Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Tuesday, 16 August 2011

Good news..........

........the outboard lives to see another day......water in the carburettor. So what have I learned from this?
1. don't keep fuel in jerrycans longer than a couple of weeks!
2. after each trip, run the engine in a bin of clean water and then after 5 mins, turn off the fuel tap and run the engine dry so that gunk doesn't build in the carb

I've been getting lazy, I didn't run it dry after the last trip - serves me right!  Well done the team at Marine Bazaar in Plymouth. A good spot and they've cleaned out the carb, sorted the jets etc etc!

How did the water end up in the float chamber in the carb......no idea!


It's rained so much I haven't been able to grout the patio today.....shame!  Did manage to re-fix the tiller extension though - wood glue, a securing bolt and refixing the screws. Hopefully it will be stronger now.

Weather is deteriorating....so getting a little anxious as to whether the sail to Fowey Friday and Saturday will be able to go ahead. Keeping all fingers and toes crossed for a small, positive change in weather!

Steve

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi Steve

A very nice write up of your trip to Fowey. Good pictures too and much enjoyed . There is plenty of stuff about big yachts and their voyages on line but a shortage of stuff about small boat trips on the internet.

BTW, I'm sure that I saw a boat just like yours when sailing into Dartmouth a few weeks ago. A bloke and two children . The boat was heading out to sea with the tide

Jim Shaftesbury Dorset.
Any more trips this year?

steve said...

thanks Jim.
I aware that there is anothe rnavigator in the area somewhere around Torquay - so that could well be who you saw. i've never managed to find out who though.

ergarding trips - well school is looming next week and we will then be into the bad weather and i don't venture on coastal voyages when it gets bad.

i might be able tyo fit in a little cruise down the dart from totnes before i start school at end of next week if the tides and weather go right.

in the meantime the big event will be the americas cup world series and that is in plymouth and will tie up the next three weekends watching them!!

thanks for the positive comments; what kind of boat do you have sailing into dartmouth?

steve