On 21 Sep 2009, at 19:03, Martin Phillips wrote: > <snip>
> Do these fail regularly? Our cable must have seen at least 2000 > hours of > use. Should they therefore be replaced routinely (the gearbox control > cable might well get swapped out as soon as we're home)? There's no > means of telling when one is about to fail. Are there better > alternatives? Should a neatly coiled piece of string be fixed to the > business end of both controls, ready for rapid deployment in an > emergency? A gearbox cable parted on nb Lark Rise after about 920 hrs, wholly without warning. We were going down Caen Hill with another boat, the proprietor of which offered to breast the boats up and carry on regardless while I fiddled with a wire coathanger and fashioned a temporary handle. It took me about 15 mins, I believe, and the arrangement was sufficient to get us back to Bradford-on-Avon without further incident. There are enough straggly bits of wire and stuff lurking in the somewhat cramped engine hole to discourage me from creating further hazards by way of back-up systems. > nb Boden, Bristol, waiting for tide and weather to take us to > Sharpness. And with a boat named like that you didn't have a spare bo(w)den cable on board?? Baz [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
