The Unlucky Duck

Apologies for not posting for so long. But we are still in the midst of a very difficult situation, moored just North of Brentford on the Grand Union, with a propellor that is no longer propelling, since it isn't attached to the gearbox coupling any more - the grub screws thaht were holding it have sheared and it has also shifted out of alignment. The other issue (!) that simultaneously occurred with the starter motor is now resolved thankfully so we do have power. But this problem with the prop has just not gone away. Yesterday it seemed resolved only to go wrong again this morning. Problem is also that we really can't afford to spend loads of boatyards at the moment! If it gets really bad we'll have to stop here and earn some money... But hopsefully it won't have to come to that.

We will go back and blog about the last few days when we are all sorted but until then we are too busy with this to write in any detail.

But I will just say a huge thank you to everyone who's helped us so far, particularly Jim and Sarah of nb Warrior who towed us (breasted up) for nearly 3 days, from Windsor to a mooring at Brentford, and were so kind and generous and cheerful about it. James' dad (and grandad) have also been wonderful, coming out once with starter batteries and jumpleads, and driving James to a garage to get a new starter motor (the guy who cannabalised 3 different motors and made us a new one after his shop was closed for the day for only £90 also deserves a mention) and once again yesterday to help us bolt the shaft back on.

We can only hope that we'll be able to fix this without resort to boatyards...