Spent today on stripping down the outboard carburetor as I had neglected to winterize it at the end of last season. It started first time out of the cupboard, but wouldn’t idle, The petrol was amazingly, in good condition in that it hadn’t evaporated off.

On removing the carburetor resevoir bowl it soon became apparent what was wrong. I’ve never seen this type of problem before. There was a clear jelly like substance in the bowl. about the consistency of jam. and of course it was in the jets and everywhere. Every part had to be taken apart cleared and put back. It could really have done with a spell in an ultrasonic cleaning tank but I don’t have one of those.

Anyway, my efforts had the desired effect, and it’s now running smoothly.

Some last fitting jobs down at the boatyard and then emptying all none essentials from the cabin ready for launch in the morning.

The two items from U.S.A. arrived yesterday by separate postal systems Hermes and Parcel Force. so today I set about fitting. The toilet pump was a bit fiddly because of the location of the nuts & bolts but that aside it all went OK.

The gas detector was just two screws and a plug fitting so pretty easy and quick .

I put back launch until Thursday to give a little more time for finishing touches.

Tomorrow’s jobs include getting a refill Propane bottle, try to get generator running. get dinghy and engine to boatyard. fitting of the shower door latches.

After sleeping on the leaking water /air problem, (See previous post) I reasoned that.as the valve was in too good a condition to be leaking, so it must be coming from the connections. The clear plastic water pipes tend to degrade over time and become hard and brittle. Any attempt to tighten the jubilee clips tends not to work.

Now a bit of heat will re soften the tube and a new connection can be made by chopping off the old deformed end and re- attaching the now virgin pipe end.

Small trick of the trade here. Put a spot of Lubricant on the jubilee clip thread, it will help it tighten up smoothly and easily.

I also removed the hose barb adaptors and refitted with ptfe plumbers tape.

And the result is an airtight and watertight system. 😃👍

Just when the end is in sight something else crops up. Apart from some gunge clogging up the tap and shower nozzles there was a lot of air in the pipes, that wasn’t clearing as it usually does. Investigations led back to the Tank transfer valve. The lines from both tanks contained no bubbles of air but from the valve on great gulps of air coming into the system.

I’ve had the valve apart and it doesn’t look bad so now looking at pipe connections. The old pipe is getting somewhat stiff and brittle so may have to replace that. Ho Hum, nothings straight forward is it.

On the plus side The new love seat has arrived and is fitted,

Only four more days before we’re back in the water. The snag list is getting shorter and slowly the stuff that was ordered is arriving. I may well be doing some of the final jobs on the water. Larger Jobs left to do are renew the toilet pump (arriving soon from U.S.) Sterilize the water systems. Refit new gas sensor, (again arriving from U.S.) Service Outboard. and of course – Polishing

The rest is putting away stores and generally tidying up.

The weather for the week ahead is full of wet bits so despite a strong wind blowing we went for the antifouling today. On the plus side there are very little fumes, on the downside drips fly all over the place so you have to be well covered and have the safety gear on.

With both of us on the job, it only took an hour.

At last Watanga is starting to look half decent again. Lou has spent 2 days cleaning the interior and we’ve reattached the sails. Lot of fibreglass to polish yet but we’ll have a good jet wash today get rid of all the dirt and seagull poo.

Never ending job having a boat.

The list of jobs is at last getting shorter, It seemed for a while that every time I completed a job I found a couple more things to do. Now we have a deadline She goes in the water on May 12th.

After years of having to get under the aft bunks to view the levels in the tanks, I thought I’d treat myself to some gauges.. To be fair they are only cheap Chinese stuff and only read full three quarter, half, quarter and empty, but there again do you need more.

As all boaters try to keep their batteries as charged as possible all of the time and as the gauges are just another drain on the battery, I have put a switch in the circuit. This means if we need to know what the water capacity is at any time its just a flick of the switch. All the rest of the time there’s no drain on the battery.

There was a small debate as to where to site the gauges. It was decided to place them where I could see them when filling the tanks, so they ended up in the cockpit.

This worked out nicely as the other conundrum was where to get the power from. In this case I was able to hook on to the permanent power to the ignition. This means if the battery is on, I have power to the gauge switch. During installation of the wiring I managed a momentary short, which because we have taken the feed from the engine circuit popped the circuit breaker on the engine. Took a wee while to find that!

Now have new job on list to modify circuit so that only gauges fuse if there is a problem or that feed from elsewhere

Hmm. must also clean that shelf!