I felt obliged today to go out on the water and hover around for about an hour & a half. "Well I had to make sure my new belt worked"
. The new belt did start to slip after about an hour, not badly, so I pulled ashore and tightened the belt and it seemed OK after that. I think it had stretched a bit.
I tried to stop some of the spray getting onto the lift belt by placing a foam PVC cover either side of the engine frame. I think it helps a bit but not much.
I am wondering now if the reason I didn't have this trouble before is because the old skirt wasn't right so maybe didn't produce the spray in the same quantities or in a different part of the skirt, so less water spray was hitting the belts & thrust prop.
I managed a respectfull 26 knotts while out playing, so there is not that much wrong with the craft.
While out on the water I done a small favour for the local sailing club. They had placed a marker buoy at the top end of one of the islands in the middle of the loch a couple weeks ago when they had a yacht race. I was speaking to one of the members yesterday & asked if the buoy was meant to be there and he said that the club rescue boat broke down so they were unable to collect the marker buoy back. So I said I can fetch it for them if they want me to, so I did
. That was my good deed for today
. When I arrived back on shore with it another sailing club member had just finished repairing the club boat and was just about to go and retrieve the buoy, so I saved him a job.