The Shenni-Lee saga

[Verboaten]

I've been absent for a while due to circumstances changing in my personal life, this meant that getting to work on the boat was mainly done by my father with me joining him when I can.

For those that remember us, Hello, love the new site look, to those who are new, we are based up in Norfolk by the Denver Sluice and are by our own admission, complete novices!

We own a blue and white 23ft Cabin Cruiser called Shenni-Lee, she's tatty and basically made up of leftover parts (old BMC 1.5 Petrol engine, hydraulic MGA slave cylinder gear system etc).

Background story:

We took our boat on a maiden voyage down the river (Great Ouse) and stopped for lunch at The Ship, a few miles away the boat appeared to perform well albeit with some steam from the rear exhaust, this had been how she had run for months so we thought nothing of it.

After lunch we turned her around and headed home unfortunately this is where our fortunes changed and Shenny-Lee began billowing white smoke from the engine bay, we managed to navigate her into a private mooring before losing all power/steering, other boaters were around and gave us the number of the mooring owner, who after hearing our predicament not only allowed us to moor our boat up there until we could fix/remove it, but also called us a taxi back to our home mooring to fetch our car.

We decided to try to move the boat and so purchased a small outboard we would use to power slowly back to our home mooring, sadly we managed to get 500 yards up river before this too died and left us drifting, we were pulled into moor next to a boat club who a few weeks later and for some beer vouchers, towed us back to our home mooring.

After listing our issues to these guys we were told it could be the weed trap blocking water intake, we eventually found this but found it clear, so next step the dreaded impeller.

Thankfully someone sent us a manual for our engine so we were able to distinguish exactly where this part was located, after eventually getting it out we found that it had disintegrated into a giant O-ring!

We took the broken impeller to a chandlery and were supplied with another, we headed up there the following weekend but the part would not fit, we took the shaft out and went back to the chandlery to get a replacement, it was the wrong impeller.
I fitted the new impeller this weekend just gone, not knowing if what I was doing was correct or not, we turned her over but she wasn't going.. we decided to swap out all the spark plugs and take the battery home to charge it.

Another fortnight passed and I was back at the boat, and after correcting a loose battery terminal and connecting some jump leads for some extra power,  we turnt her over again, this time she fired after a few splutters... and she runs, some smoke at startup (burning off old disturbed oil I suspect) but after a few minutes no smoke, no steam, she sounds beautiful, the best she ever has.

We decided to cast off and head down the river to see how she was under load, she performed impeccably, going into gear without issue.

It appears the Shenni-Lee lives again!!!

[mrsmelly]

 Looks like you got away with trying your hardest to overheat your engine then  hope it all goes well heiron in and keep us informed.