The toilet …….. now I know you have all been crossing your legs whist awaiting an update on our orchestral toilet situation…….
We brought back a 5 litre container of the special Leescale expensive jollop and set to work administering it to our squealing loo. We followed the instructions re diluting it to 20% and waited 3 days. It worked. But then quite quickly the orchestra seemed to return although not as impressively as before. When we got back to Deinze and met up with David again, his good friend Gary (Panache), (alias the ‘toilet man’, retired Mr Leesan / Leescale) was there. So we talked to him and he gave us in depth info regarding the toilet mechanism and probable issues / causes of the squealing. Resulted in administering undiluted Leescale for 24hrs.
Stop press: recent flushing suggests great improvement – fingers (not legs) crossed that this continues. Note for future : annual administration of said jollop to both loos!
Stop stop press: squealing has returned once more!!!! Nothing for it but to ‘get into’ the mechanism as per Gary’s (alias the ‘toilet man’, retired Mr Leesan / Leescale) secondary advice. At least we (ie Adrian) now knows what the insides look like (Gary brought one he’d prepared – and cleaned – earlier).
The fender…….. during the rally we talked to many people about our poorly rear fender. Much sympathy and suggestions about what needed o be done but differing views as to where we might find the right person for the job. Eventually Christine (Elodie) from Australia told us about a really nice guy they had recently met. Joeri is a Ghent port survey vessel Captain, passenger boat Captain and has completely fitted out his own boat, which she said is stunning. So we rang him and he came over to view the fender and discuss on Monday evening – said he could do the work on Weds as he it was his day off. So on Tuesday we set off to where he is moored on the outskirts of Ghent and moored in front of his boat ready for his attention on Weds morning.
An interesting mooring …… during the evening I had the distinct impression we were ‘on the piss’, listing to port quite strongly. We pushed her off a bit and adjusted ropes but by the time we left at 1pm next day it was blatantly obvious again. Joeri reckons there are some old wooden posts underwater and we were caught on them as the water level went down. Strange feeling.
Anyway next morning he was there early and worked really hard to remove the bolt heads, weld in new ones and get the fender and its internal metal support back in place securely. Just took some time, perseverance, a few appropriately placed kicks and it was done! Brilliant and at a very reasonable cost to boot. Great stuff! Just have to look after that stern end and ensure we hand the helm over properly in future. Several people commented on the fact that there is a gap between the two fixed fenders and the end of the rear fender is not angled so vulnerable to being caught up in certain circumstances. We have placed a couple of fenders horizontally in the gap to try and avoid a recurrence.
Piedaleau 