The examiner arrived at 1000 on Thursday and spent four hours on board. He failed the boat within seconds of starting his inspection - oh no!
The fuel tank vent, which comes up through one of the dollies, had no flame trap. I hadn't known - I didn't know what to look for. All was not lost, however, as the examiner suggested that a tea strainer could supply gauze of the right size. Unfortunately we didn't have one, having succumbed to the convenience of tea bags some years ago. But Jan was in Wolverton visiting Ally and Josiah, so she was able to buy one and bring it to me.
The brass vent cap has two circular holes a few millimeters in diameter which are supposed to hold discs of wire gauze held in place by tiny circlips. We discovered the remains of one original gauze; here it is by the vent cap. You can see one of the new gauzes and its circlip in the vent.
One other item was initially failed. There seemed to be no fuse in the lead from the starter battery to the bilge pump, but I carefully followed the cable and found that it went via a circuit breaker next to the bilge pump switch on the instrument panel. Once I had pointed this out to the examiner he apologised and said that was fine, and the boat would pass. Hooray!
These days you don't get an actual certificate; like a car MOT you get a printout with the details. Only I didn't even get this; I received an e-mail for me to print out.
*************************
Back at home I gave the lawn its first cut of the year. I try to delay it as much as possible as I suspect that cutting it merely encourages it to grow more quickly. At least the grass was dry.
3 comments:
Always good to get the first inspection out of the way - no surprises next time!
We have had to test ours a couple of time now, the boat has had three in total, all by different inspectors.
It is interesting what different inspectors comment on and pick up on.
One commented on a lack of fixed ventilation and issued an advisory notice. When the next inspector tested the boat four years later he said the other inspector was talking nonsense as NC is a sea boat so doesn't have to have fixed ventilation.
On the whole however all three have been happy and have all issued certificates. None have taken four hours though. We had our last test done in July on our way to the Fens. Took him about 40 minutes!
Andy, what makes you think there'll be no more surprises?
Naughty-Cal, the reason our test took so long was that our tester talked a lot!
Post a Comment