The Boat Team this week
by: Myron
On Monday, there was a request for no boat movements in the Ryeford pound because of the sonar survey being done that day. This played right into our hands as we could get on with a day of maintenance without any distractions. Major jobs included checking and adjusting Goliath’s stern tube gland. We also tried unsuccessfully to get the radiator working in Margaret’s cabin. And we fixed Weedie, where we cured a slight fault with a microswitch which was stopping the slats from moving.
With all that done and the embargo lifted Weedie went down to Ryeford to clear some floating weed, and Margaret decided to tag along.
Wednesday morning saw the plans for a good day’s work going down the plug. In that it was tipping down with rain. We retreated to the café in the council offices to keep dry. A call from the Dredgers said that wet and dry teams were assessing, could we wait. We sent the majority home while keeping four to crew Margaret if necessary. We got a call about mid morning saying that they were working, so off went, and it was still tipping with rain. Keen these dredger chaps. Turned out a pretty worthwhile day. We moved a couple of hoppers. This is by no means routine yet, but we are getting there. We talked over some procedures with both dredging teams. At the moment the Boat Team are playing with hoppers. The Wet and Dry Dredgers are so close together they can easily move the hoppers themselves. But very soon they will not be able to do this and tugs will come into their own. We need skills and procedures to be in place by then. Today went a fair way to achieving this. Essential jobs done, an early finish meant the obligatory debrief in the Crown took a little longer than usual.