Blog Part 16 - Miss Ellie No2 Aka "The Beerboat"
The multitude of tiny jobs involved in a boat build and the unforeseen maintenance that crops up would have me writing more pages than I can keep track of at the moment, so lets settle down to our second year of business. "Yay" selling Real Ale Wine & Cider along with peaceful and tranquil cruising along the waterways of Britain. Thats been the plan so far so lets see how it continues. I'm hoping to keep you up to date via all the usual social media and website on our journey. "What happened in your first year of business" I hear you call.
Our first year of business consisted of those multitude of tiny jobs left to do on the boat and navigating the world of new suppliers, tasting all the products we buy, a tough job but I volunteered to do this.
We tested the business at the IWA Little Venice Cavalcade and not only was it a great success, we also walked away with the Mike Stevens Memorial Award for the best boat in show 2017.
It was quite satisfying being acknowledged by the IWA as it was a testament to all the hard work, blood (literally) sweat and tears we had both put in to finishing her.
That bottle of sparkly got well & truly polished off that evening!
All was going well preparing the boat for our second full year of trading when this happened!!!
What I thought might be a catastrophic failure was saved by a specialist from a company who carry out all sorts of repairs to cast iron including my RNDM2 engine. The guy arrived during that thick blanket of snow we recently had, and spent a few hours drilling small holes in to the crack followed by inserting special screws into each hole then cutting and grinding them down. Each screw had a sealant applied one after another, at least 40 screws.
I'm currently testing the engine down to London and so far its looking really good, although a couple of minor leaks have cropped up elsewhere. I'm currently applying some metal cement over the repair then one more test before it gets painted.