14th June 2019 – I joined a friend to Amsterdam. He is interested in buying a ship and wanted some advice. We were early and I decided to walk around in the marine, looking for old tugs and barges. I found a few…
Author: frederic
12th June 2019 – Leaking windows is an issue on all boats. I replaced some old windows in 2007 on the Watergeus with new ones. They never leaked until last week. The reason: the silicone had started to disintegrate. I replaced the silicone on three windows and today, after some heavy rain they were dry. Operation succeeded.
The only windows I found so far that have never let me down were Rafa windows, if mounted in a metal frame. I’m not a shareholder of this company, since I always buy them second hand… This was also the advice I gave somebody a week ago when he wanted to buy a small yacht: go for aluminum windows instead of the glass in rubber!
10th June 2019 – I have been sitting inside the whole day because of the bad weather. Rain…. Let just hope that the whole summer won’t be like this. I really like to continue painting my two ships.
In between two showers I fixed three leaking windows on the Watergeus. Silicone doesn’t last forever…
Later in the evening, I went to the English neighbour and had a few beers, talking about boat conversions and why you should start doing such a project. Another neighbour joined a bit later.
7th June 2019 – I was doing small jobs, like working in the bedroom finishing the floor, putting new silicone in the kitchen windows and cleaning the front deck.
6th June 2019 – A spits barge of 30 meters was moored in the Coupure. The owner wanted to leave and to make preparations for going to England with the ship. We helped him moving to my ship. Since I’m painting the Watergeus, we decided to put the vessel alongside the neighbour who doesn’t live on her ship. It took us a few hours since the bridges closes between 16:30 and 17:30 for traffic.
3rd June 2019 – I had a quick view on the Arma and the progress of the paintwork. Looking good!
1st June 2019 – I went to the sleepbootdagen in Vianen. A lovely event, with all kind of tugs. You could visit the ships, there were practical tests for the skippers, etc…
27th May 2019 – A friend wants to buy a small boat for cruising around and having some fun. He found a special ship. It looks like a sleepvlet, but was mainly used as a multifunctional work boat. The inside is a bit smaller then expected, but easy to convert.
25th May 2019 – Probably the quickest Oostende voor Anker ever done. I visited some friends on their tjalk. When I left them I went aboard the Dockyard III. I want to follow some courses to learn to work with steam engines.
24th May 2019 – After the repairs done by my parents, we put back the wooden skylights on the roof of the back cabin. It was also the time to put a new Belgian flag.
23rd May 2019 – Weather was fine today, so I painted the engine room door, the entrance door and the hatch on deck in dark brown.
21st May 2019 – This evening I painted the den and deck on port side.
19th May 2019 – I just worked a little on the bedroom. I don’t think I ever spent such a long period over building a bedroom. It still isn’t finished since I could not cut the wood outside and inside, it makes to much dust.
18th May 2019 – I have been collecting all kinds of stuff in and around the Watergeus. They are elements I have plans for. The two solar panels have been there since 2015. We now put them on the wheelhouse roof and I hope to connect them soon.
The anchor in the grass came from the Arma. I was doubting to put her in my Museum aboard Tordino or to put her here on deck. She is now welded next to my letterbox. Since I didn’t know where to put her, I started cleaning the anchor early in the morning. Besides the name of the ship, the weight and the SI number, I also discovered a small logo.
The propeller on deck seems to be a bronze one like I expected. I did a quick clean. I have no exact plans yet, but she is likely to be used as a table.
During the day I removed as much rust as possible from the den on port side. It confronts me with the initial conversion of the Watergeus. When I started building the Watergeus, my plan was to be safe for 20 years. Last week I discovered a leak in the deck and today another one. It makes you think. Maybe a bit more of maintenance would have been good.
The last thing done in the evening were replacing the hinges on the entrance to the storage unit aboard. They had been broken for some time, but I wanted to put a porthole in that entrance. Therefore the hinges had to be replaced first.
17th May 2019 – Since January 2018 I have been working on this new website. I was moving the old content to his new system. The plan was to move everything in a few months. It took me over a year, a bit like boat planning…
Besides the conversion of the Watergeus, most content has moved and additions have been added. Comments, suggestions? Let me know!