Why does it always happen on a Friday?

• Engine
• Problems

It couldn’t be a Monday could it?  I go to start the engine for a day’s cruising (we want to be moving North) and I get a cough and splutter then nothing.  It turns over alright, giving out puffs of white smoke, as if I have just elected a new Pope, but refuses to fire.

Very frustrating, not least because it is only three months old.  I check all the things I can, and then decide to give the manufacturers a call.  They can’t think what the problem could be, and their expert is, unfortunately, out of the office until Monday so they can’t do anything until then.  I make a couple of other calls but nobody has any thoughts other than what I have already tried.

Fortunately, we have full water and fuel tanks and a separate generator, so we don’t have any problems over sitting tight for  the weekend – other than the fact we are on a 48 hour mooring.  Fortunately at this time of year, they don’t enforce that too much, so we spend the weekend exploring Wheaton Aston and doing some Geocaches.

Monday comes and I speak to the engine expert.  He decides to get another company (one I already spoke to on Friday) to send an engineer over.  I check with them and they are hoping that Mick can get to us later today or early tomorrow.  Needless to say, it ends up being first thing tomorrow after we spend the day waiting around.

Tuesday comes – up early to be ready for Mick.  An hour later, Mick phones to say he has an emergency with an elderly couple who have no heating on their boat, which he needs to go to first (quite rightly). So, later that afternoon, Mick arrives and diagnoses the problem.  Only, he doesn’t have the spare parts and has to go to his base for them.  It is now too late to collect them today, so it will be tomorrow first thing.

Except, it isn’t.  Traffic problems on the M6  hold him up and he doesn’t get to us until about 11am.  The replacement parts are fitted and hallelujah, the engine starts.

So, we have finally got our coolant problem sorted, our rattly exhaust fixed and our engine is starting and running well.  We can at long last, after five and a half days, continue on our journey.  Despite having everything we need, you can go a little stir crazy when you are stuck in the same place for so long, and having to hang around waiting to get something done about it.  Oh, and the problem with the engine? Engineers won’t believe it, but all four glow-plugs (which preheat the engine cylinders) had blown.  No-one I talked to had ever heard of all four going at the same time.  However, new plugs fitted (under warranty) and everything seems to be fine. Phew!

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