Well, in January I was just testing the bow thruster as part of my monthly checklist when one of the 4x 12v batteries went bang and blew its lids off! I guess it had had enough and had dried out. Anyway, that was 4 new batteries and lots of work but was then good as new, except, the thruster developed a fault and needed a new £400 soft start card.

In May the hot tank burst but luckily dribbled its contents into a fortunately placed bowl. As Lawrence was in the process of retiring from offshore work and was therefore at home, Lorna celebrated that he was home for this crisis and wouldn’t have to go away to sea again :-). Happy days, but then we had to set to and fix it. After research we bought a stainless steel tank and worked out how to fit it and make a better hot system. We made a lovely job of it!

Lawrence’s last day with DOF Subsea Norway passed in June without going offshore again after March and his work colleagues had a collection and sent a voucher for a GoPro Hero7 action camera for sailing. He has since had lots of fun making action videos and pictures from his dinghy sailing and kayaking.

The bow thruster got fixed with the new card and a new 2 pole DC switch and is now as as new after 11 years of use.

Then we continued with making the new galley in Waterdog but didn’t rush this process so we could enjoy our retirement as we went.