Lou and I had a nice trip in fine weather, moving Befur to her swinging mooring for the season, and travelling south on the lake – our longest trip to date ~4.67Nmiles, mostly cruising at about 3-4kts, with a sprint of about 5.5kts and an apparent fastest speed of 6.2kts.
No obvious problems, and the seagull started on the first pull going home!!!!!
Well, a good day! Befur went back on the water yesterday, and it would appear that the work over the winter worked well.
Another snowy day in Heggerscales
As April begins the weather returns to snow and cold, so it seems a good time to provide a progress report.
We are working towards getting Befur into the water for 2019 – I was hoping for April 1st, but (as always) I am behind plan. However, it really is too cold to be on the water, so we will remained chilled about our position.
So, here is a list of the main activity of the last few weeks:
This post continues/concludes the story of manufacturing a new crank for Befur from the last post.
Here we can see the re-assembled engine with new crank. We are still to install all the ancillaries (reversing gear, lubrication, condenser and feed/air pump & alternator drive.)
It took 6-man days from receiving the crank back from the grinders to reach this stage.
Once we have tested it on air, we will reinstall it on the boat and undertake this year’s boiler test and check all is as it should be.
Those of you who have been following Befur’s progress will know that our first year in the water was marred by the failure of the crankshaft in the Leak Compound engine I built.
This post deals with the manufacture of a replacement, and the results of my research/experience into the approaches to building cranks for “small” (<20HP) marine steam plants.
Well, I have been very quiet over the last few months, but some work has progressed. As I noted in October, we had a quite extensive list of snagging to address, not least the crankshaft re-manufacture…. well, while quiet on line, I have made some progress in the background, so I figured an update is in order: Continue reading
Well we got Befur’s engine back into the workshop, and stripped it down to see if we could locate the source of the knocking we have been suffering all season.
Befur’s Engine ready to be stripped.
On lifting the crank out it looked perfect, and did not have any obvious loose or moving joints My heart sank, as this was really my only theory on what was wrong. Continue reading
