Emergency Ward Ten.......

"Nurse!

The screens!!!"

I have three new, but now VERY knackered, Elecsol 110a/h deep cycle batteries on life-support in Pippin's kitchen, hooked up toJames's battery charger.....

(The picture on the box turned out not to be Kitchener after all, by the way......

It's Michael Faraday.......)

Pippin's Pramac P6000s generator has been pouring-forth life-giving amps for some hours now......

Lights on machines glow.

Machines bleep............

It's touch and go.........

Where the flippin' Henry is Dr Kildare when you need him, eh?

So.

Anyway.

How the heck did THIS happen?

Well, as C.W. McCall once said, " That's a long story, Harold............"

(Google him and click on the audio recording of his track 'Classified': It's a hoot.............. And BTW, anyone whose gone car-shopping with me in the last year really should hear this if they haven't already!)

Good, isn't it?!

Okay, so, back at The Gentleman's boat.......

My last post (and I use the term advisedly.....) concerning this vessel, it's engine and it's sometimes challengingly behavioured owner, had me and James fitting some sprauncey new leisure batteries.

No problems there, you might well think.

Job done.

Off home.

Guinness and a welcome sleep.

The sleep of the just...........

Yeah.

Right.......

Okay, so we thought everthing was ticketty-boo, because I hadn't heard a thing from Our Gentleman since the battery fitting episode.

One assumes 'no negative feedback'  = ' happy camper'...

Oh no.

Oh dear me, no.

Oh no no no no no...........

Far from it, in fact.

His mobile isn't receiving voicemail from my mobile.......

Many a message and oft has, therefore, disappeared up the ether. ......

Or so it would seem.

Bugger........................................

Is it me?

Or would a relay of native runners carrying messages in cleft sticks not be more efficient?

Anyway.

Our Gentleman rocks up at The Hole Making Shop, full of the joys, and aware that something had happened over the weekend because he got back from choir on Sunday to find his fridge revving like a bastard and his milk frozen solid.....

(That'll be the effect of some amps, then........)

In short, unable, as he was, to access my numerous mobile answerphone messages, he was non-plussed as to why all his boat's electrical systems were suddenly working as their designer intended.

Which would have been fine.

Absolutely fine.

No problem.

Not a worry in the world.

IF..............

the bastard bloody lpg powered electrical generator that was installed by some clueless numpty and fellow rip-off merchant recommended by the low-down-no-good-thieving-douche-bag who ripped Our Gentleman off over the engine in the first place, hadn't broken down.

Broken down the day before James and I, all unwitting, installed three brand new 110 a/h deep cycle batteries.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

In short, because of mobile phone issues, the gentleman didn't know he had new batteries.

I didn't know (until I saw him, viva voce, at the Hole Making Shop), that the useless piece of crap that the thieving banderlog have passed-off on him as a viable generator has ceased to be, (and, quite literally, 'shuffled off this mortal coil'), thus leaving the beautiful new gorgeous and doomed to die batteries we installed to a fate worse than flat.....

At £106 a pop, to boot.

Good grief.

I am so frustrated with the sheer bad luck of it all that I could spit my teeth out.

One by one.

(I don't yet do dentures.....)

Anyway.

Today.

Day off from Hole Making Shop.....

Day spent in the bilges of Our Gentleman's boat.......

(Whoop-de-do........)

Task one:

Remove several gallons of rainwater which has accumulated in the bilge because:

a) It's been raining hard, a lot............

b) the deck drainage system on this particular crap-barge dumps all the water from the roof and aft-deck straight into the engine room.

c) working on electrics while standing in four inches of water is a mugs game.

d) Our Gentleman needs to observe how this is done and actually have a go at a bit in order to improve his coping skills.


Task two:

Try to hook up a borrowed petrol generator to the battery bank.

Nice try. No cigar...... I failed because the coupling is a 32-36 amp beast of nearly 2 & 1/4 inches diameter. Needless to say, no Spark Shops in Ely were able to supply such an item, depite a thorough and time consuming search of several.  Kev from wb Avalon got close with the offer of the lend of the right size coupling, but it was male, not female.....  (Ooh look, there goes another molar........)


Task three:

Remove the quivering and heavily traumatised Elecsol leisure batteries installed last weekend, and take them to a place of safety.


Task four:

Put the old, knackered-and-therefore-no-more-harm-can-come-to-them batteries back in place so Our Gentleman still has some vestige of light etc. (These tasks all involved a trolley and many walks to and from the car which was parked as close as I could get it, a mere ten minutes away.......)

Task five:

Place traumatised Elecsol batteries on life-support in Pippin's kitchen hooked up to James's battery charger.

Before emergency treatment commenced, the multimeter was showing between 10.2 and 10.6 amps.........

The prognosis is not good..............

They are going to be in the I.C.U. for some time.....

I'm going to charge all three up as best I can, then, having left them for a bit, do a voltage drop test.

Please keep your fingers crossed!

:-)

Oh, and Our Gentleman was  very polite today, apologising at least twice for taking up all of my day off.

He even offered me a cup of tea!

But there was no milk, despite one of Europes largest branches of Tesco's being just across the way.

So I went without.