Engine is Aligned

Yesterday morning Joel told me that the engine was aligned.  He said that the alignment would have to be rechecked after I've run the engine for a few hours.  He asked me to return after lunch and help him with the next phase: connection of the hoses and linkages.

We sorted out the hose issue fairly quickly, though most of the hoses are too short.  He could not understand why the raw water hoses were too short until I explained to him how and why I had swapped the positions of the raw water and Racor fuel filters.  We'll have to extend the exhaust hose because I want to avoid the expense and hassle (e.g. removing at least two of the large batteries under the cockpit) of replacing it.

The throttle cable presented no problem but the gear shift cable did.  He told me that it was actually a steering cable, and the end was not compatible with the connection point on the Volvo.  However, he got the bright idea of getting the connector from the old Sabb and that looked successful except that the cable is about 1" too short.  He and Neil are going to try to get a used cable that is a bit longer.

Today Neil will visit the boat with the fiberglassers.  I am still cross with them.  Yesterday Joel was forced to spend over 30 minutes to fetch the large vacuum cleaner from the workshop and vacuum the large amount of fiberglass dust that they had unprofessionally left behind for others to deal with.  Privately I call them at various times "Heckle and Jekyll", "Abbot and Costello", and "The two Marx Brothers", which is a testament to my opinion of their non professionalism.  However, in person I will be hypocritically polite and decorous (Yuk!)

Today's Footpath Challenge  is non user-friendly steps. The lowest step of these three is extra big and although Robert is taking the plunge, I had to go round. (Note that the little dark strip of concrete at the base is not a step, just a change of texture.) In the background is a local woman, wisely using the road.