First, the lift out...............
On Monday 28th January, we puttered up to Galmpton Creek to be lifted out. I manoeuvred Albatross into the slings, the crane's engine roared, I turned off our (almost new) engine and we were lifted into the air. We disembarked and Albatross was towed into the boat park.for jet washing.
25 minutes after we had left the water, someone pointed out that THERE WAS SMOKE COMING OUT OF ALBATROSS' EXHAUST.
Panic. I grabbed a ladder and rushed on board. The engine, my new shiny engine, was still running. I hadn't stopped it, when I thought I had. I did now.
Gingerly I peeked into the engine compartment, expecting to be hit by a wall of heat and destruction. The engine looked fine. Not even that clinking sound of overheated metal.
"Let it cool down and sort it out tomorrow" someone said.
We went home. How stupid could I be? What an idiot. A new engine ruined?
The wisdom was that I would need a new water pump, a new head gasket, possibly a new heat exchanger, a new exhaust elbow and exhaust pipe. The muffler/ water trap (which is made of high density polyethylene (aka "plastic"), and retails at about £200) would have melted. Basically, if you run a water-cooled marine engine without any water-cooling for 25 minutes you might as well throw it away and get a new one.
The engine, it turned out was fine. The cooling pump impeller had lost 3 of its 6 fins. Otherwise everything was fine. Bloody Hell.
Winter maintenance now started in earnest.
We had a long list of essential repairs.
Inevitably, 6 weeks later (when we were due to be lifted back in) hardly any of these essentials had been repaired. However, Jean had polished the topsides so beautifully that briefly I became "the owner of the boat with the beautifully polished topsides" rather than "that idiot who left his engine running for 25 minutes after he was lifted out of the water".
I did paint Albatross' bottom and realign the engine and prop shaft and even attempted to stop the stern gland from leaking but, all in all (as usual), we failed in our quest to make her like new again.
Monday 11th March.
We were lifted in and puttered back to our temporary winter mooring in Kingswear.
Wednesday 27th March.
A 200 metre voyage (without charts) back to our permanent mooring proceeded without crisis.
Friday 28th March.
Sails on and almost ready for summer.
Next time "Hibernia fatisque vocantia", and why I've been practising my Latin.
