27th May 2019 – A friend wants to buy a small boat for cruising around and having some fun. He found a special ship. It looks like a sleepvlet, but was mainly used as a multifunctional work boat. The inside is a bit smaller then expected, but easy to convert.
25th May 2019 – Probably the quickest Oostende voor Anker ever done. I visited some friends on their tjalk. When I left them I went aboard the Dockyard III. I want to follow some courses to learn to work with steam engines.
24th May 2019 – After the repairs done by my parents, we put back the wooden skylights on the roof of the back cabin. It was also the time to put a new Belgian flag.
23rd May 2019 – Weather was fine today, so I painted the engine room door, the entrance door and the hatch on deck in dark brown.
21st May 2019 – I went to have a look in Beernem. There is still a lot of oil in the water.
21st May 2019 – This evening I painted the den and deck on port side.
19th May 2019 – I just worked a little on the bedroom. I don’t think I ever spent such a long period over building a bedroom. It still isn’t finished since I could not cut the wood outside and inside, it makes to much dust.
18th May 2019 – I have been collecting all kinds of stuff in and around the Watergeus. They are elements I have plans for. The two solar panels have been there since 2015. We now put them on the wheelhouse roof and I hope to connect them soon.
The anchor in the grass came from the Arma. I was doubting to put her in my Museum aboard Tordino or to put her here on deck. She is now welded next to my letterbox. Since I didn’t know where to put her, I started cleaning the anchor early in the morning. Besides the name of the ship, the weight and the SI number, I also discovered a small logo.
The propeller on deck seems to be a bronze one like I expected. I did a quick clean. I have no exact plans yet, but she is likely to be used as a table.
During the day I removed as much rust as possible from the den on port side. It confronts me with the initial conversion of the Watergeus. When I started building the Watergeus, my plan was to be safe for 20 years. Last week I discovered a leak in the deck and today another one. It makes you think. Maybe a bit more of maintenance would have been good.
The last thing done in the evening were replacing the hinges on the entrance to the storage unit aboard. They had been broken for some time, but I wanted to put a porthole in that entrance. Therefore the hinges had to be replaced first.
17th May 2019 – I went to see the boat. I didn’t take any pictures but the inside and outside were dramatic. Several parts of the floor were rotten, the interior was falling apart and there is some humidity on the inside. I don’t think there is anything I can salvage from the ship. It has to be a total rebuilt.
These are the pictures I took last year…
17th May 2019 – Since January 2018 I have been working on this new website. I was moving the old content to his new system. The plan was to move everything in a few months. It took me over a year, a bit like boat planning…
Besides the conversion of the Watergeus, most content has moved and additions have been added. Comments, suggestions? Let me know!
16th May 2019 – They called me at lunch time. There was a big oil spill in the canal near Tordino and asked me to check if it came from my ship. I was pretty sure my ship was fine, but decided to go there anyway. I was at the other side of the country, so it took me hours to get there.
When I arrived, we noticed the oil was coming from anther mooring behind the Keersluis.
14th May 2019 – I’m planning on buying another ship. There are more reasons not to buy her then to go ahead with this project. A short note on her history will make you understand why I’m having interests in this ship. Besides she was once owned by a good friend, it is a small ship with a rich history. She still looks traditional and might become a historical ship in no time. Her interior is rotten and the engine had has the best of its life. There is no hull survey and she is full of water….
If you read the earlier posts on this weblog, they all talk about Carpe Diem. This is the name she carried the longest period. I have known the ship now for eight years.
13th May 2019 – I removed the remaining supports from the box where the generator used to be stored. The deck is now smooth again like it used to be.
And the result: 
12th May 2019 – One of the bigger issues is water that stays on the roof of the bathroom. The metal shows severe pitting. I cleaned it today by removing the paint and rust. I put a high quality paint on op top of it to give it some protection. I also made some cuttings for the water to drain from the roof.
10th May 2019 – Another local group of people came to visit Tordino. It seems people are finding their way to Museumschip Tordino!
