hummingfrog
thanks for the great advice
the cupboard is stocked with fray bentos steak pies (1980 dated) and there is a large stock of out of date cerials.
Sounds like a visit to asda is needed !
re the crane, I do have large external start batteries (with solar charger) out there and a very friendly maint engineer who (I Hope) will come to the rescue.
I will strap the machine down from now on, I do ccover the ebgine intakes asap to minimise salt air intake
thanks again for the very useful comments
Ian