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Hi all! We are looking for someone to help us move from Paddington to Islington before Saturday the 20th. Have called all the "usual suspects" including the boats around us, but no one is moving! Happy to pay of course. Much appreciated
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It's been a while but I am back and begging once again (sorry!) and apologies for the long post, i'll put a short version at the end for those that TLDR Our Shenny-Lee 23ft Cabin Cruiser was recently taken on its maiden voyage from the Denver Sluice down to The Ship pub a few miles down river, she performed impeccably, pumping out water and with no sign of burning fuel, we stopped for lunch before hopping back onboard and heading back up river to our home mooring. Sadly we barely managed to get past the first bend as I noticed we were no longer pumping water and the engine was overheating with smoke coming out the engine bay. We managed to moor up at a private mooring and topped up our oil which was still within limits so the engine had not seized, it restarts but will overheat due to not pumping water. After speaking with the mooring owner he mentioned it was highly likely to be a weed trap blocking the water flow, although we cannot find such an item on our boat nor could another boater who took a look, he was happy for us to moor up there temporarily whilst we try to get our mechanic to take a look, a call to our mechanic found that he is off work seriously sick (sods law), a taxi back to our car and a long trip back home. Fast forward to another fortnight when we can get back to the boat and we made the decision to buy a small direct drive outboard (Crescent 5hp) to hang from the outboard bracket and slowly get us home. After some fettling we had the outboard fitted and running with a few teething issues trying to steer (the outboard bracket is offset meaning it pushes the boat from one side) we finally had her straight and moving for about 500 yards until the revs dropped and the outboard died, I figured this was due to weeds wrapping around the prop and so cleared it off the best i could, but the outboard will not fire again. We spent the next 10 minutes drifting down river desperately trying to get the outboard restarted, at this time two boats approached from behind, we attempted to flag them down to request a tow but the first didn't acknowledge us at all and the second simply shook his head, apparently a boat drifting unpowered in the river is not worth stopping for. As we drifted closer to the row of boats at the nearby boat club, fortunately a member had seen us and came to grab a rope to moor us up at a spare unkempt mooring for which we were very grateful, he looked over both engines, could not find the weed trap either and after checking the outboards spark plug determined it was not getting fuel, which is surprising as it was running fine. This is now where we are moored and are desperately seeking methods to get us back up river to our home mooring so we can begin to troubleshoot both of our engine issues. In short: Main engine is overheating and cannot be run for longer than a few minutes, it does not pump water. Auxiliary outboard (Crescent 5hp) purchased is now not getting fuel. Our home mooring is next to Jenyns Arms. We need a tow back up river to Denver Sluice and a boat mechanic to help diagnose the fault. We asked around denver sluice but fellow boaters either did not have a mechanic or were using the same one as us who was sick. Anyone able to help? Thank you!