As you know we are here in Ghent for the winter and part of the winter ‘programme’ includes fitting a new generator brought over especially in the car from the UK.
It’s lovely, expensive, neat with its own sound proof pod and Alex has spent three days constructing the mounting plinth (3’ x 2’ in iron – good and solid), arranging the new water cooling supply and the exhaust water separator, which involved manufacturing from steel pipe of different diameters what he hopes will act as a second silencer and water separator combined.
And all this has been done, and the generator, stripped of its sound proof pod, has been lowered by chain hoist into the engine room and partially reassembled onto its plinth. But – the exhaust separator was painted with a two-pack epoxy resin to stop up any pinprick holes in the welding. (you can get them with a stick weld and a not professional welder) and because it’s so cold it’s not going off (hardening).
So we tried the fan heater to provide some heat into the engine room but the supply tripped (well, that’s what we thought at the time) so we discussed over supper what might be the best answer to provide a constant low level of heat for a decent period of time.
Well, in the old days, they used to put a candle under the lavatory cistern to stop the pipes freezing. So that’s what we decided to do – under the water separator.
One and a half hours later when Louise went to the bathroom – next to the engine room – she could smell smoke. Alex dashed into the engine room and through the thick pall of smoke to the new generator and there it wasn’t or at least some of it wasn’t, any longer! Burnt to a crisp.
Alex put his head in his hands and howled. Louise said all the usual things – “At least we are both OK.” “The boat is OK.” “It’s only money!” “It could have been a lot worse.” etc.etc
All that work, all that money and now more work, more money and no guarantee at the end. Oh God, its too awful to contemplate. The candle had managed to fall over and roll under the engine, still alight, set fire to the pod, the plastic intake and much of the wiring loom, all at the generator end.
But the clear-up has started and Alex, ever positive, has turned his attention to the practical aspects of the clear-up. We have spent the last two long days washing down the engine room and one day cleaning the rooms next to it – bathroom into bedroom into kitchen. Is it all smoke damage or is some of it age-old dust? Smoke damage all of it of course! But the acrid smell is still there!
The generator is a sad sight. One end has really suffered – the alternator. The motor itself seems OK but time will tell. When Alex gets it apart we will see how very bad it is. But whatever, it’s not good and whatever, it’s going to be expensive. It’s so new, it’s not even been added to the insurance, so no respite there, and besides we all know that the no-claims bonus would be removed and the premium would go up, etc. etc. …
We have started a list of all the bits we need and have made first contact with the supplier. Hopefully when we get back to the UK for Christmas we will be able to pick up all the new parts and bring them back when we return to Ghent in January. Then maybe we can get this baby up and running.
We know that members of the boating community and many others will be saying, ‘Naked flames in the engine room – he must be mad’. But in our defence, sometimes a problem causes one to lose sight of the bigger picture and then one is tempted to make mistakes, as happened here. We would like to think that there are few people out there who haven’t at some time made an ill-advised decision!
Incidentally, the two-pack paint had gone off (hardened) nicely! Perhaps that was due to the fire not the candle!!
Meanwhile, life goes on and we made a trip to Ternuizen the other day. Its only 20k from Gent and it’s in Holland! which means we can buy cheap fresh milk and get a good selection of Chilean and Australian wine! The Belgians tend to follow the French mould where wine is concerned. (New World wines get very little shelf space.)
So we came back with among other things 3 litres of milk for the freezer, and 3 dozen bottles of wine. We also had lunch in a superior café at the northern tip of the town overlooking the Westerschelde where we watched a continuous stream of barges and ocean going ships going to and fro about their business. Another trip there before long, we think.
We are also getting to know Ghent pretty well. Louise has made several excursions around the inner city, some on her bike and some on shank’s pony and we both have made a couple of trips by car, one to the Belgian equivalent of B & Q for some more candles!
Bit short of pics for this one: a couple more from Gent and the archive.
Wednesday 10 December 2008
Saturday 6 December 2008
Ghent and UK
We set off for England about 3½ weeks ago by train but first we sussed out the station in Ghent, getting there by tram, bought all our tram and train tickets, and timed the whole operation so we knew ‘worst case scenario’ it would take about 40 minutes!
On the day, we were up in good time, allowing an hour to get to the station which in the event actually took 20 minutes! So we sat around and waited and 10 minutes before the train was due, went to the platform, where we waited and waited until well after the train should have arrived. Suddenly an unintelligible announcement and a hurried look at the monitor, had everyone on our platform (including us) rushing to another, different platform where in 2 minutes our train arrived – by then 20 minutes late.
We were arriving at Lille Flandres station and our connection with Eurostar was at Lille Europe station - a full 400 metres away and we had only had a 40 minute changeover to start with. Now we were rather running out of time, having only 20 minutes to transfer, collect our pre-paid Eurostar tickets and get on the train!
We ran out of Lille Flandres and tried to follow the totally inadequate signage to Lille Europe station. Once there we hurriedly enquired at the Information Desk where we could pick up our pre-booked tickets, and the customer adviser, realising how late we were, directed us to the Eurostar barrier instead, where a rather brisk lady attendant made a hurried phone call and produced our boarding passes – along with a little homily about being earlier next time!
Through security and passport control, we managed to find our seats and sit down almost as the train moved off. But for all that, 1½ hours later we were in London. Amazing!
Over the next three weeks we darted all over the UK, staying in six different places with family and friends and picking up the items on our list of things to bring back to Ghent, the most important (and expensive) of those being a 4Kw, water cooled, quiet-running, diesel powered, compact generator and returned to Ghent by car and ferry.
Now Alex has the unenviable task of constructing a suitable place to mount the generator, feed it with water and exhaust it, all in an engine room which, at this time of year, is a pretty chilly environment.
