Fast pace

Dave is now rapidly outpacing my ability to keep up with progress.  By last weekend all the portholes for restoration had been removed and ready for taking off to Craig.  Lots of work done.  The pipe work on the water tanks are now ready for connection to the pump.  The cabin portholes are now all cut out and the supports for hanging over the side to cut off the outer layer of the porthole covers are now complete and ready for Dave to start work there.

Phew, it wears me out just trying to keep up with his progress on the blog let alone the work.  Well done Dave!

He was kind enough to share some of his photos of his work.  See below with explanatory notes.


Before.  Note the square window closest to the camera.  This was used to replace the missing ones at the front.  It had that engine air vent right in front of it anyway.  Also all the rear portholes (the round one for example) are now gone too.

As you can see below the original front of the ship wheelhouse only had two windows in.  You can now see (later below) that all the slots have windows in (5 windows in the front in total).  Makes a huge difference to the view.

Dave on the scaffold.

The pipes below are lead.  They had to be cut into short chunks to make them liftable.

These two sea ports originally carried out waste water from various places.  One will now be taken off and closed up and the other will be the air vent for the sewage tanks (apparently, if you dont vent them you can get gas build up and a lot of smell).

You can see here below the first 4 round discs that cover the portholes up in the cabins. The first 4 from left to right have now been removed ready for the first restored ones to go back in.

All the large portholes from the living areas are now removed.  First 4 have been taken for restoration.

Pipes everywhere!

Cabin porthole spaces now cut out.  Getting close to the point where the new ones can be fitted.

These are the new windows in the front of the wheelhouse.

Hard to see but the two 6000 litre water tanks have now had their pipies fitted ready to be connected to the water pump and the filters.

Lead pipes still to be moved.  I feel my back aching already!

Portholes ready

Exciting times.  The remaining portholes are restored (big thanks Craig) and will be collected tomorrow.  Big bill too but they look superb and worth every penny.  Dave has worked hard this week and has cut out all 8 porthole holes and is building the hangers to allow him to cut the remaining bits off the outside.  Then the 8 can be fitted and thats the cabins done (well the first set at any rate).

The next set of large portholes is now ready to cart back to Craig to be restored.  Hopefully they will come apart without massive engineering work as per the last 4 of the smaller ones. 

Dave has fitted the pipework to the water tanks so I can start to put those in place now (Dave doing plumbing work, what jobs can't Dave do!) with the new water pump and start to lay piping.  Will be starting to measure the rooms for battening and get the wood on order.  Then my favorite job of all.

I get to buy more tools :->

I will need a saw to speed up the job.  Off to B&Q (or screw fix).

Bog standard

A brief visit to the boat at the weekend has shown that Dave has made fantastic progress.  All the holes for the cables are in place and ready to start lining (need grommets) and placing conduit.  The toilets are out and the wall between then taken down.  This has left a roughly square room which will be a lovely size for a toilet and vanity unit.  Its one of those decision you make which turned out to be a no brainer.

The toilets though were just the beginning.  The toilet sewage pipes ran down through the floor and into the cabin below before routing down to a seaport in the wardrobe.  Nice.  Who wouldn't want a sewage pipe in their wardrobe!

Dave has done a superb job at removing the pipies.   Turns out they were not steel or copper but lead.    If you can imagine trying to cut and remove a 2 meter long toilet sewage pipe attached to a ceiling made of thick lead then you can imagine the fin Dave had.  It all had to be cut into short sections as the sheer weight of the pipes were unbelievable.  Even trying to lift a 2ft section from the floor was no joke.

But as usual, Dave managed it and came out the other side uninjured.

All other pipes were removed and capped and the cabin ceilings are now all but clear of pipes.  The toilet floor will need concrete to level it but that should not be a big issue.

The pipe below is just one of the lead sink drains.

The main sewage outlet in the wardrobe now capped off.  Had to be done well as this is only just above the water line.  No leaks wanted here.  The sea ports on the other side will be taken off and welded over.  This will free up some space.  This one can stay as it will enable me later to fit a sewage outlet (much smaller) to enable us to pump out sewage from the ship to a boat.

There are a few minor bits and pieces for Dave to complete before we can start the rebuild but we are close.  The porthole fitting will start soon.  I am still waiting for the last 4 portholes which I hope to get in the next week.  We have decided to restore the main ones in the rooms that will be regularly inhabited and leave the rest.  Especially the ones in the bathroom as that will be a wet environment and would require lots and lots of cleaning.

