Well, as we approach the end of the 2018 season, we have decided to fetch Befur back onto dry land a little earlier than planned. This is principally because I can’t tolerate the racket the machinery is making underway, and it seems cruel to run it further pending the noise turning into a real “issue”.

…and it floats level!

We did have a nice steam this week about 2 1/2 hrs round the northern reach of the lake in a “fresh” breeze.  We were towing the inflatable (still nervous about our reliability) and this very nearly became airborne as we opened Befur up into the headwind – she goes quite well.

The fixes to the airpump, sterntube cooling water and ejector all functioned quite well, so certainly some progress has been made. However, the rumbling and clanking from the engine is getting worse and my current guess is that my original theory that we have a fractured joint in the crankshaft is actually correct and the main bearings are getting increasingly beaten over-size.

So we are going to get her out, and lift the engine out in the next week or so, so that we can investigate at home in the workshop. Before that we need to move the axles on the trailer to get more weight on the tow hitch as the handling was pretty evil – so we fetched that home to do the work too.  Just to add a little addition “excitement” the roadworks on the A66 managed to jolt the trailerboard off the empty trailer and it  did not respond well to being dragged for a mile or so down the road by its cables – more money 😦

Either way, she hasn’t sunk and we have actually had some nice (if noisy) trips. We are going to hold off installing the mast and sailing rig until we have the steam plant working well – so another year before she really earns the title “yacht”.

(Sidenote: We used some of the time not actually boat building to put my beloved Russian bike back on the road – a “gorgeous” piece of 70’s Soviet engineering.)