A very good day, but I'm not talking about the weather.

We had a bit of an early start as we needed to be at Calcutt Wharf for the Hurricane heater to be looked at. Unfortunately it was windy and wet. Funnily enough there wasn't much moving! We made the turn at Napton and had the wind blowing in one ear and out of the other. We went down the first lock and then I went to see where they wanted us moored. It was to be alongside the other boats moored stern to the jetty. We just got tied up nicely when Dave (The Hurricane Expert) came along. As it was blowing and raining we both eyed the unoccupied painting tent berth and decided that we should make for that. Whilst he went to clear it all Helen and I defied the wind and the bows of the moored boats and squeezed in to a nice sheltered tent over the engine hole.

Dave quickly got to work with the diagnosis and eventually reckoned that the inlet and outlet water piping had curves in them and felt a little 'soft' as if not full of water. In any case they there should be a bleed valve in the line here and it was missing. Therefore the start would be to cut this hose out, introduce an elbow with the bleed valve in on both in and out let and see if that cures the air locking of the circulation. It was quickly accomplished and with testing we couldn't make it go into alarm and all the radiators warmed up evenly. I bled all the radiators again and topped up the overflow tank and all seemed to be working still. After that it was just a matter of bowing everything up and paying the bill. I am fairly sure that we have now sorted this and I will be able to properly bleed the pipework in the future.

The Hurricane heater. The 1 litre can gives some sort of scale. The yellow hose is the fuel line from the filter far left. The white lagged large pipe is the exhaust and the grey curly pipe is the air inlet. The two hoses to the right are the circulating water lines to and from the calorifier and heating. The brass nozzle 'thing' is the fuel bleed valve.

Detail of the inlet/outlet water lines. Originally the black hose curved round to attach to the top of the unit and this gave a bend in the pipe work where air could be trapped. By cropping that out and introducing the blue elbow hose that air pocket is removed. At the junction of the black and blue hoses are the new bleed valves.

I cleaned up and did a couple of other jobs whilst we were under the tent, and had lunch before heading out and starting the trek to the north. The weather was still wet and windy so after getting through the top lock Helen went inside and did as load of baking whilst I plodded on towards Braunston again. Despite the elements I was in good humour as I am convinced the problem is sorted and we seem to be starting a new journey now, heading back to Yorkshire. 

After a couple of hours we arrived at Braunston Junction again and went round the corner on the Oxford Canal. We couldn't quite get in to our spot of a couple of days ago but close enough. Of course as soon as we had run the lines ashore the rain stopped and it cheered up a little. I soon had the stove lit and all the other little jobs done before sitting with a cup of tea. We decided to celebrate with tea out at the Mill House pub. It is a bit of a chain pub but the food was okay and at two for one didn't make our eyes water either. I had a pint or two of Jennings Bulls Eye too, before wandering back to the boat. We have three and a half weeks to get to our terminus for this year. I hope there aren't too many days like today in that time.