and Tuesday the installation work continued and the new batteries were fitted.  They are not all very accessible underneath the snakes nest:-

 

 

 

One disadvantage with the new engine is that it rotates in the opposite direction to the old one.  This means we have to lift the boat to change the settings on the propeller so that it will work!  So on Wednesday we had the boat lifted for a couple of hours to do this and make some other adjustments.  Then back in the water to do a commissioning run.  There were a number of things arising which was to be expected and these were resolved by the following Monday.