Travel Reference
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“Here, this is as clean as I can get it,” he said offering me the metal choke. He had freed
up the seized control with penetrating oil and cleaned most of the rust with a wire wool
pot scourer from the sink. It looked as good as new. I went to the locker where I had found
the lantern and fished out a spare chimney that was wrapped in an old rag. It was intact.
“Thank you Murphy, for overlooking this one,” I said sarcastically.
I put the lantern together, filling up the pot with paraffin. I pumped the little pressure handle
fatalistically and did not see any tell-tale, leaking tracks.
“Hmm. So far, so good. Now let's light the old girl, and see what kind of heat we can get
from her.”
I had tied on a new wick, which I now set alight, and waited while it slowly burnt through.
I gave the pot a few more pumps and, suddenly, the wick burst into a bright, white light. It
lit up the cabin, which was beginning to get a bit dark now, and I could feel the heat imme-
diately.
“I'll eat my hat if this doesn't work. Look at this; feel the heat coming from that lid! It's
perfect!” I was jubilant.
The next trick was to somehow keep a pot balanced on top of this lantern. “I know! Why
not tie it down on the stove? It's gimballed so it won't fall over,” said Gavin excitedly.
“Yes, and then we can tie a pot on top of the lid, and the heat will transfer to the pot!”
I retrieved an old aluminum pot from the bowels of the galley locker and placed it on top of
the lantern. Gavin had wired the lantern to the stove, and it was rocking merrily back and
forth in motion with the movement of the boat.
I noticed that the top of the lantern was quite convex in shape, and the bottom of the pot
was flat. There was very little surface area that met here. I took an old hammer from the
tool locker and proceeded to hammer a matching concave space out of the bottom of the
pot. It finally fit perfectly. We took some handy bungee cord and lashed the pot on top of
this lantern, which was now getting rather hot, and poured in some water. I placed the lid
on top, and we waited.
I couldn't believe our luck when a few minutes later the water was actually boiling. Gavin
quickly threw in some tea bags. “May as well have a cuppa,” he said, giving me the old
weasel look while blinking his eyelids rapidly. It was comic, and I chuckled. We were in
business again, and we had a good supply of paraffin; maybe there is a God, I had to admit.
The following day I discovered the mast navigation light was not working. This was an
important light, obviously, and I had to fix it. The wind had abated somewhat though the
seas would present a challenge when I went up the spar. I rigged up the bosun's chair which
