22nd July 2009 – I need a few inspection hatches in my floor. I build one in the living room to see how easily it will go. It took me two hours, but it is looking nice and the bilges were still dry!
21st July 2009 – Still very tired, after Cactus festival, six days of sailing and yesterday evening a convert from Frank Boeien, I had to start working again. So I worked on the entrance of the ship and the box that will hide the pipes for the central heating.
14 – 19th July 2009 – I spent six days sailing aboard an IJselaak, the Vrouwe Janinge on the Grevelingen in Zeeland. It was a very learning full time. I was very surprised to see and feel how hard it is to work in charter sailing. The first three days we sailed three hour trips with passengers, the other three days we had a German group of young people aboard. Two different experiences, both very interesting to me. I learned a lot and not only about sailing.
12th July 2009 – As a yearly tradition, only for one day this year, I went to the Cactus festival. Sadly enough Joss Stone didn’t come, but it didn’t spoil the evening!
11th July 2009 – Imagine, you need to grain a hole in the metal side of an area with furniture. You can’t stand on the toilet since it is only holding by it’s water pipe, the hole has to be made above your head and you have less then 70cm of space around you.
Well it takes nearly three hours to make such a hole with the size of 10 by 10cm. When finished I was burned on hands, face and arms. But at least a hole was made and the air vent could be mounted!
Later that day I finished one wall in the bathroom and gave up working for today.
10th July 2009 – Some more wood was delivered today so we could finish the bathroom, living room and entrance of the ship. What is left will be used for the spare room in the front of the ship.
9th July 2009 – It was getting time again to clean and sort out my tools. I might be working on a big project in the near future so I made some time this evening.
6th June 2009 – In the early morning I helped a neighbour removing his rudder. It will be nicely restored. She is the only ship in Bruges left with a wooden rudder and one of the few that has an owner that takes care of it!
During the day I insulated the front cabin and in the late afternoon I started creating a hole in the front deck to enter the bow rudder for the ship. In February I took it of from the Julie (the spits barge with wooden rudder) and now it’s time to put it on my ship.
5th July 2009 – Another storage system has been built, I have one more left to build in the engine room. I can now nicely sort out my thins of paint, tools, spare parts for the engine, portholes and other stuff.
4th July 2009 – Finished the wood work in the kitchen today. Another big job has been done. Nice to see quick progress.
In the evening I went taking some pictures of barges seen from the waterline…
A yacht built on the hull of a wooden trawler from 1956
29th June 2009 – I would love to have my deck again in blank metal. Whenever I have some time I remove paint and rust. To make sure no new rust is coming, I try to protect my deck with some oil. After building some more storage space in the engine room, I spent most of the evening chipping rust.
28th June 2009 – Still tired from a nice day yesterday, back to reality, the hard work aboard of my own ship. I finished the bar that divides the living room from the kitchen.
27th June 2009 – We left at 8:45 in the morning. Besides a lot of food, the skipper, owner and me, we also took plenty of water with us in case we needed filling the engine. We slowly sailed towards the first lock. This was the only one we had to wait some time. My parents came to say hello and wish us a good trip.
The next lock and bridges to get out of Bruges all went smooth and quickly. Between two bridges we had some trouble loosing control of the steering but the skipper quickly discovered the cause. The regulator was slightly bent on the control panel.
Since there were a lot of mussels the ship sailed slowly, even on full power. Every now and then we had to slow down because a red light was warning us on the temperature of the engine.
We arrived in Harelbeke, having sailed most of the time myself, at 7 o’clock in the evening. It was a nice trip with nice weather aboard a nice ship! Sadly it wasn’t going that quick…
More pictures: Click here
26th June 2009 – In the afternoon I went helping to close the floor in the hold, together with some people from the organization that owns the Arma.
Later that day the skipper came to make a little test drive with the ship. After a few minutes the engine started to overheat. We sailed back with the bow thruster and moored the ship again on his mooring. It was clear, we wouldn’t sail tomorrow to Harelbeke.
Since they really wanted to leave, I called a friend to come and help sorting out the problems. By the end of the evening, all covered in oil and grease, the engine was running. Air had come in the cooling system.
It was good to know we would leave Bruges tomorrow, but it wouldn’t be on full speed. On one year time, the hull was completely grown with mussels and weed.
25th June 2009 – I finished the frame for box on the port side of te living room. In that box all wires are hidden, but still accessible if a new cable should be added.
