Saturday 22 May 2010

Black Smoke

Diesel Dude
It was a baking hot day, and I was keen to retrace what we'd done yesterday. But this time, on our own. The journey started badly, because as soon as our back end swung out into the river, we were hit by a crosswind, which pushed the front end back into the bank. Tiller unresponsive! No option, except to wait it out, keep going backwards in a straight line, and hope for the best. We very nearly ran over the shallow water marker buoy. Had visions of it fouling the propellor, but thankfully that didn't happen. When the front end was clear of the jetty, I popped the throttle into "full speed ahead" mode, and went for it. Straightened ourselves out, and headed off upstream. Phewwwwwwww.

Sheena said "What's that smoke?", and drew my attention towards the black plumes that were pouring out of the exhaust. Was a bit worried something was going to break, and us end up drifting off downstream without an anchor, so I eased off on the throttle. Which seemed to stop the smoking. Then we did the journey slooooowly, and it went without further incident. Enjoyed ourselves, even though it was 100% concentration all the way. Managed to turn the boat around in it's own length again.

Got back to our mooring safely. turned the boat around in front of a pub full of people watching, no problem. but came in a bit swiftly and nudged the marina tug. was glad to be back alongside, with the engine off.

Consensus opinion from online boaters, is that we're "over propped'. that is, our propellor is too large. not a big problem, as long we don't go everywhere at full speed.

But it was a bit worrying at the time.

1 comment:

  1. Great stuff Ken and Sheena!

    so when you heading for Oxford! :)

    graham

    ReplyDelete

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