Month: September 2008

Watergeus – Kitchen

29th September 2008 – We build the kitchen and finished the outside wall of the bathroom, mounting the door and side panels. The hold looks more and more finished. It also becomes harder to walk around with stuff.

Watergeus – Painting and fuses

28th September 2008 – Doing several smaller items. While my mother painted the office space, I worked on the electricity. We mounted the fuses in the fusebox.

My mother painted the office space in light green. It will certainly need another coat of paint tomorrow.

Watergeus – Anti damp foil

27th September 2008 – In the morning, I went shopping for paint and some other ‘finishing touch items’ as you can call them. We then finished the roof in the office space, so my mother could sand the whole room.

In the afternoon, we finished the anti damp cover on the insulation, hiding the remaining pieces of ‘original looking cargo hold’.

Watergeus – Electricity in office space

22nd September 2008 – Today we started placing the electricity. Not as quick as I thought, but by the end of the day we made some progress.

We wasted most time in going to the shop, making holes for the switches and sockets, figuring out how to put the cables behind the walls without removing the panels, etc… In the end we just removed the panels again.

By the end of they day most of the electricity has been finished in the office space.

Watergeus – Old navigation lights

20th September 2008 – Today I went to a second hand market in Ghent. I didn’t find anything suitable or affordable for my ship. In the evening I went looking for some old navigation lights aboard a spits barge. The old skipper sells a lot of stuff. So I left the ship with two bronze navigation lights and two bronze search lights.

Watergeus – Buying t&g

18th September 2008 – Went looking for some more decorative wood. Again a lot of money has gone into a small amount of stuff.

While making a hole for the cables through the front cabin, I heard some water running, quicker and quicker. My first thought was one of the plastic tanks below was leaking, so I continued making the hole. Since it didn’t stop and I couldn’t see any thing I went looking for a pocket light. I had stored all my stuff at the entrance of the forepeak, so I took me a few minutes to get to it. When I started looking around, I saw a lot of water coming from a rivet. When I looked closer, the water came from above the rivet, on the watertight compartment. A bit higher was an old abandoned water tank, I presumed was empty. It was leaking a lot. I took a bucket, to hold underneath it, but it quickly filled.

Since I have the ship I have always known water in the bilges, not realizing the cause. Now I did. By the end of the evening the tank was empty, and so were my bilges. I continued hovering till it was dry, filling over 30 buckets!

So again, the support for the cables isn’t finished. Tomorrow is the last day, so I have to be sure it is finished.

I also ordered my new batteries and charger. This time I’ll go for something decent.

Watergeus – Open Monumentendag

14th September 2008 – Today, the Watergeus was open the whole day. In total, including yesterday, 364 people visited the ship. Where I had intention of making groups of five people, I twice 10 people aboard, 10 in the back accommodation and the in the hold. My father stopped them at the entrance of the ship, while I was explaining the ship to a group. The other group could walk freely in and around the ship.

By the end of the day, not the ship but I was a wreck! I don’t think I’ll do much the coming week!

Watergeus – Open Monumentendag

13th September 2008 – 63 people visited the ship in the afternoon, not bad for a simple partly converted house boat! Double the number of people who had subscribed. I was glad to tell my story several times, but by the end of the evening I couldn’t speak anymore, having trouble with my voice.