I am still investigating the electrics and heating.  The pipes from the water tank (the thread) has been identified and a simple pipe will join the two water tanks up and enable us to us one pump to extract the water (hopefully).

More holes than swiss cheese

Progress is being made on board ship.    Dave has been working hard on cutting all the holes needed for all the pipe work and cabling.  All done.  The toilet wall has been removed and the toilets too.  The door has been walled up.  Dave is due to remove the piping (eeek) this week.

The front window on the wheel house has been removed and is ready for clean up. The spinny bit makes this a difficult job.   But I am sure it will look fine when Dave has finished.

The next stage is to liberate the last 4 portholes from Craig and we are ready to go.

The list of work is starting to shrink.  The cabin portholes need fitting which is a big job and the anodes still need to be fitted.  Then the cable room and the front cabin needs a lot of steel work to do.

I think Dave will appreciate the work inside as the weather starts to worsen.

7 out of 11

The first windows arrived this weekend.  Portholes actually (I must get more nautical).  They look fantastic.  The sand blasting cleaned every piece of paint from the base and they almost look golden.  The brass on the rest has been polished and looks new.

Well done Craig for your work.  I know you have a trickier job to do on the last 4 (machining out the screws) but I am sure they will come out as well as these ones.

Photos will follow.

Meanwhile Dave is busy cutting lots and lots of holes.  He has the unenviable job of removing the toilets and the toilet pipes from the cabins below.  I owe him a beer for that.  A single pipe carried all the output of 8 stew eating irishmen for 50 years.  That pipe has seen a lot of history and Dave is not keen on the job.  Who would be.

Measure up

The windows are looking good.  One more to do in the wheel house.  The spinning window needs removing and the surrounding area cleaned.  Not a big job.

Other activity.  Now the boat is basically stripped back it was time to start planning the holes.  Lots and lots and lots of holes.  So, equipped with drill and hole cutter I started on the first of perhaps 80 holes.  The hole cutter has a standard drill bit which sits within the bigger hole cutting blade.  After about 5 mins of hard work the hole cutter had not even reached the steel.  Damn.

Dave!

I marked out all the holes throughout the boat for the routes for the heating pipes and power.  Each room had its lights marked out and the wiring routes traced.  Even radiators are drawn on the walls.

One further change that was needed though.  The current layout has the two toilets and a single bathroom.  The trouble is the toilets are very very small.   This will now change.  The wall between the toilets will come down to make one toilet and a new toilet put into the bathroom.

Job done.  All laid out.  Just got to build it now.

Its heating up

My first meeting with Gary the heating guy on Saturday was very fruitful.  I now understand how it all fits together and it was refreshing to meet someone who was laid back about how things could work and not try to sell the whole end to end solution.

So it turns out that the build should be relatively straight forward.  We calculated that a boiler (system) of about 25 to 30 KW should suffice and a twin feed tank.  However,  I was surprised to hear of course that a fire with a back boiler should feed the second coil in the hot water tank but would could not be controlled.  What this means is that there is no way to switch off the back boiler when the hot water in the tank reaches temperature.  It will switch off the gas boiler but no secondary controls.  This is an interesting risk to have.  It means that the back boiler on the fire may ultimately boiler the hot water tank.   I will need to think through that.  I also find that hard to believe and will look into it.

The second coil in the tank is designed to be fed by solar power.  So in theory that would never be able to heat the tank to a dangerous temperature.    But someone must have cracked this problem.  I will look into it.

I can also put my radiators in zones with controllers to have them independently run.   I am yet to decide if this is useful.  I am not sure why I would only want to hear part of the ship and then let the rest freeze.

The rest of the day was spent sorting the deck.  Yawn.  Not much to tell there other than the amount of scrap metal is far more than I thought.

Garbage compacting

I have to admit that it has been quiet for a while in terms of boat activity.  There has been plenty going on, just not really by me.  Dave has progressed well and all the windows in the wheelhouse should be cleaned and put back in by this weekend when I go down.  The chain holes in the windlass are now covered as are all the old porthole holes. 

The only things for Dave to do then is to fit the portholes.  However, the porthole cleaning job is taking a long time.  They have been unable to get the screws out of some and they need to be machined out.  Until that happens they cannot clean 5 of them and so we are a little stuck.

Started on the deck clearance last time.  It was taking yonks to break down all the scrap into manageable chunks.  Luckily the neighbours had taken all the wood and so that has reduce the volume considerably.  Saturday's job will be to have it all broken down into moveable bits.  Boring work but necessary.

This will then leave us in a position that we can start to rebuild the wheelhouse.  Electrics, heating piping and so on.  Yea!  Finally some construction work.

