With friends like these ...

No photos today, I simply forgot to take any!

The mission was to remove the cutlass bearing housing from the stern tube. The problem was a lack of any tools big enough to get a grip on the housing. My ancient Stilson pipe wrench, in my toolbox since I was an apprentice, would get a grip on the tube but we needed a bigger pair to get round the housing

Foraging in the nearest DIY stores turned up nothing but on arrival back at Fambridge I was happy to find that Tony had blagged one off James ("Jan Steen")

The damn thing was still being stubborn but ten minutes with the blowlamp and off it came

With that success, Glen headed off for home

I then set about undoing the clamp bolts that secure the inboard end of the prop shaft to the shaft coupling. Although I could do what absolutely needs to be done without removing the shaft, with it out I can tidy things up properly. I'm also considering, now that we've all but dismantled the stern gear anyway, replacing the packing gland with a packless seal now rather than later

Two of the four nuts came undone easily. The other two are rusty and proving stubborn. Copious WD40 overnight might shift them, after that it's the blow torch again. If all else fails, I'll cut them off (they've got to be replaced anyway)

That was the end of the fun for the day 'cos Tony had decided to move Pleinair round into the marina. So we did a bit of boating in very windy conditions. Tony then headed off for the working week

Tomorrow I need to ring round and sort out who gets the job of pressing out the old cutlass bearing and pressing in a new one. I also need to order the bits I need from the prop manufactuer and I need to look at whether to do the seal or not

And of course there's the acres of bottom that still need scraping and sanding!

But after a frustrating start, the week has ended with encouraging progresss

And it's all thanks to those friends. Without their help I'd have got nowhere fast. Thanks everyone (you know who you all are)