In March 2005, two diesel tanks were fitted to Endeavour, one on either side of the boat, and then her engine was fitted. This was less than two months before Endeavour made her first return to Dunkirk since the Evacuation in 1940, so it’s no exaggeration to say that things went right down to the wire in terms of getting her fitted out!
After the fun of the Jubilee trips, there was a also a bit of a sour note. Chris Burls and Andy Lewis noticed that our port fuel tank had developed a drip, from the outlet from the tank. In addition to the small, but potential fire risk, it’s also not desirable for Endeavour to have diesel soaking into her timbers.
The immediate remedy was for them to spend 3 hours siphoning the fuel out of the tank into containers until it was completely empty and then isolating it, thereby containing the problem. The good news is that Endeavour is able to continue running trips for members and friends until the end of the season using only the starboard tank to supply the engine.
Clearly, however, this is not a long-term solution. Steve Cocks, son of the much-missed Reta and George Cocks, two of Endeavour’s most passionate supporters from the earliest days of the Trust, and himself the man who oversaw the installation of Endeavour’s engine back in 2005, has been helping us investigate. Ideally, we would have hoped to be able to effect a repair in situ.
Steve’s conversations with the Southampton-based Tek-Tanks, who made the originals, indicates that we’re going to have to remove the engine in order to be able to take the tank out for repair or replacement. Fortunately, TekTanks think the repair is relatively easy and should be done within a day.
One small benefit of having to remove the engine would be that it would give us the opportunity to clean the engine room and repaint the engine itself.
When the tanks were originally commissioned from Tek-Tanks in 2005, we paid £500 each for their manufacture —not including the original design work required, so if we ever did need to replace one, we could anticipate a hefty bill.
This is all part and parcel of running any boat, of course, but underlines the need for the Trust to raise funds to support its work.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your message. I'm afraid that to prevent spam, all comments are moderated but we will aim to approve it quicker than it takes to redo Endeavour's anti-fouling...