Caption competition

This photo has come to light!

Captions for this photo please.  And please be nice!

Pipes done

Dave has informed me that the pipes are done!  The tanks have been isolated as per my design.  I will need to sort out a few more bits (minor) and then I can start to fit the water system. The first 20m of blue pipe will be here soon.

The portholes (the remaining 10) are off to be cleaned up.  Can't wait to see them when done.

Heating

Touched base with a heating engineer who happens to live on the marina.  He has just qualified (as I understand it) and has been trained to put LPG heating systems into boats.  Handy.  I had contacted Calor before but they were difficult and moaned a lot that they had not done boats before.

Will be setting up a meeting to go over the various ideas I have had.  Will keep you updated but handy to have someone who is both recommended and on site as it makes the whole process much simpler.

Portholes

The first time I have had 2 straight days on the ship for some time now.  Saturday started well with the opportunity to see the porthole we had sent for a clean up.  Good news is that it looks great even though it is only half done.  Bad news is that costs will go up due to the fact the main brass surround is cast and needs sand blasting to get the (VERY) thick paint off it. But when done it will look brill.

The only sad bit is that the top cover is steel.  So we will get that spray painted after sand blasting.  The second problem is that I think the portholes will look so amazing when done that I will need to get all of them restored.  Ouch.  There are around 20 to do on the main deck.   But once the refit is done I would never be able to go back and do them so I either do it now or never.

Completed the strip out of the fog horn units.  Hard going.  Lots of heavy transformers.  But job done and a complete tidy up of the ship.

It is now time to clear the rear deck/scrap yard.  That will be a weekend of breaking down materials to get them efficiently into a skip.

Fun ahead!

Water and yet more water

You must all be getting bored by now with my musings on water systems.  I was looking piping and connectors yesterday (MDPE blue piping) and wondered whether I would trust the water system fully to drink from the tap.  Hmmm.  There will always be some doubt in my mind.

Its ok to feed all bathroom taps etc from the tanks (filters and UV will make it nice and pure) but I am in two minds as to whether I will drive the kitchen tap direct from mains.  There are a few challenges here. The first is that the water system does not always have the required pressure and so kitchen tap may not always have water.  The second thought is that it means the boat is not quite self-sufficient.

Maybe a further drinking water purifier under the sink would make me feel better.  There are some good ones around.

The MDPE piping looks quite good.  You can buy it in continuous 50m lengths which means that I can run water around the boat without joints (no joints, less leaks).  So I may use quite a bit of the piping in the boat as I lay out longer water runs.

Then there is the issue of stagnation.  I have found some good tank cleaning products (for drinking water) that will sterilise the tank and the piping.  Simply dump in the fizzy tabs and leave it.  Flush through.  Job done.  If I do that regularly (every year) and follow advice which is to regularly drain an refill the tanks then I think I will be ok.

Finally, research shows that using copper piping for the sewage would be fine.  The reason it is not used these days is purely cost.  But if you have it then its fine.  Yea!

More tanks

Sunday was spent clearing the boat further and some cleaning.  May be boring but has to be done.  All UPS boxes are now dismantled and out of the wheel house.  Dave has fitted all the windows and its a different room with all the windows in.  Completely different.  The ship originally had a complete set in and without them is felt a little odd.

The pictures below now show the new windows in place.

Dave had also taken out the second bathroom door and welded a plate over.  Great job.

Now we have one big bathroom.  See the welded door on the left.  The centre dividing wall removed,  this room is now plenty big enough to put in a walk in shower and the rest of the normal bathroom furniture.  The shower going on the end as you look at the picture immediately below.

The view from the shower end.  The original issue was that the two original rooms were not individually big enough really to put in a shower in each and a sink.  

I did manage to do a survey of the tanks to make sure I could do what I needed.  Turns out there is a lot to work with in terms of piping.

There are two basic circuits connecting each tank.  One large pipe comes from the deck and runs around each tank as was used to fill each tank.  The second circuit pipe had a spur off it into each tank and a pipe that reached into each one to extract water.  This pipe then goes through to the engine room and the existing water pump.

This is good news as these pipes can be used and the more reuse the less additions I will need.

So the plan is

The first two tanks (at the rear of the ship) that will be fresh water will be disconnected from the two main circuit pipes (fill and empty pipe to give them crude names).   I will then use the existing tank draining valves at the bottom of the two tanks to connect to the water pump (s eventually as I will fit two).  There is a clear stand for the pump in the hull.  So that should be easy.  The only consideration may be the noise of the pump so I will need to look at that (test when I get the pump) as the tanks are below the cabins.

