23rd November 2013 – There are so many little leaks in the boat. Most of them were nicely hidden by the previous owners. It took me a whole day to remove and close two portholes and two leaks in the old support of the towing mast – sleepmast -.
I decided to close the old outlet of the toilet. Most of the work was done yesterday. Today I welded a plate and bracket over the old pipe.
20th November 2013 – The wheelhouse became a storage area, so does the hold and the back accommodation. After a few months of working, it is time to sort out my stuff!
17th November 2013 – I mainly worked on the floor, removing some of the old planks and welding the frame for the new ones. It is a slow job, but it must be done. After a whole day of working, you barely see any difference.
The supports I’m making are also called kattensporen in Dutch. They prevent the ship from creating a ‘kattenrug’. This means the bottom of the ships starts bending or creating a specific shape.
11th November 2013 – The windows are closed, so is the old entrance in the den. At the end of the evening I mounted the boxes for the navigation lights. The Aquarel starts to look good again!
10th November 2013 – In between all my other jobs aboard, I continued with the floor. It was raining, so no welding outside today. This is a major problem when winter time arrives: the weather!
9th November 2013 – Another job that needs doing is closing the windows on the boat. I don’t like big windows in the hull and it is far from original. I have four windows in the hull. They have to go.
3rd November 2013 – Welding the supports for the floor and the side does take more time then expected. I’m running out of clamps to hold everything in position. By the end of the evening I made a concept of the floor.
While driving home I was changing plans slightly again. I hope to alter it tomorrow evening.
2nd November 2013 – I bought some wood to temporary close some of the ribs. It is easier walking round and less chance to getting hurt!
The wooden frames are pine wood. To prevent any wood worm from entering the wood, I painted it. Since I already welded some side supports, I can now use them as a temporary table…
1st November 2013 – The plan is to build a new floor in the cargo hold by the end of the year. I want to be able to walk freely around. Step one was to remove the old flooring. Seems easy, just cut the planks and lift them out. Sadly enough, when they doubled the bottom of the ship, bolts were mounted through the original metal hull into that wood. This a method I’ve never seen before.
27th October 2013 – I have been working nearly continuously in Beernem on the boat. Today, I went to take some pictures at the yacht harbour in Bruges.
26th October 2013 – After making an entrance through the back accommodation, I noticed some of the cabin metal was bent. By welding some supports, I made it stronger again. Where possible I straightened the metal as well. In the afternoon I painted the new supports and some of the older metal.
The wheelhouse got another coat of special paint for the roof. This paint is silicon based. Therefore water can’t enter the wood. The wheelhouse itself got her second coat of oil, looking shiny again!
23rd October 2013 – We cut up the remaining wooden hatches and put them in my car. In the afternoon, an entrance was made to walk from the back accommodation into the hold. This little change makes a big difference. You can now walk and run through the boat from one side to the other without having to go outside.
22nd October 2013 – While I was welding, my mother sanded down the wheelhouse. It is still a nice weather, so we must take the most out of it.
21st October 2013 – I finalized welding the roof. The boat should be dry now if it rains. It gives me a good feeling to know you are safe for the winter. A metal roof is one of the milestones in the conversion of the Aquarel. Later that evening I continued closing holes in the roof of the back accommodation, a job I will continue with tomorrow when it is daylight again.
20th October 2013 – There are still some holes in the roof of the back accommodation. Around a mast support, the previous owners used filler.
I removed the support, filler and chipped away most of the rust. I put a new plate on top and welded the roof. it wasn’t easy, since every few centimeters, I burned another hole.