I visited Louisa to check the moorings and timed it so that I had a full tide onboard. The moorings were fine and I checked a couple of other club boats. One was very twisted so I reset the lines, another, my old Achilles 24, was OK but the sail cover had come off so I retied it. Back on Louisa I fitted a swivel to the mooring buoy but as I haven't built up any trust in it yet I fitted a safety line. While on board I made progress on the heating which I am calling finished for now and the solar panels. I also tried a dry fit of the winch bases and I think that they are good enough to make the actual bases in agba. As normal I charged the batteries up with the engine and whilst doing this the engine started to make a very strange noise. It sounded like it was about to let go so I turned it off pronto. Upon checking I found that the dipstick was loose. When I tried to pull it out it was stuck in the engine so I assume it had come loose and the oily end had caught on the crank shaft and been bent. After trying to extract it for 30 mins I gave up. My plan is to change the engine oil and filter and check for metal fragments. If bad, I might flush the engine out with diesel but if no too bad I'll resort to checking the oil level by pumping the oil out into a calibrated container. I suspect that the dipstick is made from stainless steel but if not I'll place a couple of strong magnets under the sump to hold the metal filings.