The other two tanks will reuse the piping in place.  The current exit pipe (currently used to feed the water pump in the engine room) will be used to pump out the grey water and macerated sewage.  This piping is in good condition and runs through to the engine room.  From here (taking out the old pump) I can put a three way valve.  This will let me direct the raw material out one side of the boat (the engine room has handy exit ports on both sides) or the other or direct it to a pipe that will have a coupling that will allow me to connect to a pump barge.  This will future proof the system.

The existing fresh water filler pipes will also remain.  These will only feed the sewage tanks and allow me to flush fresh water into the sewage tanks to clean the out.  That pipe is up in the rear deck. So it enables me to put in cleaning fluids etc without having to access the tanks directly.

Two challenges to look into.  The first is whether the copper piping will handle grey water in this way.  Sewage piping is normally plastic and there may be a reason for that.  Of this is the case then the piping will need to be replaced.

The second challenge is venting.  There will need to be a fresh air vent out to the sides of the boat to ensure that there are not airlocks and that the tanks can breathe.  I have been led to believe that build up of gases etc is not good and actually tanks smell less if they are able to breathe.  Getting an air pipe down there should not be a major problem.  There are two sounding pipes into those tanks which could be intercepted and fed out to fresh air.

Oven ready

The hot days have brought back memories of past suffering.  A 600 ton oven baking in 28 degree is not a place one would want to work for long periods.  Especially not while doing grinding and welding etc.  So commiserations to Dave who has reported in this morning that despite being cooked at gas mark 8 for 8 hours a day this week he has completed a load of work.

The windows are now in the wheel house!   Can't wait to get a look on Sunday and get some photos.  The bathroom is done (previously reported) and he has removed various bits remaining on ceilings etc. Dave has also started on the portholes in the windlass room (removed bolts etc) and will do the removal and plating when he returns from a well deserved holiday next week.  I'l  keep the oven warm for you Dave :->

The other news (yes, things are really starting to move again after some low levels of activity) is that we have found a company that will strip the gunk and paint from the portholes for £15 a go.  Wow.  Seems too good to be true so they will get one to prove themselves first before they get the rest.  But great price if this works out and no doubt lots of business will flow their way as I will have Dave strip all holes out, get them cleaned and then replaced.  It will look fantastic to have the brass or bronze (who knows whats under all that paint) portholes restored in that way.

This weekend is going to be about removing the last clutter (the other UPS systems) and emptying the fog horn boxes out to enable me to rehang them (yes, another re change of change of change of mind).  If that is completed I will head down to the water tanks and start to plan the pipework for them.   The water feed is to the back of the boat from the marina.  So I would like to pipe it down through the rear deck locker and into the boat that way.  However ...

There is one challenge that makes me nervous and involves the very stories that I have laughed at in the past.  The issue is that if I feed mains water in without protection then if there is a failure (tank sensor fails) then the tanks could fill and overflow and start to fill the hull.  Very funny when it happens to others.

The tanks will hold 6000 litres each so they will hold enough water to last for a long time.   But actually a regular flow would be better than fill and leave standing for months.  So a system that keeps the tanks quite low would be useful, say 3000 litres each (still a lot of water).  The idea of having them this full is they weight many tons (up to 12 if both full) which will help balance the boat.  So I think it would be good to have the water feed manual (always off) and requires positive action to have it feed the tanks but still have a cut off mechanism to prevent over filling in case I forget (I am getting on a bit you know).  That should do it.

The next challenge of course is to get the tanks (a pair) to work together.  Ideally it would be good to have two pump systems eventually, one from each tank, feeding the pipework.  This means upon a single pump failure we have a back up.  We then need to balance the tanks so that both tanks are filled and drained at the same rate (do not want 6 tons of water on one side of the centre of gravity).  Will need to think that through this weekend (always one more worry).  Would like to solve that without the need to worry about further transfer pumps etc.  But would rather not drill through tank walls to make them one tank.  That risks water moving to one tank tipping centre of gravity and pulling more water across etc.  So keeping the tanks both isolated and feeding and draining at the same rate will be interesting.  A dual feed (one from each tank) with non return values into a single pipe fed into a pair of pumps configured in parallel (but only one to start with) would probably do the job.  Then twin feeds into the tanks with independent ballcocks to bring both tanks to the same level should help.

Next job then, buy shed load of piping.  As with everything, that is not a simple choice either!

Water filters

The solution (one of them) has been located.

