Our Third visit to "Freedom"

5th April

This weekend we went to Holland alone!  Another boot full of essentials were shipped and loaded aboard Freedom.

This was our first trip across on the Euro-Tunnel.  I'm not sure it was all that good; although price-wise similar to the Ferry, but so boring just sitting in your own car; nowhere to go and nothing to see? I think the 1 ¾ hours aboard ship is much more interesting and at least it gives you a reasonable 'break' between the M-20 run down to Dover and then off again on the French A-16; however, it was all I could find for the cheapest crossing at that time.

The Marina had conspired to hide the pontoon from us, that is to say 'Freedom' was in the same place, but all the walk-ways had been shuffled around, due to a forthcoming 'Boat-Show' they are holding there.  Hence we trotted off in the dark with our trolleys; to find the pontoon just stopped, straight into the water!  After playing 'Hampton Court Maze' for a while we managed to locate the right entry-point though.

We fiddled, tinkered and stowed yet more gear, she is looking more like 'home' and Urszula has got her very ship-shape I must say.


6th April

On Sunday I took the plunge and decided to check out if the main engine would actually start.  Initially I fired up 'Benjamin' our generator; as being the lessor of the two diesel's, I wanted to see if they had been fully de-winterised:- Benjamin started OK, produced 240-volts, as expected, very quiet and with no alarm lights, all was looking good so far!

Flushed with this success (and an RYA-approved Diesel Engine Course the weekend before) I checked all over the Valmet 420-DSM and could see no good reason why I couldn't start him as well.  He started like a dream, as I had previously manually primed the fuel system etc.  However there was no water coming from the exhaust?  With the engine stopped again, I felt the Jabsco housing and it was warm to the touch; unscrewing the weed-filter, it was bone dry?

Off came the Jabsco cover-plate and the problem became obvious as I eased out the impeller, although all the 'blades' were still there, they had a very tenuous connection with the centre boss, every one was badly cracked at the root and some were ½ way to tearing off completely.

A new impeller was located from the 'spares store', lightly greased and fitted.  With the engine restarted, still no water!  Shutdown again, I poured a gallon or so of fresh water into the weed filter to 'prime the system' and finally we had a fully operational engine!

At this stage, there was no good reason for us not to go boating; the sun was out, very little wind and most important, not too many on-lookers!

Ula and I discussed the options for leaving the mooring, dropped off all of the springs and - away we went.  At this stage I had thought that the not inconsiderable cross-wind; which seems to blow continuously over the Marina, had dropped a little, but I was wrong!

The boat drifted obligingly away from it's neighbour of the winter and we turned left into the main 'trot'.  I practised stopping and going astern and was pleased with the immediate response, the wind was now on our starboard side.

Near to the Marina exit, there are a few rusting work-barges moored, so I briefed the crew, that we would attempt to moor alongside one of these as a practise exercise.
Now in hindsight:-  I should have checked out the bow-thruster fully, I should have not been too ambitious and NOT tried to do all of this in reverse!  It would have helped to notice that the wind had picked up as well.  It didn't go horribly wrong, but we hit our first barge that day!

We popped out into the main river, did a 'quick 180' and came back in again, since we knew the boat moves OK we were not interested in actually going anywhere, just concerned we could start and stop in an orderly fashion.

Opposite our earlier mooring, there were a row of newly-installed pontoons, all vacant.  Our intention, was to keep probing at these, down the row, until we had perfected our mooring technique, however a 'friendly' Dutchman had other ideas.  No sooner had we got the boat cocked sideways across the end of one pontoon finger, he insisted in rushing up to 'help us'.  This was not what I needed!

He then went to great lengths to explain to me that these pontoons; being new, had no water or electricity (which we knew anyway) and kept heaving on our ropes in an attempt to pull us in safely.  We got him to give us the rope back and extricated ourselves from the first finger.  Using the wind and working the bow-thruster we then aligned ourselves quite well with the next finger and there he was again!  Undoing fenders and generally trying to be of assistance.  I gave up in this point and left him to it, as it was clear our need to practise was not getting through to him.

Freedom is big and heavy, pulling on ropes is not the way to moor up, the 'skipper' has got to put the boat in the right spot and get it stationary, before getting off and messing about with ropes.  Even looping through the pontoon cleat and 'sweating-up' the rope, I had great difficulty moving her again the cross-wind and current.

We are used to a 5-ton GRP hull, nearly ½ the length, with a pair of relatively big diesel's to maneuver.  This is a whole new game to play, 20+ tonnes and only one single, relatively small engine & prop to stop with, Hmmm?

We left on Sunday afternoon, more than a little demoralised.


Channel-Tunnel Syndrome?

On the 3-hour drive back to Calais, I put my 'not feeling well' down to the disappointments of the day, but by Monday evening, I was a very sick person; shivering with cold, but with a temperature of 102.3  The Doctor took some blood samples, dosed me up with Penicillin on Tuesday and I sweated it out in bed until Thursday.  Nothing really came of it, no sore throat, or cough etc.  By Friday I'd had enough and went back to work.  I've not had anything quite like this before; a really severe headache, with pain behind the eyes. My legs and muscles ached, odd yellow & purple bruises appeared and I was hallucinating at night! A very strange illness indeed?




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