What a Gas Time!

It’s been over 2 years since we’ve used our large gas burner on our Eno marine stove. By increments it began misbehaving. At first it had rather a yellow flame. Then it would occasionally make a pop sound before commencing a more gushy sound of gas delivery. Eventually, it was leaving a lot of carbon on the base of pans and not generally burning as hot as could be expected.

The old gas regulator and hoses.

Of course we read up on all the problems and solutions others had reported for similar stoves. Perhaps cleaning the jets or a couple of replacement parts might be the solution. While in Noumea 2 years ago, we discovered the local chandler was the South Pacific agent for Eno - the brand of our stove. It was French and was not New Caledonia but France in the Pacific?! A couple of new jets and thermocouples were purchased. We attempted a repair, failed to tighten a nut somewhere and set fire to the glass fibre insulation between the hot plate and the oven when igniting the ring. Pulling out the fire blanket was no dress rehearsal and the gas valves were rapidly shut off. The culprit nut was tightened and safety restored but after that little 'excitement' we considered the ‘gas’ job outside our pay scale.

Welcome sign on a jetty in the new part of The Boatworks marina.

Roll on 2 years and many dinner party productions involving 3 different curries plus rice and you might say we’d adapted to the use of the lamentable single small gas ring, cooking in batches and keeping things hot in the Billy-Boil heat pot. Breakfast tea and toast has been juggled daily by the Bloke without real complaint. However, enough is enough; we saw an opportunity seeing as we’d reached the Gold Coast, to pull into The Boatworks and tackle this long overdue repair.

The gas locker is now less crowded and bottles easier to insert and lift out.

Two days morphed into 6 while an engine service, topside polishing job, Olympic-medal-in-laundry were undertaken while being available to the ‘Gas Man’. The gas regulator is apparently only expected to last 5 years. Ours was already 12. Testing of gas pressure confirmed it was past it’s prime plus the metal mesh on the hoses was starting to fray. The latter caused by the tight squeeze getting the gas bottles in and out of the gas locker. Happily, the regulator was replaced with a smaller one and it’s position adjusted sufficiently to permanently improve the gas bottle access. The thermocouple on the big gas ring now works and with a bit more tweaking we’ll soon be able to boil water and make toast at the same time. The Bloke will be pretty happy despite having shed the inevitable 1/2 ‘boat unit$’ to achieve it!