What I need is one of these

http://www.osmiowater.co.uk/reverse-osmosis-water-filter-purification-system/whole-house-water-filtration-systems/watts-whole-house-water-filtration-system.html

followed by one of these

http://www.osmiowater.co.uk/reverse-osmosis-water-filter-purification-system/whole-house-water-filtration-systems/pentek-uvbb-120-2-uv-whole-house-water-filter-system.html

That just leaves the pump.  I think I will need one of these

http://www.jabscoshop.com/aqua-major-pump-systems/aqm6-230-water-pressure-system-220240v.htm

The above thingy looks pretty much like the very old version of the one already in the ship.  So I may be onto something.  The pump would pull from the tanks and then push through the filters.

Finally, the sewage solution is likely to be one of these

https://www.drain-systems.co.uk/product/3133

or perhaps two (one for each tank).  But lets start with one for now.

All in all the whole set comes in around less than what I was looking at for a single water tank improvement.

The water system will be pushing through at mains pressure and good flow rate.

So that job is all but done.

Tanks 2

It looks like there may be easier ways to crack this nut.  The tanks themselves are not in bad condition. They would probably be ok but there is always the worry of dirty water issues.  With new piping in place what else could be done.

Well, it turns out that there is another solution.  Use the tanks as they are (check they do not leak) and then feed the tank output through a water treatment solution.  There seem to be a lot of these on the market using different mix and match technology.  A relatively simple filtration system to remove solids followed by an inline UV system to kill off any bags would do the job.  And at a fraction of the cost!

More to follow

Tanks

News from Dave today.  The wall in the bathroom has been removed and the door plated over.  Can't wait to get down and see his handy work.  I have been busy too.  Looking at the issue of water tanks again. 

You may recall these pictures of one of the tanks.  They are un the bottom of the hull accessible through a 1m square hatch in the lower deck floor.  Then the hole to get into the tank is quite tight.

The problem is that I would not trust water out of these tanks.  Not to drink anyway.  So I need to get them sorted.  It seems that while we can put a man on the moon and visit the deepest parts of the oceans there is no simple way to do this job.  I would have thought (but turns out I am wrong) that there would be some paint that would be able to go over the existing covering which is approved by WRAS (DWI) for potable water.  But no.  That would be too simple.

There are therefore 2 main options.  The first is an epoxy covering.  Either spray on or paint on.  But it will only work on metal.  The insides of the tanks would need to be sand blasted.  That would be like trying to sand blast the inside of a telephone box on its side while inside it and the box at the bottom of a coal mine.  Nightmare.  I have looked into this and it is doable but will be a horrific job.

The second approach would be to use a lining.  But again this is complicated as there are baffles in the tank (to stop the water sloshing about too badly).  These make the job difficult. 

I think the solution will be to remove the baffles to make the tanks able to be lined.  I will survey them when I am next down.   I suspect I will line two tanks for drinking water and then paint the others with some other covering that is chemically resistant for the waste tanks.

The final alternative would be to fit new tanks but they would need to be fitted on one of the decks and there are advantages to having that weight in the hull and not higher up as it makes the ship less likely to lean.

Windows

The first day of no rain for longer than I can remember it seems.  So it seemed fitting to spend the delayed first good day of spring catching up with the spring cleaning.  Lots of work has been completed by Dave over the last week or so.  The radio room and the battery room is now cleaned out and is ready to go.  The hatch covered up nicely too ensuring when the walls are done there is no risk of leakage.

The best news was that the first new window was fitted and it looks great.  Note the new window on the right of the wheel house.  Two further windows will be fitted in between the three existing ones.

Now that the majority of the cutting is done (ok, two more windows to go) there was a clean up to do.  The ship was cleared of junk to the deck and the two old UPS boxes (nobody wanted) were dismantled to lighten them enough to shift from the wheelhouse.

It did enable a bit of planning to be undertaken.  A few decisions resulted from some consultation with an interior designer.  The original idea to keep two bathrooms for two shower rooms will be changed to one shower room.  So Dave has been asked to take down the wall between the two existing rooms.  This will leave one entire room as a wet room for shower and the other for sinks etc.  We will also be sealing up the second door (Dave to remove and plate it over).

The second good idea to come forth (and one that was so obvious I kicked myself) was that there are 11 portholes in the windlass room which is totally unused and the cabins have none.  Hmmm.  What should we do.

Dave now has instructions to remove the portholes and fit them into one set of cabins (8 portholes).  This also means that the cabin portholes will be opening ones and they are an exact fit to what was removed in the first place from the cabins.  10.5 inch at the glass, 13 inch bolt to bolt (centre).

