Keeping the wheel turning

With the recent lovely weather, it's been perfect for doing boat work, which I really enjoy at any time but especially on sunny days. In my last post, I mentioned the hatch I've made for the Hennie H's grease pot. I've finished it now and am pretty pleased with how it looks now it's in situ although it highlights the other jobs that need doing!

Grease pot hatch done and dusted.

In the last couple of days, however, I've been busy trying to solve Vereeniging's steering issues which have been becoming steadily worse over time.

It's not that she doesn't steer well; she does, and the steering is very positive with little delayed action. The problem is that it's incredibly stiff and heavy to turn the wheel. I've studied the whole mechanism right through to the rudder and have been unable to identify what's causing the stiffness. Of course, it's a very old system and I have no idea what it might be called in technical terms, but it's completely mechanical. The photos below show how the steering wheel connects to the shaft that goes through to the stern where, at its end, a huge sort of horizontal cog wheel turns the rudder. Top marks for anyone who can tell me what type of steering it is.

Steering wheel with shaft that extends through the aft cabin
(the roef in Dutch) to the stern.

The two heavy duty cog wheels that do the main work of 
turning the rudder

At first, I thought the stiffness might have been because the cog wheels had become too packed with old grease, so I spent some time digging it out and cleaning the wheels. There's still more to do, so I'll keep returning to them, but it soon became clear that this isn't what's causing the resistance.

So then I went to the point where the shaft passes into the aft cabin (the roef). I'd noticed the old wooden support was cracked and the packing that was supposed to seal it from intruding moisture was completely dried out. This morning, I removed the support and discovered the steering shaft had a lot of surface rust on it. I've removed all the old hemp string packing, taken off the support and sprayed the shaft with penetrating oil prior to removing the rust. It looks a mess in the photo below, because that's what it is. Even so, I am doubtful that this is the real cause of the heavy steering. 

What a mess! 

Nevertheless, tomorrow I'll be making a new support as this one is finished. The bolts keeping it in place were totally rusted through and simply broke off. Plus, I have to scrape and remove the rust from the roef where the support was fixed to it, so that will keep me busy!

The next phase is to go to the stern and see if there's a problem there. It's a process of elimination, but whatever happens, the cleaning and de-rusting can only help to extend its life. So much of the steering system is open to the elements all year round it's inevitable it will suffer, and where Vereeniging is now she has zero shelter so the deterioration has accelerated. 

All I really need is for the good weather to hold as now it's perfect for doing this kind of project. I'm looking forward to going to France, but I'm a bit torn as I'd love to keep working on the boats while it's still so fine. Anyway, I shall just do as much as I can in the next couple of days

Enjoy your week allemaal and wish me success in keeping my old wheel turning.

April goes she will

Apologies for the feeble play on Paul Simon's well-loved lyrics, but it seems only yesterday I was singing the song at the beginning of the month, and now it's almost gone. So what have I been doing since my last post? Well, not as much as I would have liked, but that's because two weeks were taken up with the course I mentioned in my previous blog. It was very intensive and time-consuming so I didn't have all that much time for anything else while I was busy with it.

Added to that, my daughter went on holiday almost two weeks ago so I've been looking after her cat, which has involved three visits a day....I know, I needn't go so often but I've been feeling sorry for the little chap. He's not used to being alone so I've been delivering extra ear and tail scratches in the hopes he'll be a bit less lonely, and he's been very appreciative in a furry, purry sort of way.

That said, we've had some lovely walks in glorious, sunny weather, as well as a visit to the beach where we met up with my other daughter, Mo, her man, and her spaniel, Mack.

One nature reserve walk near us

And another

The lilac has now taken over the baton from
the forsythia

And this delightful group sits outside one of
the village houses. 

Then there was another walk along a farm track nearby

Plus the visit to the beach at Breskens

The beach is lovely and very popular in the summer

And then, there's this: Zoe doing what she does best
And looking adorable.