But work has started.
We think we have found somewhere to moor the car for free, about 1½ k from the centre of town but we are still not 100% sure, so we are checking each day to ensure no ticket! When we need to use it we cycle to the car park, lock the bikes up, use the car, park up again and return on the bikes to Riccall. So far ‘they’ have only nicked one bicycle bell, but time will tell!
The beauty of having the car is that we can drive to Aldi (!) or wherever and buy as much as you like, as there’s much more room in a car boot than in bicycle panniers, and then drop it all off at Riccall. But Oh! we hate having a car here!! It’s far too ordinary and the hassle and responsibility of having it over here adds an extra element which sort of fixes you to a place. We had planned to do one more return trip by car but we’re not so sure now!
But we also have to consider the relative costs of travel – Jet2 with minimal luggage or ferry with car and as much stuff as we like? Booked in advance, air costs about €150 return for both of us, the ferry only £56 and we need about £25 worth of fuel each way from Alex’s sister Julia’s place in Bedford, which is a good stop-over point on the way to and from. As this time we had a ‘5p off a litre’ voucher from Tesco (if you spend £50 in one shop – no problem spending that on wine!) we filled up at Tesco in Milton Keynes. We later looked up ‘best price diesel’ on the internet and it said it was currently costing 75p in France and Belgium but we never saw it for less than €1.05 – about the same as in GB with the present appalling exchange rate.
Speaking of having the car here, it’s not the car itself we don’t like, of course. It’s an N reg Citroen ZX turbo diesel and it’s now using a bit of water (always a bad sign) and the transmission is growling a bit, but Alex is determined to get it to the ¼ million mile mark – only another 5K to go! He thinks he’ll have to wear black mourning clothes for a year when it finally goes to the scrap yard – he loves it so much!
Ghent is still as alluring as ever and we are hoping to use the ice rink they are setting up here. Alex is threatening to bring his ancient skates over from UK! We are looking forward to the Christmas markets and the party atmosphere that we have been promised pervades the whole of Ghent towards Christmas but we are on our travels home again to UK in a couple of weeks so we’ll see many of you then.
On the day, we were up in good time, allowing an hour to get to the station which in the event actually took 20 minutes! So we sat around and waited and 10 minutes before the train was due, went to the platform, where we waited and waited until well after the train should have arrived. Suddenly an unintelligible announcement and a hurried look at the monitor, had everyone on our platform (including us) rushing to another, different platform where in 2 minutes our train arrived – by then 20 minutes late.
We were arriving at Lille Flandres station and our connection with Eurostar was at Lille Europe station - a full 400 metres away and we had only had a 40 minute changeover to start with. Now we were rather running out of time, having only 20 minutes to transfer, collect our pre-paid Eurostar tickets and get on the train!
We ran out of Lille Flandres and tried to follow the totally inadequate signage to Lille Europe station. Once there we hurriedly enquired at the Information Desk where we could pick up our pre-booked tickets, and the customer adviser, realising how late we were, directed us to the Eurostar barrier instead, where a rather brisk lady attendant made a hurried phone call and produced our boarding passes – along with a little homily about being earlier next time!
Through security and passport control, we managed to find our seats and sit down almost as the train moved off. But for all that, 1½ hours later we were in London. Amazing!
Over the next three weeks we darted all over the UK, staying in six different places with family and friends and picking up the items on our list of things to bring back to Ghent, the most important (and expensive) of those being a 4Kw, water cooled, quiet-running, diesel powered, compact generator and returned to Ghent by car and ferry.
Now Alex has the unenviable task of constructing a suitable place to mount the generator, feed it with water and exhaust it, all in an engine room which, at this time of year, is a pretty chilly environment.
But work has started.
We think we have found somewhere to moor the car for free, about 1½ k from the centre of town but we are still not 100% sure, so we are checking each day to ensure no ticket! When we need to use it we cycle to the car park, lock the bikes up, use the car, park up again and return on the bikes to Riccall. So far ‘they’ have only nicked one bicycle bell, but time will tell!
The beauty of having the car is that we can drive to Aldi (!) or wherever and buy as much as you like, as there’s much more room in a car boot than in bicycle panniers, and then drop it all off at Riccall. But Oh! we hate having a car here!! It’s far too ordinary and the hassle and responsibility of having it over here adds an extra element which sort of fixes you to a place. We had planned to do one more return trip by car but we’re not so sure now!
But we also have to consider the relative costs of travel – Jet2 with minimal luggage or ferry with car and as much stuff as we like? Booked in advance, air costs about €150 return for both of us, the ferry only £56 and we need about £25 worth of fuel each way from Alex’s sister Julia’s place in Bedford, which is a good stop-over point on the way to and from. As this time we had a ‘5p off a litre’ voucher from Tesco (if you spend £50 in one shop – no problem spending that on wine!) we filled up at Tesco in Milton Keynes. We later looked up ‘best price diesel’ on the internet and it said it was currently costing 75p in France and Belgium but we never saw it for less than €1.05 – about the same as in GB with the present appalling exchange rate.
Speaking of having the car here, it’s not the car itself we don’t like, of course. It’s an N reg Citroen ZX turbo diesel and it’s now using a bit of water (always a bad sign) and the transmission is growling a bit, but Alex is determined to get it to the ¼ million mile mark – only another 5K to go! He thinks he’ll have to wear black mourning clothes for a year when it finally goes to the scrap yard – he loves it so much!
Ghent is still as alluring as ever and we are hoping to use the ice rink they are setting up here. Alex is threatening to bring his ancient skates over from UK! We are looking forward to the Christmas markets and the party atmosphere that we have been promised pervades the whole of Ghent towards Christmas but we are on our travels home again to UK in a couple of weeks so we’ll see many of you then.
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