What a Fabulous weekend,
Great weather, drama on the high seas & loads of professional boat racers out on the solent.
I made off from the Itchen river on Saturday at 11.30 am to head over to Lymington to photograph some friends of mine in a catamaran race. Got out into Southampton water, opened her up, launched off some great waves up to speed (25mph Jonny) and then the audio warning system kicks in. I shut down the throttle and glance at the guages,
Off the clock with the temperature guage. I switch off the ignition and the motor diesel's on for a few seconds, ££££££ signs flash before my eyes, then the thought occurs to me that this would be a good excuse to upgrade to a 490HO.
After 5 minutes i try to restart the engine which struggles to turn over on a good battery, oh oh, perhaps she is going to seize! After another 15 minutes she starts up and whilst showing a very high engine temp with the warning buzzer driving me crazy it appears to be steady and not rising. I rip off the wires to the buzzer and head back to the marina arriving safely (what more could i ask of her).
Sunday morning i arrive at the boat with some tools and remove the thermostat which is corroded in the closed position. After a clean up and soak in WD40 the thermostat goes back in with some gaskets fashioned from some old cardboard! She fires up and maintains a very healthy 145 degrees during the next four hours on the Solent where i managed to get some great shots of some serious powerboat racers.
What a great weekend.
Shame the engine upgrade will have to wait a while now.