We've also managed some time on the boats and distributed the duties. I did some work on Vereeniging's panels, while Koos sorted out a problem with the cooling on the Henie H. Oh and I nearly forgot. Last week, I attended my first meeting as the Secretary for our Historic Harbour Committee, which was quite a challenge for me. I had to write the minutes in Dutch after the meeting, so I was glad I recorded it. As yet, I have to learn whether my duties as scribe are good enough, but fingers crossed!

One other job I've nearly finished is to make a new cover for our rear inspection hatch on the Hennie H. It's also where we access the grease pot. I made this one from a plank I had left over from renovating the sunroom last year. The grooves aren't ideal, but I shall paint it thoroughly. It always feels good to avoid buying material and to be able to use odd pieces we have in store. I must say I'm very pleased with the result and it fits perfectly, so hopefully we won't get any more rainwater in the bottom of the boat once the old, leaky one's been replaced. When I've finished painting this new one, I'll take a photo of it in situ. This white is just primer; it will be grey in the end.

Of course, there've been the other usual chores like cutting the grass, trimming the hedges and sweeping up the shower of leaf 'pods' the lime tree has been shedding since it sprang into life. Our local Lidl was doing a special price on hedge trimmers with batteries last Saturday, so we were there as they opened to make sure we could nab one. I've never done that before (arrived so early, that is), but I was glad we made the effort as by the afternoon, they'd all gone. I must say it's a brilliant machine and I'm really happy with it. What a difference it makes to have sharp cutters too. 

So that's the last two weeks summed up. Not terribly exciting, I know, but next week we're off to France again for a visit to the Crumbly Cottage, mark 2, so hopefully there'll be more to report from there where I can put my French correspondent's hat on.

Enjoy the rest of the week, allemaal. I hope life's being kind to you wherever you are. 

The spring in our midst

Here we are, already nine days into April and I've been remiss once more in blogging, but I'm sure you will all understand when I say the weather has been so beautiful we've been outside as much as humanly possible. As I mentioned in my previous post, we went down to the Haute-Marne again at the end of March, mainly to keep an appointment with the electricity company. We were blessed with gorgeous weather for all but one of the twelve days we were there. Some of you who 'see' me on Facebook will already be familiar with a few of the photos below and you'll notice that there's only one with overcast skies. That was the day my daughter and I climbed to the top of the Marne Valley and looked down into the village of Vignory below. Believe me when I say the view was breathtaking and my phone photo does it no justice at all. 

The other photos were taken in both our village and also in Joinville, where we unfortunately spent most of the time after my last post at the garage. This interruption to our planned jobs was due to a persistent problem with one of the sensors in the car that was causing it to misfire and misbehave horribly. Luckily, we found the wonderful Garage Guyot in Joinville who went above and beyond anything we could have expected to help us. They were quite magnificent and after two days, they'd replaced the troublesome sensor, treated the car to a set of new spark plugs and replaced two of the 'bobines' over said spark plugs. The car is now running well, thankfully. In between times, though, we did manage to stroll through Joinville's pretty historic quarters up on the hill and I snapped some of its delightful houses and side streets. 

I've written about its background before, but for those who may not have seen the first post I wrote about Joinville, here's a link that tells you all about it. It's in Dutch, but Google does an excellent English translation of the text.

Joinville's market square

One of Joinville's gorgeous side streets

My favourite house in the town. Not ours!

Another pretty side street

View over Vignory

Leaving our village

A view from the garden
(much in need of attention)

Bee seeking nectar in a dandelion

Looking down into the village

Fruit trees in a paddock nearby

And then it was time to come home after all the drama with the car and enjoy the peaceful tranquillity of our Zeeland view. I know I've also posted photos of it before, but the forsythia is just going on and on and is more beautiful than I've ever seen it.

A tub of primulas. I'm amazed they survived
during our absence. It's been so dry!

My ivy hedge is exploding!
Time to get the trimmer out

I'm now very busy with another course. It's a short one, but there are 200 students and there's a lot of marking and feedback to give. Fortunately, the three main assignments they have to complete are also short, so I'm trying to do about 60 a day to keep up. The sun is still shining, though, so tomorrow I'm going to make time to clean Vereeniging again, as the dust has been flying while we've been away and she's looking somewhat shabby as a result.

Enjoy the rest of the week allemaal and I'll be back again soon!