Samaritan

There was rain in the night and then drizzle through the morning but it was cooler so I slept well despite Helen not being here. I soon had the engine boards off and was down the hole again. I gave a second coat of anti rust paint to the area I had covered yesterday and then generally cleared the hole up. By then it was drizzling  and best to come the wet paint.

I then decided I would set to and install the Smartguage in it's final position now I had proved it was working okay.

 The hardest part is to pluck up courage to start the job but now I have made the first cut there is no going back!

After marking out the hole I drilled a couple of holes to enable me to get the key hole saw in to make the right size cut. The space was just about right with a tight fit such that I haven't needed to screw the unit in place. The wiring is nice and easy but now I have disconnected the power I will have to wait a while to check that it re-calibrates itself.

The top left and middle panels are the fused switches for the boat and beneath them is the new Smartguage showing 80% on the main battery bank. At the top right is the switch for the Hurricane heating system with readout for operation and error. Below that is the inverter control panel. Next is the white box that is the internal/external temperature guage 24.8 inside/23.2 outside. The lowest on the right is the Solar Panel control panel.

I had been interrupted in the installation by a boat landing across my bow. I went outside to see if I could help to find an American couple looking very helpless. I think they hired the boat on Thursday and were so petrified that they had been down to Foxton and back again over three days. I thought it may have been the locks that frightened them but it seems that just tying up to the bank was what did it for them. They are not the most agile couple and didn't relish leaping about from boat to bank. I checked that they had had no bad experiences with other boaters shouting at them or anything, but they were just worried about not doing the right thing. I offered to take them out for the day and up Foxton Locks just so they could say they had done it as they had the boat anyway for several more days and they have asked if I could come with them on Tuesday. I'm sure the cost of a pint will be well worth a day out.

After tea there was another boat that was struggling to reverse into the pontoons and this time it was a Canadian party. After I had helped them moor up they told me t had made it down to Braunston and back and had a throughly good time. They came from the prairies so the rolling countryside round here must have been impressive and they were very pleased with the holiday and the way the locals had been towards them.

Does the Smartguage look slightly skew to the bottom of the fuse panel to you? Tough now anyway.