We had news that the gearbox is all done...and there was nothing mechanically wrong. It was the wrong oil!!
We had the gearbox completely rebuilt in 2019 and it had less than 100 running hours. We now (unsuccessfully) tried to contact the engineer who did the rebuild, but Patrick recalled a conversation about the oil that was put into the gearbox at the time. He had questioned the oil type at the time of the rebuild, as it didn’t make sense but the engineer assured Patrick that it was correct. Well now we know it wasn’t. The clutch plates had stuck and that was what had caused the gearbox to seize. What an expensive exercise. But the gearbox was all finished and on its way back to down to the boat. We were so happy.
As we were about to celebrate and plan a few trips, Patrick asked me if I had moved the bicycles (??? - what?). Ever since we had settled into the marina and were often using the bikes, we took them off the boat and chained them up to a steel pole under security cameras, in the yard. We hadn't used them for a few days as it had been raining non stop. Well now they were gone. We had a quick chat with Phil (the marina owner) and he checked the CCTV cameras. There it was – all the footage / film of a questionable gentleman and his trusty side cutters. He had taken more than 10 minutes to cut through the steel cable and then off he went with our bikes.
Suddenly the police arrived (well one car and two officers). We were really impressed by such a quick response to us reporting a theft to the marina. That was short-lived. The bike thief had also attempted to break into a house right next to the boat yard and the home owner had called the police. But the officers also took a statement from us, gave us an incident number and we called our insurance company. They were happy to replace the bikes, so that was a relief.
So we looked forward to new foldable bikes, a “new” gearbox and two new HUGE bike chains.
Silver lining behind every cloud. And talking about clouds – the rain just didn’t seem to want to stop.
Gearbox update and police visits
