Sit

An interesting day and one that started fraught with worry.  When a boat sits on flat mud for the first time it makes itself a seat.  Like when you put your foot in the sand by the edge of the sea and the sand under your foot pulls away and your foot sinks.  The same happens for boats.  So it is vital that Gannet sat in the right place while she created her groove.  Once created, every time the tide comes in and she floats she will settle back down in the same position each outgoing tide.

The issue is to keep a 600 ton in position while it creates its groove.  The plan was that if she continued to shift about then they would need to us eyes welded onto the hull and use wire or chain to keep here in position.  This was worrying because in order to weld something to the outside of the hull there is a strong risk that you will set something on fire inside.

The issue is that the pylons that need the eyes to hold the boat against are right by the cabins.  Which meant that there was a risk of fire in the cabins or we would have to rip out interior.  Luckily the boat seems to be holding position with the ropes.  Fingers crossed it stays that way.

The picture above gives some idea of the scale.  At the moment there is no gangway (the one on the left goes to the boat next door.  To board the Gannet at the moment at low tide (seen here) you need to climb a ladder about 2 stories to the deck level.

The day's activities (as there was no welding to do) involved getting power and water onto the ship.  With water I could clean the heads (oh, my, god!) but under all that mess were two perfectly clean and good toilets.  Spent most of the day cleaning the boat (removing old rubbish), removing the pumps from the pump out and getting the temporary wiring and lamps in place.  We now have light in the engine room (photos next time), the cable room and the main living areas.

The down side of the day was that there tanks that were pumped out probably still have some way to go.  So a new plan is required to get the diesel tanks cleaned out.  This will not be a fun task.  My hands stink of diesel today and that was just from a brief visit to the engine room.