a fairground life(cyprus adventure ch14a)

Limassol Feb 1999 opening
We opened on a mid week day, the weather was better, but this made the dust fly more easily from the pitch. I didn’t notice it before but the old front entrance was not square to the pitch, this slight angle made the public walk one way around the fair. This meant that all my equipment was last in line. After the first weekend I asked the Irishman to move the front of the trampolines to the opposite side to be across from my ride. This was so the parents standing there would make it look like something was happening at that end of the fair.This he did for me and it did help. All the time in Cyprus I never saw anyone blind drunk or abusive, all the people were well dressed in either trousers , cords or dark jeans with leather shoes, boots or sandals. The women were stunningly beautiful with their olive skins and slim figures, some of them wore evening dresses to the fair. For three months I never saw a football top, tracksuit, shell suit, Burberry cap, training shoes, bottle of buckfast being drank by a gang of youths or saw an obese person. I said to my wife “this is the land of the beautiful people.” The nearest we had to a problem was one night some kids had been put out the fair by the security ( Georges son in laws business) and they threw halved limes over the wall onto our ride. I’ve been stoned before but that’s the only time I’ve been Limed! The next Tuesday night when we were open I spotted smoke from the middle of the ride. The 110v DC motor was burning out! I switched it off immediately. I think the power from the transformer was too good for it. Well I didn’t have to repair my generator at home, as I would change to three phase now.
The next day I looked all around Limassol for an electrical contractor and found one up a side street. In broken English we established that I needed a 25-30 kw 1500 rpm 415v motor. He offered me a new Russian one for £330 cy or a second hand English Electric (that he had laying in his garden wrapped in a tarp) for £250cy. I went for the English electric, not for the price, but because I thought it would be built to a standard better than the Russian motor. The electrician promised to fit new ballraces and provide a new custom built control box starter with the motor all for £1000 cy. That was a lot cheaper than the same kit in the UK. Only problem was it would take three days to complete. The Cypriot was very friendly, taking me into his house to meet his family and give me coffee(it was real coffee like tar and you had to drink water with it, yuckkkk). For the next few days I only had the ‘popit ons’ open and the disc on a plate game. When the electrician came he only delivered the motor with a vague diagram. He wanted another £100 cy to install it, so I decided to do it myself. Eric came over at that point and started to help me. He was well versed with knowledge of wiring 3ph motors and had all the electrician type tools. In under a couple of hours it was all installed and working. It was lucky that I choose the English motor as this meant the drive coupling to the two hydraulic pumps fitted perfectly. I started the ride and timed the cycle. The ride was revolving too fast as the old motor was only 1200 rpm. I decided to reverse the two hydraulic pumps as I knew one was 25% more volume than the other. When I retimed the ride it was bang on speed, all I had done was increased the lift rate of the ride by 10 seconds. This was fine because I felt it was always too slow anyway- DOUBLE BONUS-thing were looking up. That system is still working fine today, but the alleged new ballraces failed 18months later back in the UK, Oh Well!
part b tomorrow.