There is theory, and there is practice, and the two are rarely as closely related as we might like. For instance, YM reader Simon Fawthrop wrote in about servicing his engine. He had completed the RYA diesel maintenance course some years earlier but, due to the pressures of work, he had always hired a professional to service it. Later, with time on his hands, he decided to service the engine himself.
That’s where the theory, gained in a bright, spacious classroom on a free-standing engine, differed wildly from the practice, in a dark, cramped, sweaty engine room working blind on a hidden fuel filter. At least, says Simon, he discovered these complications alongside, rather than rolling heavily at sea with spanners crashing around the sole and bolts falling into the…
