1st January 2019 – During this journey, I’m staying on a Luxe motor at Tower Bridge mooring. There are around 30 barges on that mooring, most of them ships built in Holland. There are a few rare and very nice examples of older ship types that we barely see in Holland anymore.
31st December 2018 – We visited Canary Wharf, the docks around it and the Dockland Museum. I recommend you to visit this museum if you are in London. Count on a few hours to visit the building with all the levels. I only went for the second floor.
30th December 2019 – Thanks to a friend, I was able to visit the Hermitage moorings in London. A small set of nice vessels are moored near Tower Bridge. Again, most of them were Dutch barges with a few exceptions. When walking around, it was like walking in a Dutch historical harbour.
29th December 2018 – I arrived earlyy in the morning a Gravesend. A friend has his barge in a Marina together with several other ships. Most of them are Dutch barges. In the corner of the dock was a bigger ship, the Albatros. It used to be a Luxe Motor in her early days. She was later converted for fishing at sea and became a houseboat through my friend Andy in London. After he passed away, I lost track on most of his ships.
11th November 2018 – Slightly ill, I decided to go Den Helder. It is one of the last nautical events this year. I was a bit disappointing, since I have the feeling it has become more of a antique shop then about people who are working with historical boats.
In the afternoon, there was a lecture about the European Certificate for barges. Very interesting.
On the way back, I knew it was game over. I was becoming more badly ill…
13th October 2018 – Some more sleep would have been better, but I didn’t want to miss the Terra Nova Dag in Maassluis.
Besides being aboard on Hollands nicest Luxe motor, I went to visit the tugs Hudson and Furie. Maassluis is a small harbour with several tugs open to the public. In the old town hall is a museum about the Dutch towage history. I was short in time, but it was very interesting to see. Everything is run by volunteers and this makes it even more valuable.
We had a good meal aboard the Terra Nova before heading home. A nice and successful day!
Pictures of both tugs will follow when I’m back from the yard.
7th October 2018 – The Watergeus is not the only ship that needs to get to the yard. My neighbour in Beernem tried getting to the yard at the beginning of September, but had some cooling issues with the engine.
We had a second look today, but with no success. At least we know how the pumps work, but we didn’t manage to get enough air into the bottles. 
If only we could turn this factory into a maritime museum. So many levels, so much space….
3rd October 2018 – Thinking on how I will rebuild my interior of the Watergeus, in case I have to break it down at the yard, I started looking at some pictures. I’m always thinking the wost possible scenario, so I can relax later if it would go right…
While searching for pictures, I couldn’t resist sharing a nice interior of the Neeltje Jantje:
29th September 2018 – I went to the Lekkodagen in Wijk-bij-Duurstede, a small event in a small town. It is probably one of the best events I went to this year. Free parking next to the event, free toilets, making a trip on a steamtug for only 5 EURO, ….
The steamtug was Jan de Sterke, being handled by a friendly crew. I had the chance of standing in the engine room during the trip.
Some people were selling old equipment and spare parts on their deck. I found stuf for the Watergeus and Tordino.
It was a great day!
15th September 2018 – Two years ago, I was in Ihlow to pick up a friend’s barge. There was a museum, but it wasn’t open.
Today I drove over 1200km to visit the museum. It was worth it! A big collection of models, documents and objects. It was a mixture of inland shipping, passenger ships, tugs and Navy vessels. I spent more then two hours watching most of it. I should go back to see it a second time.
There were no boats at the yard, so I decided to call the new owner of the Aquarel to see if they were around in Amsterdam. I had to drive there to get back anyway….
4th September 2018 – I’ve started on Tordino, taping the frames. Later in the evening, I drove to Aalter to help with my neighbours. A diver came to check the cooling unit under the water line of the ship. Everything was clean; a bit of a disappointment. Now we have no idea what might cause the engine not to cool down. The only thing left might be a broken pump….
To be continued, somewhere next week.
3rd September 2018 – The plan was to finish Tordino for Open Monumentendag. The object I got last weekend were mounted. Behind some paintings I put tape to make sure they wouldn’t loose if another idiot of a skipper is running with waves behind his ship.
Later that evening I went back to my neighbour who was still in Aalter. We tried some more, but there is still no water coming out of the engine. We decided: no water = no sailing. We will call a diver for tomorrow.
2nd September 2018: We moved Tordino closer to land in the early morning. Therefore we had to move the two other barges a bit more ot the front.
Till lunchtime, we managed to disassemble the whole cooling system. It was cleaned and put back together. There was sadly enough, still no water coming out of the engine.
A small trial journey was done, and the engine was still fine. We left Beernem for Aalter, but after two kilometers, the engine started steaming. The next ten kilometers, I was busy filling the engine with water trying to cool her down…
1st September 2018 – Today was a busy day. I left Bruges in the early morning heading for Holland. The old skipper of Tordino invited me. I had an old box aboard the ship that belonged to his grandfather. It is now back in the family. He gave me plenty of photos and objects of Tordino and his previous ship. Valuable items for my museum. Objects with a (hi)story!
On the way back, I stopped in Vreeswijk at the museum shipyard. There I met another skipper of Tordino.
In the evening, my neighbours tried moving their boat. It was stuck in the mud and had no cooling. With Tordino, we managed to get her of the mooring and put her alongside another neighbour. The rest of the evening was spent working on the engine.
30rd August 2018 – My neighbour in Beernem needs to go to drydock for its periodical maintenance. He has a beautiful air started Klockner Deutz engine. We tired starting the engine, but it didn’t show much life. An air pipe was broken. We managed to get the auxiliary engine started and the bottle filled with air.
We give it another go tomorrow evening.
When I was back aboard Tordino, I built that Library cabinet I got on Monday.