The ship is now close to clean enough to start the rebuild.  Some planning is required first of course. There is probably a few more days work on the clean out side (Dave has also got some minor holes to plug and bits to sort).   The layout of the ship is now decided.

Battery Room -> Utilities etc
Radio Room -> Lounge area
Mess -> Dining room
Galley -> New kitchen
two old bathrooms -> one big shower room
two toilets -> two toilets
Wheel House -> office area
Chain room -> large lounge area
Front locker -> master suite and ensuite
Cabins -> Cabins

The first job will be to prepare the cable run plans.  The decision to use radiators for heating means that the pipe runs will also need some careful planning.  Fire places will need to be fitted.  Two new fireplaces are planned.  One on the wheelhouse to warm that room when winter kicks in and one in the radio room.  This one is likely to have a back boiler as it is next to the utility room and can feed hot water tanks (if I get a dual feed tank).  The boiler (yet to be determined) can be put in the windlass room.  Two new chimneys will be needed therefore.  Not a problem for Dave.

The third fireplace will need to go in the dining room.  Further examination of the stove currently there shows that it is not going to survive.  With a new room in place the stove would look old and rusty and the cost of restoration would be prohibitive.    It also has a very small fire in comparison to its size.  So it will need to come out (not just yet).  Given that NOBODY seems to stock this make or model anymore parts will be near impossible to come by.

It was good to be back at the coal face again today.  I have plans that will hopefully speed things up over the summer.  But we will have to see.

Rainy days

Back on board for the first time in six weeks.  Dave was around and we had a look at the three portholes which he had now restored back to their brass (removed a ton of paint) and they look fantastic.  I now want him to take off the rest and do the same job on the others.  Dave the steel fabricator was jokingly titled Dave the window cleaner today but only briefly (sorry Dave).

I had my first near death experience today though.   The fog horn amplifiers that were on the wall of the radio room needed to be taken off.  I thought they were just circuit boards and so did not bother to check inside.  They weren't.  They were in fact about a ton and a half of transformer.  When I released the last nut from the 4 bolts holding the thing on the wall, nothing happened.  So I tried to lift it.  Nothing.  So I got the crow bar and gave it a shove and it face planted off the wall onto the floor with an enormous bang.  Gulp.  I tried to lift it and could not shift it.  Had I been in front of this as it went I would have been flattened.  Oh well.  On to the next three. 

The easiest way to remove the others was gravity.  A set of seat cushions on the floor and I watched them one by one swan dive from the wall like a crashing acrobat.  Job done.

Then cleaning off the remaining wall behind the amplifiers, stripping off the batons on the ceiling and the room was ready for Dave to clean off.  With only the battery room and the radio room left for Dave to tidy and then we are ready to start the rebuild (well, apart from the portholes which still need to be sourced and fitted).

Photos

The 4 fog horn amplifiers.  No idea how to shift them from here.  They cannot even be lifted by two people.

This is how it was.  The amplifiers mounted on the old ply wall

The back wall now cleaned

Spring Clean

This weekend was really just a spring clean.  Months of grinding by Dave left the place with a thin layer of cutting disc dust everywhere.  Out with the brooms and mops and clean clean clean.  Well, maybe just clean clean.

The batteries were removed from the battery room to somewhere safe.  It turns out that the batteries are worth money.  If you can get them to where they need to be.  And they are heavy.  Very heavy.  And lost of them.  So a job for another day.

All tools were cleared, old electrical equipment such as fuse boxes stored and the boat is now clear of junk.  The only rooms left to clear are now the radio room and the battery room.   The radio room has about a day's worth of clearing and a wall to remove.  Then Dave to cut off the the cable racks and weld up the hatch.

With those two rooms and the windows in the wheel house done the only remaining immediate work to do will be to put in all the new portholes into the rest of the ship.  Gulp.  ££££££

Window wonder

Dave has been a busy guy.  The wheel house has now had three of the unused square portholes (well windows really) removed and plated in.  These will now be put on the front facing wall of the wheel house restoring it to its original layout.

Photos to come.

All clear ahead

More clearing work this week.  The cabins are now totally cleared of all wiring, lights and switches, carpets etc.  The bathrooms and toilets are suitably stripped down and now there is probably only one more set of grinding for Dave to do to clean off the remaining bits and pieces.

The rest of the time was spent emptying out half a ton of rubbish that had accumulated around the ship while taking everything apart.    The rear deck is now wall to wall rubbish ( I think and 4 skips worth at least).

