Today had been cloudy but fine and at least the rain had stayed away which enabled me to collect The Paxton Princess after its repairs and learning lessons by writing up the ship’s log for the recent Horning to Paxton trip. After tea, we cycled to Paxton School hall to see Della's enrolment as a new Brownie with her friend Naomi. Later on, writing up a plan for the current Eaton Socon by-election and then meeting the other Liberal Democrats to brief them.
I was up on time and beavering away at my chores to be able to go and overview the repairs to the Paxton Princess tied up at White House Marine. Breakfast with the others and then along to Eaton Ford for 9.00am to await the arrival of Michael Carrington, the engineer. Time dragged on and he still had not arrived and so I settled down to write up my log for the passage from Horning to Paxton which was quite illuminating. The computer log showed that we had strayed badly from our planned course up the Yarmouth Road and were quite close to the Scroby Sand but had not realised because of the high water and adequate depth. As the voyage went on, we were in better control but there were lessons to be learnt. The main problem was the miscalculation of time which meant that the tide was going in the wrong set. The standard of Steve's fixes left much to be desired and so there was not very adequate information on which to base a log but I did my best.
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The time went by and it was mid-day before Michael arrived and started to lift the boat on the hand-winched gantry. They lifted it half out of the water in position with the stern higher than the bow so as to see the stern gear. There was no obvious problem, although the blades of the port screw were a bit marked from the impact. The Spurs cutters seemed to be all right but both conductive wires, fitted to ground to prevent corrosion, were adrift. We telephoned Barnes to get further information on the Spurs to see if there were any adjustments and the plan was for me to go home and receive them on my fax machine and bring the information back. Once home, I found it coming through but had to wait for Diana to arrive home and get lunch before I could return. We then felt that there was not much wrong with the cutters and so Michael re-installed the conductive wires and these helped to keep the floating cutters better in place so as to prevent that scraping sound that was bothering me before. Whilst under there, he also spotted that the starboard rudder was fouling the hull on full left rudder and so I asked him to cut a bit off of it for the time being which he did with a grinding wheel and tidied up with a file. We thought that this was caused by a rudder stock bending after going aground, probably on the hard bottom in Blakeney last year, but it was disappointing that Barnes had not spotted this when having the boat out last winter.
The boat was winched back in and, after going home to collect Daniel and us both being dropped back by Di, we brought the boat back to Paxton and tied up beside the new mooring frame where there is a better depth. I dropped the mud-weight, connected up the shore-power to top-up the ship's batteries and set the alarm and automatic security light to protect the boat from any vandals. After tea, I went with Debbie on our bikes to Paxton School Hall to see Della's enrolment as a new Brownie with her friend Naomi. It was a touching affair and, though increasingly an anachronism in this day and age, there were still 14 Brownies in this pack. Then home to write up a plan for the current Eaton Socon by-election and then off to meet the other Liberal Democrats to brief them and get their agreement to the actions and responsibilities proposed. I got home quite late and just got ready in time to go to bed with Diana. Today had been cloudy but fine and at least the rain had stayed away.