Random Writings

One of Innocenti’s drawbacks (which, to be fair, is part of the reason she was cheap for her size) is that her fit-out has been done by a succession of enthusiastic amateur owners, of which I am merely the third or fourth. As she was originally built in 1991 and fitted out fairly cheaply, her insulation leaves a lot to be desired – which results in being too hot in summer and too cold and damp in winter. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday morning, it was tipping it down with rain. I got back to the boat to find Emma from Kestrel next door waiting for me in her waterproofs – could she borrow my generator? Hers is onboard and cooled with river water, and the inlet pipe had become blocked with weed. Kestrel and Innocenti are now moored a bit further apart so that I get some sun on my new solar panel (of which more later) and so we ran a long cable to connect my genny to Kestrel’s inlet socket. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite reach. So I moved the generator away from Innocenti (it’s attached to my boat by a security cable, which is a condition of my insurance) to make it reach. Fifteen minutes later, a widebeam boat goes by and I hear an ominous splosh and no more generator noise…

Oh heck. The passing boat has pulled the cables tight and the genny is now on the river bed. I fish it out and pull it over gently. Water emerges from the exhaust pipe. I wring out the air filter, drain the carburettor (nope, no water in there) and squirt WD40 into the air intake. Still nothing. I remove the spark plug and find I’m getting no spark. Ah, an electrical problem. My favourite.

Fortunately, I’ve had experience of this before. All the high voltage electrics (both the mains outlet and the feed to thes park plug) on the EU10i are in sealed units and were unlikely to be affected by a quick dunking. But the low voltage electrics are not. I dismantled the genny and unplugged all the connectors. River water dribbled from them all.

I left it for several days on the bank under a box. This morning it has restarted, and I’ve reassembled it. I’ve been very lucky, and will be more careful next time. Isn’t Japanese engineering brilliant?