The stove had dried nicely so it was time to test it.  This time with coal.  It worked a treat.  No smoke, no leaks, no burning paint.  The coal used was smokeless.  The downside was that although it got hot, it did not get as hot as wood.  So even when I tried the kettle on the stove it did not boil.  I think that although it burned coal for over 6 hours (just one small load) it will take many days of heating to get it to a usable temperature for cooking etc.

Finally got the mess (room with stove) cleaned and put some furniture back in.  Now there is a place to eat and drink which is clean and tidy.  And now warm.

Filler thriller

More progress today (but no photos).  The boat had slowly been filling with junk after the strip out work so spent a lot of time removing it to the rear deck.  All electrics now out apart from the bathrooms.

The stove needed some work so the cracks in the top were filled with fireproof cement, then sprayed with black fireproof paint (after rubbing down the old paint).

So not a lot of jobs done but the boat is now significantly tidier.  When Dave has finished the cutting the boat can get a thorough clean.

Fingers crossed that next week the fire can be lit smoke free.  Just got to get some coal first!

No smoke without fire. Or burning paint

Dave had done another good job fitting the chimney although the bolts were not long enough for the flange.  So the chimney will be welded on which will seal it better.   So all that remained was to light the fire.  A few issues occurred.  The first was that the fire itself is very very small so all wood has to be cut into 4 or 5 inch lumps.  It is in fact designed for coal (which I will get in future). The second issue was that the fire is not entirely sealed and the plate on the top leaks smoke until it heats up.  The crack (join) in the plates needs to be cemented (I have some).  But the main issue was that it looks like the paint on the top plate is either old or not heat proof.  So it just bubbled and smoke fumes.  Yuk.  It took 20 mins to clear the boat of smoke and get it safe to stay in.

So work to do on the fire.

The new chimney.

Bolts not quite long enough so will be welded.

oops.  Smoke!

Dinky little fire.  What was interesting was that with even a short burn of a small amount of wood the stove got hot and stayed warm for quite a long time.

Having played for a while (fun but not really work) the second set of cabins was started.  Managed to clear all of the lights, cables and trunking.  Also managed to get the carpets up on one room.  Dusty nightmare.

What was interesting was that even on a cold day the cabins were not cold, especially when there was a light (the work lights) in there.  I am now wondering how much insulation is required down there.

Next weekend will be spent completing the cabins (carpets, final wall fittings).

With most of Dave's work done it was time to find some new jobs.  The hatch in the radio room appears to be wooden and so it needs to be taken out and replaced.  The second job was the wheelhouse port holes.  For some reason the front of the ship side is missing 3.  But there are two identical portholes behind the engine room ait vents almost useless (4/5ths blocked).  So those will be removed as will the only square hole on the rear (which overlooks the foghorn supports!).  That will mean the ship will have a full set on the front and the rear one will be replaced with a simple round porthole.

That should keep Dave busy for a while.  Then we will need to think of something really tricky!

Good to be back

One job to achieve today.  The chimney.  Sadly there was no way for this to be done.  The plate upon which the chimney is mounted is held on with quite a few bolts and both the nuts (very large) and blots were rusted.  Even I managed to remove them (which I would not have managed) the bolts would be too far gone to reuse for the chimney.  So another job for Dave.

Talking of which.  Wow.  The amount of cleaning work Dave has done is tremendous.  The walls and ceilings all cleaned of bits of metal, cables, cable trays etc.  It was actually quite odd and the place looked bigger.  So big thanks once more to Dave for his hard work over XMAS.  Its the first time I have been on for a while and it really felt that we had made a leap forward.

So attention was turned to below the main deck and started to strip out one side of the cabins electrical gumpf.  Cables, conduit, lights, switches and plugs nearly all removed and the porthole covers removed from all the cabins.

The flooring (old lino) was removed from the upstairs mess.  Leaving that room now all but ready for rebuild (some minor bits to do).

The other set of cabins will be tackled next weekend.  The cabin flooring needs to be (carefully) removed so as not to damage the bunks and then all the cabins will be ready for insulation.

Which brings me on to my next subject.  Ian and Sue from Onward Mariner have also been busy bees over XMAS and have decided that spray on insulation is the way to go.  They have spoken to three companies and they are looking to do the job over summer (we expect).  The companies are all prepared to do as I had suggested, which is that if they do both boats at once we could get a good discount.  But that gives me (and Ian) a summer target for that stage.  I will need to do some careful calculations to look at the cost (it is truly eye watering) as it would be cheaper to carpet the ship in luxury thick wool carpet than insulate it.  But it is worth doing properly and these guys would sort it all out (soup to nuts as they say).

