On Christmas Eve I opened up the cabin’s floor panels and found a good six inches of water beneath that hadn’t been there the day before. I started worrying about what would happen if I left the boat unattended for a week.
Out with the 2nd world war stirrup pump. Two hours later, I’d removed all the water from the compartment that houses the calorifier and batteries, only to find it instantly pooled again beneath one of the water pipes. There’s a leak where one pipe has been inserted into another pipe without the junction being sealed in any way. I opened the hot and cold taps in the bathroom and rushed back to the cabin to find the trickle had become a flood and that another pipe was leaking even worse.
The previous owners had left me a handy manual with all sorts of information about Bristol Fashion, which I hurriedly consulted. Apparently there’s a water cut-off tap somewhere under the floorboards at the front of the boat. Crawled under the bed with a torch and a screwdriver and started pulling up boards till I found a pipe with a big red tap on it. The boat’s water tank is now isolated from the internal plumbing and shouldn’t be able to leak.
So I can go away for Christmas and not worry about my home flooding or sinking. But when I come back there’s going to be a repair bill because I’ll have to get all the cabin’s plumbing re-done.
