Splash!

 A hectic day today. Picked up Jane from the Big Shed at 06:00, drove down to the boat arriving 08:15 and got our heads down for a few Zzzzs.

Wiggy rocked up about 12ish to put us back in the water for the first time since last year.

It's always nerve wracking when the boat goes back in, the more so when you've drilled new holes in the bottom of the bolt. The moment the boat is lowered into the water, it's a mad dash round all the skin fittings etc. with a torch checking for leaks. And there was indeed a leak!

It was, however, a minor affair. The jubilee clips on the new raw water intake just needed tightening up further. No big deal and soon sorted. Then it was a tow round onto the river pontoon and make fast alongside.

Simon arrived and after carrying out further checks around the engine, it was time to fire her up. We had, of course, run her briefly whilst ashore (a bit naughty but needs must), now it was time to see if she'd start and run properly.

And happy days, she started and ran properly! The new cooling pump is rather effective, much more so than itd predecessor and the cunning bracket designed by Simon to engineer my cunning suggestion of turning the pump through 180 degrees (so that the impeller can be changed more easily) works a treat.

Then having run her up to operating temperature and let her cool back down a bit (per the manual) it was time to see if the head bolts would all torque down. We were expecting two or three of them to strip the threads as they hadn't felt great when initially torqued down a few weeks ago. And sure enough, one did.

It might be possible to sort it without taking the head off but neither Simon nor I feels 100% happy with doing that and for the sake of a new head gasket and a few extra hours work, tomorrow we'll pull the head off again and helicoil the stripped threads. In fact, we've had a thunk about it and collectively agreed that for the sake of an extra hour or two of drilling and tapping, we'll helicoil all the remaining threads and have done with it. It would be beyond frustrating to just do the one that's stripped and then have another one go when we're back to final torque down (hopefully on Sunday!). That would be a proper show stopper as Simon has to be elsewhere for a few days next week, we're not his only customers (hi Neal and Jos ☺)

So there we are for today. Floating, not sinking, running but not quite running in. I'm not downhearted, this was anticipated hence my having laid in the spare gaskets to do it if necessary.