Month: May 2011

Hornblower – Repairing the side

28th May 2011 – On each side of the ship, there are two big holes. They must have been there for years, but I want it to be solved. One one side we cut out the plate, and we will weld a new one in.

In the afternoon I painted the hull. She is looking much nicer now! She was painted with black, white, yellow and red paint.

Only a little bit of each colour was left. Now everything is red, the same red as the Escapade and Frantsis used to have. The Watergeus is also painted in red. It is a good primer that has shown its quality before.

Hornblower – Bollards

27th May 2011 – Today the two old bollards were welded to the ship. One of them was broke before I bought her, the second one came loose during the tow. Both of them are welded on a solid plate.

Escapade – One more trip

26th May 2011 – They will take the Escapade out of the water on Friday. Since I need to work, and can’t have a half day off, I moved the boat this evening. Everything was against me: time, wind, and current! If only I could have done it yesterday…

Since both my neighbour, mother and girlfriend were helping, I didn’t take any pictures.

Her last journey under own power

Sold with clean and dry bilges!

 

Escapade – Sold!

24th May 2011 – The bakdekkruiser has been sold. It is hard to maintain one boat by an individual. Having two boats is become more difficult, three is a disaster. She was one of my favorite ships, but I had no time to finish her.

Since I’m working on the Snik in Sluiskil, it was becoming to expensive to work on two projects at the same time, while still maintaining the Watergeus.

I hope the new owner will convert her and put her back in original condition. I wish him good luck with his new ship!

The short period I was the owner of the Escapade, I learned a lot on bakdekkruisers, yachts and diesel engines. People having questions on bakdekkruisers can always contact me. I have a large collection of information, books and pictures!

Hornblower – Cleaning

22nd May 2011 – I only did one job today, cleaning the living room bilges. All the wood is gone, so I started removing rust, grease, insulation and dust. After 8 hours of this work, you are broken and thirsty. It was a good result to see clean bilges again.

Hornblower – Thunder and rain

21st May 2011 – I decided to sleep aboard and left Bruges in the late evening. I woke up in the middle of the night, heavy lightning and thunder made it impossible for me to sleep. Since it was raining heavily, I switched on the lights and went looking for possible leaks. Beside the hole in the deck, it looked reasonable dry.

Hornblower – Cleaning the bilges

16th May 2011 – A major job aboard the Hornblower is cleaning the bilges. I firstly removed the wood by driving a few times to some people with a wood fire. The rest, I took to my parents in Ostend. It is sad you need to remove the wood, but it is rotten and badly damaged during the last conversion.

The bilges haven’t been cleaned for years!

Everything you remove makes you think. It had been put there for a reason, people spent money on it. If it had been better maintained, it could have lasted much longer! Now I need to remove everything, clean the metal again, etc…

I’m pretty much convinced the ship has been doubled, I found to many tiny holes in the original bottom of the ship.

Hornblower – Breaking down the sleeping room and living area

15th May 2011 – Besides breaking stuff down, I made a nice sitting room from the wheelhouse by breaking down, what else did you expect, the storage unit.

It is important, when you work on a ship not to break down to much at the same time. You have to much rubbish and you have no place to live anymore. Breaking down goes much quicker then building it as well! When I’m tired, I can relax in the wheelhouse, drink a beer and look at the yard on the other side of the dock…

Watergeus – Painting the deck

11th May 2011 – Underneath the hatches is the metal roof. It had never been painted. Since I need some metal for the Hornblower, I cleaned a big area, removed the rust and put a coat of primer. The hatches are bolted to the den, but all the bolts are rusted. I might buy some rvs bolts in the near future! It will take less time to open them.