Engine In

The Cocooned Beta Engine has now been fitted to Syncopation. Looks a bit like a fridge.

But inside there's a real Beta Marine engine with 5 kVA travelpower generator.


And the flexible coupling between gear box and prop shaft:


The exterior of the shell has received another coat of primer and a coat of undercoat to protect it until May when the coachpainting will be done.

LG in the Wash

I put my flash drive through the wash last week.

By accident of course. It was in my trouser pocket and went through a complete cycle in the washing machine. Luckily we use the lowest temperature setting, 30C but I am still impressed that it never missed a beat when I plugged it in after it had a day or so to dry out. All my data was still there.

Police at Lunch Time

At lunch time I found the road outside the office was blocked.
More than 22,000 police officers were marching to Parliament Square to protest about their pay. They weren't allowed to wear their uniforms so they all wore the same hat.

The Dog's.. Or Rather Lack Thereof

Arrow has been to the vet again for that operation. He was beginning to cock his leg while out and about and had recently developed a tendency to attempted intimacy with visitors' legs - particularly male visitors. We know it's a dominance thing as he never attempted it with me or other family members where the pecking order is prettty well established.

I've got the most tenuous link to canals here as I've seen a picture somewhere of the signwriting on a narrowboat called "The Dogs", with home mooring advertised as Bow Locks. I tried to find the picture again without luck but I did check to see if it's registered by looking in the searchable index on the most excellent Jim Shead's site and here it is:

THE DOGS Built by WELTONFIELD N/BTS LD - Length: 52 feet 6 inches (16.00 metres) Beam: 6 feet 10 inches (2.08 metres).Metal hull power of 30BHP. Registered with BW number 51035 as a Powered.

Update:

The most excellent Mr Denny has responded with a link to the picture I recalled.

Scavenging

A dog's got to eat everything that presents itself:

Roses and Castles

Our thoughts have turned to the final appearance of Syncopation. Initial thoughts are that the colourscheme will be redolent of the later Fellows Morton and Clayton livery (more later), with a light dusting of roses and castles inside, probably restricted to the interior of of the back doors and hatches. To this end I've been researching narrowboat decoration. Warrior Woman has made a post showing some of her roses and I've got copies of Tony Lewery's excellent books:
Flowers Afloat

Narrowboat Painting

and with Edward Paget-Tomlinson : Colours of the Cut

Final Drawings

I returned the final drawings for Syncopation to the fitters on Monday. The last few details were the detailed placement of furniture in the bedroom at the rear of the boat. Work will recommence in the next few days as winter maintenance on the Ownerships fleet is completed.

Puppet Sweat

Just watched a familiar Thunderbirds episode: Sun Probe. It's where the Tracy boys have to rescue a space probe that gets too near the sun.

The puppets spend about half the episode suffering the effects of the sun's heat and sweating copiously, something which is quite strange. It's our duty as parents to introduce the next generation to Gerry Anderson's excellent creations and we've just started showing then to our youngest.