Bartimaeus

Since the start of the year, the weather has been significantly colder.  A former colleague pointed me to the Fountainbridge Canalside Community Trust who run boats along the Union Canal.  I went along this week to see what they were up to.

We went for a short cruise (a mile each way) along the canal, picking out various things that had been thrown in when it was frozen.  It was a pleasant way to spend a morning.  The Trust are due to replace their boat with an electric boat later this year.  I had wondered if my experience in such things might be valuable, but so far I haven't found anyone who is involved in that aspect.

We had an emergency drill, pretending the engine had failed and that we needed to evacuate our passengers.  I joined in by hopping ashore at the bow so that someone could throw me the stern rope.  The "emergency" mooring was a lot tamer than some of the places we've moored over the years.

There has been some progress on the work on Bartimaeus, though we are not yet finished.  The engine bay has been spruced up but is currently a storage space for the new hot water tank.  The space previously occupied by the hot water tank will be used for the heat pump.  The new tank is a little smaller so that it can fit in the engine bay on its side.

We've had an update too on the heat pump installation.  The original plan had been to fit heat exchanger tanks to the inside of the base plate of the boat.  However, experiments showed that the heat flow was insufficient.  The new plan is to weld on a skin tank instead.  One of the two existing skin tanks is visible in the middle of the photo above.  They work a bit like a radiator, except that one side is the hull of the boat.

The plan now is to fit a new tank under the cabin floor - even with insulation on top it will still fit under the wooden floor. Connected in series with one of the existing skin tanks, it will allow heat to be extracted from the canal by the heat pump.  The same circuit will also be used to cool the generator when it is running.  The other skin tank will provide cooling for the electric motor.

Towards the end of last year, work on the roof was completed.  On the roof we now have twelve solar panels - up from eight - and very little else.  Having travelled several thousand miles with various bits of roof furniture, I'm sure the new view will take a bit of getting used to, but it looks very sleek.

The paintwork on the roof has been touched up.  The heavily trodden area around the stern has also been given a more thorough job than we ever managed.  We never troubled to remove the fender chains for this task either.

I have been watching the recovery work at Whitchurch with interest.  Earlier this week, one of the stranded boats was refloated.  Today the other two were winched up, so none remain at the bottom of the breach.  It seems likely both will be refloated tomorrow.

Despite the cold, I have been out cycling several times a week.  Sometimes the distances are quite short, but it is a joy to be out if the sun shines.   On a recent trip we took advantage of the near freezing conditions to ride along paths that would have been a lot muddier if they had defrosted.  Ice and sand are hard to cycle on separately, but together they make a surprisingly good surface.