I finished putting the engine back together last week and with the kind assistance of one of the Squadron members we managed to get it running using his vehicle's battery. It took a while to bleed the fuel through to the injectors but once that was done the BRM roared into life once more. I was of course happy with getting it running again but was to be very disappointed the following day when I discovered some coolant leaking from the exhaust mixing elbow. On closer inspection it turned out that the heat exchanger had developed a hole due to corrosion caused by sea water getting into it from the exhaust. The slow leak from the heat exchanger would in turn have caused further problems with corrosion in the cylinders. Unfortunately the heat exchanger cannot be repaired and I have had to order a new one. Not cheap!

On a more pleasant note, I was able to get some sailing in on board a small open keel boat named Freedom. I am mentoring the woman crew who are all very enthusiastic and it is a pleasure to be able to help them improve their sailing skills. To that end we had a training session on Wednesday afternoon, including some spinnaker drills. Our extra bit of effort paid dividends come race day yesterday, the first race of six in the combined RSAYS/CYCSA winter series. We sailed well in the light and flukey conditions and were rewarded with what I thought was a well deserved second place. We plan on having more training sessions and hope to further improve our performance over the course of the series.

Meanwhile, I hope to have the new heat exchanger installed later this week and the engine reinstalled in Sylph some time next week.

All is well.