Friday 14 March 2014

Chain room progress

Several hours of moving all my tools and stuff out of the chain room freed up the space for Dave to do further cutting.

The metal work you see below with the orange lines is the area to be cut out.  This will leave a flatter space to put the flooring over.  Railings are staying temporarily for safety as it will be a while before we get the floor in



You can just see the cuts here where it has been taken down.   Still a small ridge left to provide some rigidity.



Thursday 13 March 2014

Rubbish 2

The rubbish is being eaten away slowly.  Loaded onto a small boat tied up either alongside Gannet or by the pontoon.



Starting to look cleared.  Ish.  A day or so more work and it will be done.



All the rubble sacks are gone


You can see the deck on this side two.


I am very much looking forward to having a clean space again.  While none of the rubbish was domestic, the look of living in a rubbish tip was depressing.  It slowly built up over a long time.

The two guys doing the work have been relentless.  Organised by Dave (thanks again Dave) I have done a good deal where they get to recover some of the fees from the steel scrap.  The copper remains mine.  With the money I pay plus the value of the steel everyone wins.  People have suggested that I sort the scrap out but there is a lot of it and in the end I would have to pay a lot to get it moved and I suspect that while I may overall end up in profit from the exercise that would rely upon me working on it and not doing my day job.  Two days away from my day job and I lose more money than the whole thing put together.

The copper is still to be recycled so that should cover the upfront money I paid to clear the rest and a bit more besides.




Wednesday 12 March 2014

Rubbish removal

The rubbish removal process has begun!  Yea!   Dave has managed to organise a team and boats etc to start the process.  The rear deck has been seen for the first time in a long time.  Lots still to remove but the process has definitely begun.

Tuesday 11 March 2014

Hatches cut out, portholes in

Two new portholes now fitted to the kitchen outer wall.  One more gap to fill.  If the porthole deal goes through on Monday I will have spares to complete the set.



The two fitted (the right hand one of the two you can clearly see below) are opening ones.  The original set did not open and I thought it was important to have some air flow into the kitchen if possible.


Again, another photo showing what is not there.  There was a big metal cupboard at the bottom of the stairs which was no longer needed.  All gone now opening up that space at the bottom of the stairs to the chain room.



The new master bedroom now without poles.  You may also note on the right a new hatchway that goes through to the front bow space.  There is an identical one on the other side of the bed space.  I have to say that it looks great and the photos do not do it justice.



Same hatch way on the left hand side.


View in from the hatchway.  I will leave the stairs in place and put in a skylight (porthole into the hatch at the top.  It can serve as another emergency exit.  Or I may utilise the stairs in the bedroom for the same purpose and remove these stairs.


Dave has cut the door out on the old coal bunker so we can fit a proper door to the ensuite.


Its hard now to capture the size of what will be the master bedroom.


View from the wall with the hatches on (the bed wall).  The stairs down into the hull will remain as there is a huge storage space underneath.  This shot is looking left.  The wall showing on the left is hull, the wall behind the pole is the coal bunker (ensuite to be).  There is a big space to the left between the coal bunker and the hull.


View to the right of the bunker through the door into the chain room.


Still more to do though.  Dave is now cutting the remaining floor down in the chain room and removing chain guides that are no longer needed.

Final news, I have just bought a cable stripper to remove the copper from the cable.  The price of copper is much higher if you strip it yourself and I have got a very cost effective drill powered stripper that will take the cover off cable up to 35mm.  Hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of fun to be had there I suspect.




Wednesday 5 March 2014

Poles away

News just in.  Expert advice has indicated that the support poles in the front locker are no longer needed.  These supported the deck.  Clearly with tons of chain bearing down on the chain runners on deck there would have been considerable forces pushing down especially in 10m + waves in the Irish sea.  Now, Gannets gentle existence in the Medway or indeed in any inland waterways where she will spend the remainder of her life, there is simply no need for this reinforcement.

The poles have gone and the room is now fully open plan.

Work has started on cutting the hatches into the bow room of the ship.  Portholes are being fitted into the kitchen as we speak.

Finally, news in on some portholes for sale.  Possibly as many as 20.  This would sort the front bedroom and the remaining 8 missing cabins' portholes.  That would just leave the chain room to sort.

Gulp, the expense!

Tuesday 4 March 2014

New floor

Lots going on aboard Gannet this week.  Managed to get a day on her myself last Friday and got plenty of photos of the work in progress.  

Dave has been busy building the new floor extension in the chain room.  The idea is that the door through to the master bedroom (in photo below covered in plastic) needed to be more central due to the lube tank.  That meant that there was no walkway chain room side of the door just a plunge to a grizzly death at the bottom of the chain bucket.  The new floor will sort that and provide the landing for the stairs down.





Now most of the heavy cutting is done it is time to sort the rubbish and recycle the scrap.  Dave has agreed to project manage the exercise and get some trusted labour in to help.  Basically there will be skips put along side and the rubbish will go in them.  Then the scrap will be offloaded in further scrap bins.  Finally the bilge diesel water mix in the barrels will be pumped out and barrels removed.  We will also get the paraffin and lube tanks pumped out in the chain room enabling us to use them for other things.  Not least of which it help removes a fire hazard.




The old coal bunker is now clear.  Perfect size for the ensuite.  Removed the planks already.  There is an existing air vent out onto deck which will help with ventilation and the extractor fan etc that will be needed.




The problem of the poles is still to be solved.  The two middle poles will really need to be removed to fit the bed in.  Advice is being sought.  We may need to strengthen the beam above but that should be easy to do.





The final task in that front explosives locker was to decide what to do with the room (under the hatch below) at the bow of the ship.  It is a very nice little space (see photos below) with the anchor 'tubes' which connect the deck with the outer hull at the bow and which was where the anchor chains ran down over the big metal 'runners' (apologies for lack of nautical terms) on deck.







The condition of the hull here is amazing.  The pain looks mint condition and like it was painted only yesterday.  The idea would be to remove the ladder, put a skylight on the hatch above (probably a porthole rather than skylight) and use the space for storage.  The question was how to get in there.  I am investigating (again advice being sought) cutting two hatch ways through from the master bedroom on either side of the bed.







More pictures of the new floor.  Now boarded for safety




Still more to do but lots of exciting progress.