We had a mechanic from Vetus (who manufactured the complex hydraulic system onboard Aleau) travel to Auxonne to see if he could figure out why neither thruster was working. He couldn’t. Before he would delve any further into the innards of the hydraulic system, he insisted we travel to St. Jean-de-Losne and have a diver go under Aleau to check the thruster tubes. Remember all that nylon rope that got trapped in the bow-thruster tube when we were in Dijon?
The diver said both tubes were in perfectly clean. The next step (in April 2020) will be to have an expert from Vetus headquarters in The Netherlands drive to Auxonne to see if he can find the problem. The Netherlands is a long drive from Auxonne and we will be charged for each kilometre – not to mention his hotel and meal expenses. That’s on top of whatever it will cost to fix the thrusters. They say that “boat” stands for “Bring on another thousand.” Apparently, so. In France, those thousands are in euros – one-and-a-half times more expensive than Canadian dollars.