NB Quo Vadis: Jan - March 2012

Brrrrrrr!!

A combination of wintry weather, my useless knees and us both being busy with the Village production of Fawlty Towers - Liz producing and me playing Manuel - meant no boating, and not even being able to visit.
Over the winter, I had Debdale Marina do an engine service, and change the alternator belts, plus we had them top off the diesel tank to prevent condensation. I had already de-watered the boat in November, so all was well with Quo.

This will tell us when the pump-out is full

Butterflies

On our travels, we discovered a wonderful garden centre near Cotesbach, and bought one or two nick-nacks to beautify the boat

New doormats

Towards the end of March, I finally got round to fitting the Brass socket faces I'd bought last year on Ebay. As usual this was not as simple as I'd thought, because the original sockets had been crudely fitted without back-boxes, so I modified plasterboard boxes to do the trick.

Finally in March, we got Quo out for a quick up and downer to Bridge 61 ... Oh joy!!

Whilst moored, a Lady Driver came out of the lock too fast and "T" boned us, luckily no harm done. I should have known better than to moor there, as I've seen it happen before whilst lunching in the Inn.

The Tiller Handle has degraded over the winter, along with the varnish dropping off the back rail, so I removed them and took them to work with me to sand and re-varnish.

At the same time, I varnished a newall post and fitted it to the back step to hopefully add a little extra character.

I will fit a short piece of bannister at a later date if I can
source an off-cut with a suitable profile

Also finally put a few coats on satin varnish on
our "totem pole" and it's fittings

I was quite pleased with my efforts at re-vitalising the back rail and the tiller handle.
I took the opportunity to round-off the inside edge to make it easier on my bottom.

After hours of sanding, and 5 coats of Epifanes it all looked nicely shiny.
Although now deleted from the Hempel paint range, I managed to source the original boat colours of True Blue and Post Box Red and changed the back brackets from dull blue to the new red !!!

Everything screwed back on, except that the coach-bolts I'd so lovingly painted red won't fit!!
The 1/4" holes to fit them have only been drilled through in the top of the metal rail, so my "serious" Bosch drill will be needed to finish the job off.

We got out again on a cold but bright Sunday and made our way down to the Saddington Reservoir feeder. After a bit of grunting and punting we got Quo reversed in and moored.

The weather was extremely nice for March, and while Liz de-rusted the water tank and painted it out with Vactan, I gave Quo a once over on her rusty patches with the self-same Vactan.
All rounded off with a picnic lunch.

Thursday 29th, I was owed some time off work, so we cruised out of the marina heading for Foxton, then moored up in the shelter of the trees. Here, Liz put on the first coat of blacking in the water tank, whilst I put up the first of the brass curtain rails on the side-windows.