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Stove 1 - Ev 0

 So my most recent wrestle with the Optimus 155 stove  resulted in me breaking it. OK I will also now confess this is the second time I've done it. The piece of the stove used to pressurise the kerosene is called a pump rod and it has an o ring attached to the end to maintain pressure. If you pump the pump rod too hard the o ring comes off and the rod just flaps around loose - therefore you are unable to build up the pressure. The first time I did this Neil replaced the o ring and all was well (when he lit the stove).  When we were last at the boat I set about making tea. Neil said "Why don't you use the little gas back up stove?" Me: "No, I need to master this thing, just start on your lunch and I'll have your tea ready in two hours haha". So off I go pumping like mad to get the little black line up into the green space on the pressure gauge. For safety, we completely let the pressure out of the stove when not in use so I needed to get the pressure up from zero. The little black line was maddeningly close to the green zone but not budging when - whoops - the o ring has come off again 😖. I didn't want to admit it to Neil just yet so tried to light the stove anyway. Maybe the pressure would be high enough? Metho lit, all good, but there was either not enough heat to vaporise the kero or too little pressure saw me fail to light both burners - one after the other. I really want to keep what little eyebrows I have and not lose them, or my hair for that matter, to a singeing by flaming kero incident so I admitted defeat, told Neil and made the tea on the gas stove. We are now going to buy a new pump rod with an original o ring that hopefully won't fall off and I'll start again. I refuse to be beaten! 





No luck lighting ride side - flame only
No luck lighting left side - flame only 
The old faithful gas burner



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