Fire breathing Welsh dragon aboard!

It has been an exciting day, a bit too exciting this evening.

First, we got some nice jobs ticked off.

We sorted out the rods that will support the join between the roof and side door sections. They are ready for the support "cups" to be epoxied into place.

They will be in tube in the roof sections and come off with those sections whenever we open up our "convertible" for fresh air.

Before, during and after that, Jane, made templates for several more wheelhouse panels. You can now get a better idea of how it will look (all but the roof sections will be mostly "window").

It seems extremely complicated to me. All these corners, off angles, cut-outs for the support legs and for cables and later for winches. Some sides zip on, others are held by twist locks, others by elastic that goes from eyelets on the canvas around hooks on the boat.

When you remember that it is highly likely that this is going to have to survive 70mph gusts this winter, the construction sounds even more difficult.

A new simple 24volt battery charger arrived today, so Dave was able to start charging our new electric motor batteries. A YouTube short describes these.

Then Jane started preparing the timber of the wheelhouse extension for another coat of epoxy. It was a bit cold and damp when we did the first coat so it has a white blush finish which we will sand a little now that she has washed off any amines (a chemical residue).

Meanwhile, I made the last diesel fuel supply pipe connections for the Refleks stove. Plus sorted out filling the tank. It's 50 litres and I've put 40 in so far.

Then we started to see if we can get it working. It is a very simple drip fed stove, so no electrics at all. But, it is so old (we got it very secondhand) that all the instructions and videos we can find are for much newer models.

Ours is the smallest Refleks model a 66mks (I'm not sure if they make this exact model any more). It has both a stove top and a water heating coil (for central heating). Unlike most new ones, it does not have a glass window to see the flames.

We ran into some problems with the "Toby" regulator (one so old we can't find exact instructions for it), but we don't want to spend more than 300 Euros (plus VAT) for a replacement one. This meant we had a few diesel spills.

Eventually, after a lot of struggles (including having to search the bilge for a dropped screw) I got the fuel supply into the Toby regulator sorted. We go it lit and wow, did it go!

This is where the fire breathing Welsh dragon appeared. I clearly haven't got the "throttle" dialled in yet. So it really went for it. If you look at the picture, you will see a side piece on the chimney with a round vent hole, (it has some insulation tape covering some sharp edges that Jane has cut herself on a couple of times). We could see flames rushing past this and further up the chimney (see how the chimney has changed colour as well).

Through the top oval vent holes in the main heat shield, we could see that the inner casing was glowing bright red. It continued to run at full tilt despite turning it all the way down to almost the click to off. Fortunately, turning to off stopped it nice and quickly (if it hadn't we have two more fuel taps, one at the filter and one at the bottom of the tank),

The good news is

• there were no leaks in any of the fuel connections.
• we will definitely be nice and warm this winter whenever we unleash the dragon
• none of the things near the stove, like the bulkhead, and the fuel tank got hot. Looks like we got the insulated mounting right.

The work in progress news is that while I have stopped the diesel spills from the regulator, I have to take it apart again to get the "throttle" adjusted (but I think I know which screws to adjust now).

With the heat powered stove top fan (an Aldi central aisle bargain), it already heated our aft cabin bedroom nicely. Once I get the little radiators and towel rail (in our en-suite) fitted, it will be awesome. We are getting another fan that will be fitted to the chimney high up and directed heat forward into the saloon.

Hopefully, nice progress will be made tomorrow (and maybe we will finish in time to cook dinner a bit earlier than 9pm).