Hoping to keep the momentum up again this year and really get things moving.  Lots to do so no point dithering.

Pictures from today

I could not remember the maker of the stove so I photographed it today.  Sadly my recollection of it being Jubilee was right which is a problem because I can find no reference to it on the web at all.

The seat in the wheel house was removed.  It was attached to a wall so no way to save it if the insulation is to be applied in here.

Dave has now all but removed the cooking area (which was full of concrete) metal frame.   Good enough for the concrete floor to be put on.

The whole of the entrance corridor has been cleaned of all surplus metal and boxes.  Good job.

Flooring in the mess now dug up.  Need to think what to do with flooring.  Dont really want to concrete so maybe insulation and then wood flooring will do the job.

All porthole covers removed from one side of the cabins.

A huge amount of wiring and conduit removed.

A friend raised a good point the other day.  How will I get the furniture in.  Good point.  Looks like anything not flat pack (sofas) etc will not go through the narrow ship doors.  So some custom furniture is likely to be needed.  

Stove

Happy New Year all!

This year I hope to make some real progress.  Still lots to achieve but looking back over the last year I can see how much has already been done.  The bulk of the work is still to do.

But my first job of the year is going to be to fit the chimney and try out the stove.  May as well do this now as if it works ok we will have a warm room and route to ridding myself of tons of wood.

The main jobs to complete are

1) Complete the strip out:

• Carpets from the cabins (rotting)
• The porthole wood coverings
• All the electrics from below deck and remaining parts of the ship
• The cabling up to and in the light itself
• The plumbing (pipes)
• The main feed wires from the generator room

2) There is still some structural bits to sort

• The sea intake values need to be sealed
• The anodes still to fit (in progress)
• Acquire and fit portholes
• The hatch in radio room needs to be examined (what is it) and removed/replaced

3) Then there is some restoration to do

• The portholes all need to have their paint removed
• Some doors need restoration to make the look better and work smoothly

4) Then some engineering work is required

• Plan the electrics (systems)
• Plan the plumbing (piping requirements and tanks)
• Plan the heating (boiler location, radiators and pipe runs)

5) Then the rebuild can start

• Plan the wiring runs
• Plan the plumbing pipe runs
• Fit the new wall woodwork
• Fit the cable and piping (where necessary) conduits (and cover for now)
• Prepare all walls, ceilings and hull for insulation

6) Insulate ship (huge job to do here)

Once the ship is insulated it will then be a fit out

7) Fit tanks, new ballast pumps and systems

8) Run all cables and piping

9) Fit ply walling (where appropriate)

10) Fit the plasterboard (where appropriate)

11) Fit electrics and lighting

12) Fit heating boiler and systems

13) Fit bathrooms and toilets

14) Fit kitchen

15) Decorate and furnish

17)  There will be then some further engineering work to do

• Fit out front bedroom and ensuite (will do this last as it has separate access for now)
• Cut door from chain room to front bedroom
• Fit out new floors in chain room
• Convert chain room to usable space

So a lot of work to do still.  Then start to worry about the outside and the repaint.

Busy times ahead.

XMAS recap

Merry Christmas to all my followers.

And to Clive who kindly sent me a card he had produced using Gannet Photo.

Thanks Clive and Merry Christmas to you.

Lesson in concrete

I suppose it is obvious when you think about it but concrete is hard stuff.  In some ways.

Last week Dave kindly removed the metal lid off the floor area in the kitchen where the cooker was housed.  Removing the concrete around that metal was awkward but what we found beneath just raises one question.  Why?  Why on earth did they need to fill the metal surround beneath in more concrete.  Not the weaker stuff they had skimmed the kitchen floor with but full on nasty hard stuff.

The issue in this case was that the concrete was within a full metal surround.  The last time I worked on the concrete I found it broke up easily provided that it had somewhere to go.  Essentially, concrete is excellent under compression but not under tension.  Trying to break this stuff was hard because it had nowhere to go.  It meant that the first hour was spent turning a few square inches to dust.  But as a gap appeared the rest came away easily.    Job done now and Dave can now cut the remainder out.

The radio room cabling is now all but done.  The fog horn amplifiers now just need removing from the wall allowing me to strip back the final woodwork.  

Dave did clean down the wheel house very well.  That room is now clear for a rebuild.  Still in two minds on whether to put back some of the missing portholes in that room.  They are square and I suspect that it will be very hard to find any matching ones.  Pipes now shifted from the kitchen (bilge and sea water) and from the mess.