Category: Daily Life around the water - page 35

Nomade back from the yard

13th July 2007 – The boat from two moorings further then mine came back from their five yearly dry-dock and repair session. Like every boat, they also need to have a new hull survey every five years. I drank a glass of wine and we talked. It feels so good to see an old spits barge still sailing, and what is most important, the boat still looks original, but is a very nice house boat.

Visiting the Libra in Terneuzen

16th June 2007 – In the morning I visited my friends in Sluiskil. One of them is shortening a Kempenaar to 26 meters. It is starting to look ok, but their is still a lot of work.

In the afternoon I continued working on the floor, while my parents helped removing the tar from the wooden plates.

There was a big sport event in Bruges that day. A part of the triathlon passed along my boat, so I didn’t have to walk to see it.

 

Sluiskil – A quick visit

9th July 2007 – It hadn’t been that long since I went to Sluiskil, but long enough to go back again! This small place can’t let me go. I discovered the small fishing vessel (Z.501 Tac Horne) had been scrapped in Ghent. Furthermore another spits is at the yard for it’s five years dry-dock and survey experience, as I call it these days.

Tine’s boat

13th May 2007 – Went visiting a spits barge for sale of a friend of mine. She had seen the boat before and planned to buy it. She made a temporary contract, both parties signed. She made a nice deal. I’m hoping her barge will be moored in front of me. It is a nicely maintained Plaquets spits from 1944.

Contract

10th May 2007 – I helped making up a contract for a friend. I’m always used in making contracts for selling a boat, it was a bit harder to make one for buying a boat that will become available in the next few months. An article on how to make contracts will follow in the next couple of weeks on Living Afloat.

Walking in Ghent

7th April 2007 – I have the boat exactly one year. The biggest problem of house boat people with a partly converted boat is finishing it. They can only work in their free time and often then is the moment to visit friends, going on holiday, etc… So instead of working, I went to Ghent to take pictures of the barges and how they were converted. It was nearly a year since I last visited Ghent by camera. It was sad, really sad to see how barges are being converted into floating lighters. Everybody has his own taste and comfort often is the primer concern above the look of a ship.

In the afternoon I visited Philippe, a man who lives on a converted spits. I wanted some advice and he was kindly enough to take time to explain how he built his interior. He certainly loved his vessel and that’s the first rule for converting a boat!

And in the evening I went to a birthday party…

Boeieraak Rival

31st March 2007 – Instead of working on my own boat I visited some friends in Sluiskil and helped working on a boeieraak. It is a lovely boat. If I had some more money I would have bought her for using as a workshop. She has such a nice original looking line, a real museum piece!

I also bought a new rope for my boat, since a few of them had their best life…

Moving the Varta to the yard

13th October 2006 – Early in the morning I helped my neighbour with his work to unload a cement barge. Two hours later we left for Ghent. Today, we would sail with my girlfriends spits to the shipyard in Sluiskil. We arrived at 10 o’clock, left at twelve and arrived at the yard around five. Till six o’clock the Varta was completely dry-docked. We had a drink…

Visiting a scrapyard

12th October 2006 – It looked a nice day but being on my own, I couldn’t do much. I put away my stuff that I loaded yesterday evening. In the morning, I visited Andy’s ship. On my barge, I did some small inside repairs, such a fixing a heater, repairing the compass support and some more.

In the afternoon, I went to the scrapyard in Vlissingen. It’s sad to see so many ships being scrapped, some very nice barges that could have got another future then being cut up. I bought a blue board for my boat. I took it from the Laverna.

The Laverna was a sleepschip built in 1928 by Groot & van Vliet from Sikkeveer. She was 66,97 meters long and 8,119 meters width. The Laverna was motorized in 1955.