Toddlesocks

Thanks Dave i am not going to rush into anything , will try and get a tow to the mooring then see if i can fix her over winter I did some googling and found the repair manuel ( wasnt sure until you confirmed the model ) http://www.freedomyachts.org/downloa...e890ce418c7d5a

Thank you for the help I could not see a small brass plate. It had a red one saying 'AFT ONLY 20 NM 5 lbft And a small silver plate saying Model No ZF 10 M A = 1.79 Serial No 39634 N 1.86 PIN 3304002004 It looks cable and not hydraulic

I will need to look tomorrow to see what gearbox it has. As you may be able to tell me and mechanics usually do not mix , but am trying to learn as its been one thing after another all year with her. :0

Sorry i meant ST2, doh Yesterday while crusing the engine suddenly lost power in forward gear, it is still working in reverse but prop not going around in forward? I checked nothing caught up in the prop. We had just got her back from the marina who fitted a new lift pump and were on our way to winter mooring. We are nearer to it now than the marina so am hoping it may be something a non expert could fix ( like myself ) ?

Radiomariner its very good to hear you still have your equipment bag.Unfortunately I experienced the Springfield bike trick when we were moored at horse shoe bridge a few yeas ago, put my shopping down to pull the boat in and a young guy on a bike snatched a bag, nothing of much value but very inconvenient. One great thing about Tottenham is it is a very good boating community, everyone looks out for each other. A few of us take it in turns to patrol the towpath especially in winter nights, not much is going to go unnoticed or unchallenged around here so I do still feel comfortable being moored here.

Oh no its really getting out of hand . It also appears to be more than just the polish gang who are very opportunist and sloppy leaving doors off ect, some this week have appeared far more planed.

Unfortunately it will take much more than common sense for boats to be safe on the towpath at Tottenham at the moment. So far there has been two attempts to squat on boats , 8 boats i know of have been burgled, 6 with live aboard boaters, and a van in the car park . The gang is hanging around the towpath for hours a day taking whatever opportunity they can. I have seen them going along the towpath at all times of day and night casing the boats, they are known to kick the boat to see if it is occupied ( so don't assume it is the wind). Last weekend two broke into a boat at Springfield and one was caught trying to dismantle the boiler but it does not seem to have stopped them 2 days later the rest of the gang returned. The police i would not say have been brilliant,for the amount of trouble i would have expected to see more patrols along the towpath. They have not even bothered to re contact a witness (who removed them from our boat) for an ID parade they were supposed to be setting up, hardly surprising some boaters are now tooling up!

Will do thank you

Great idea, I am not a trader yet but really hope to be one day if we ever get the workboat finished so have bookmarked it, thank you for the link

Hi Paul , thanks for explaining and the links I am more of a Sweatysocks than Toddlesocks justnow with all the mooring stress :0. I would not risk bidding on two actions at the one time, unfortunately their is only one mooring suitable which i have not bid on yet as others already have, it is now over our max . I did not realise if the winner defaults it can then go to the next highest bidder over reserve price, so still worth making your best offer known.

May be a daft question Is it advisable to ignore what an auction is currently going for even if it is over your budget and just bid when ready in the hopes higher bids drop out ?

We were very interested in this but it has shot up surprisingly high again already compared to others in the area, still a week to go ?

The guy moored opposite built a little snowman out on the ice, maybe a snow duck might have been more fitting as i could not help think he was quackers even although its not that deep where he is.

"Chess board/card table and board games" That sold it to me

Its a great little boat . I am really sick ( or will be if it does not go for at least a few thousand more), very bad timing. We had been looking for a partner to tow my little wooden cottage and double up as a run around for weeks, but bought one this morning. Oh well guess i would have had my work cut out trying to persuade the hubby since he is not a fan of wood no matter how cute it looks.

LOL I would be heading to maplin for one too, but think if we had to see what what we were cruising over sometimes i would be in need of a good therapist .

Thankfully we are okay now, with the help of Seb on Ventura, we managed to get her running and took a very slow cruise round to Springfield to minimise overheating, getting there this morning. Springfield as usual were fantastic checking her over even though they were not expecting us and extremely busy. We are going back tomorrow, but on first checks the engine appears fine . The steam was down to water in the bilge hitting the engine ,along with stuff around the prop causing problems. We are getting a new bilge pump and a weed cutter fitted, having no weed hatch stuff around the prop has been a continouse never ending nightmare.

Thanks Tony. I think it is the water cooling system on this one that has been hand built. Dont know if it matters what type of gearbox it has but currently it is an automatic one. I am off to tesco to seek solace in a chocolate cake and coffee, thanks for all the advice much appreciated .

Springfield Marina at Hackney on the River Lee, they have been great with us in the past really going above and beyond. What with the tunnels and aqueduct it seems very difficult to get us towed back to Springfield We will scrap the outboard idea lol

This is proving to be quite a learning curve, i profess to knowing nothing about engines , maybe one of those get to know engine courses may be a good idea ? If a bit late on this occasion Though on this boat i am not sure how much it would have helped, both engineers who have looked at it say they have never seen one quite like it, ( an old Mercedes they guess to be from the 60's or 70's that has been part hand built ). Seemingly going to be very difficult overhauling, but oh well we knew we had a bit of a project when we bought her. My hubby is thinking we maybe should go for an outboard to tide us over so we can get back to engineers we know and trust. Would it be possible to have an outboard on a boat this size ( she is 50 ft long 9ft beam and 32 metric tonnes ) ?

Thanks all for your suggestions We managed to pull her past the opening to the marina which turned out not to be as difficult as i feared, though brought the marina manager out to tell us we were on private land ect. My hubby had spoke to the the Blue Goose earlier, they were great and came and gave us a tow along to the golf course so big thanks to them. We have been keeping BW informed they have been cool about it . *crosses fingers for mon*

We have considered that Phylis but i was worried of us getting her stuck /loosing control of her across the entrance ( she is an all steel 50 ft barge with wheelhouse ) i find her heavy,tricky at best of times to pull along especially in wind as it is today. My hubby has pointed out if we tried it and got stuck it may be one way to get help from someone inside the moorings .

We cannot pull it any further than we already have ( around 200 M) because we are now at the entrance to the marina, unfortunatley cannot walk on water .