20th July 2007 – I spent some time today in further designing my roof and measuring. I have changed some more details, so I can keep all the hatches and still have a skylight!
Author: frederic - page 202
14h July 2007 – Decided to do some new ideas for the boat. I visited Antwerp. I was very disappointed in finding boats. So little boats were left there. Two years ago, there were plenty of boats, now I could easily count them on one hand.
When returning home, I stopped at the scrap yard in Ghent. There is, what used to be a nice, spits barge. It was moored in Bruges before. I don’t believe there will be any hope left in saving the boat.
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.
12th July 2007 – It started as a sunny day, so I decided to threat the whole deck with oil to protect it from rust and to make loose the rust there is. By the noon clouds were coming, so I quit. Furthermore, most of the anchor winch is cleaned. Some pieces already move again!
11th July 2007 – A very rainy day, I cleaned a bit of the anchor winch and treated some rust with diesel on the deck
10th July 2007 – Yesterday I bought four air vents for engine rooms. Two of them are my engine room, the two other ones for the new kitchen in the cargo hold. One of them was already cleaned and could be placed straight away on the engine room pipe, wasn’t it from the fact the tube was 0.5cm to wide. Looked easy to solve, but with bashing on the pipe It didn’t go as fluently as I thought. In the end the pipe became smaller and the air vent fitted nicely on it. The whole neighbourhood was awake!
I moved my front anchor and welded it to the side of the boat. It takes less space, looks nicer and now it can be used as a decoration piece.
8th July 2007 – Since I’m considering putting back the hatches, I’m trying to find out a solution. With only one spare hatch and a strip of metal I started simulating my future roof. I took around 30 pictures and I am now trying to figure out how it would be best. I believe some people must have thought I’m crazy taking pictures of a single hatch.
Rinus came in the afternoon to have a drink. He gave me some tips on how to ameliorate my boat. It is nice to have ideas and suggestions from experienced people. I don’t know many people like him having the knowledge and sharing it for free!
6th July 2007 – My first day of a week aboard the Watergeus. I loaded a old computer and a few hardware components on board, such as a writer, printer, etc… Since these components take less space, the back accommodation looks bigger again.
In the late afternoon, the yard came again for making the final price on the roof. I still hadn’t made up my mind whether to put the hatches back or to create big platform.
24th June 2007 – Since the front of the boat had been cleaned last week, we built the floor in that area.
17th June 2007 – We moved the wood from the back till the front. While moving we sorted everything out, what is bad is for burning, the rest for reusing as the final layer on the floor. It always looks nice when the old freight floor can been reused.
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.
15th June 2007 – My neighbour still has plans on moving around with his boat from time to time. Therefore he wanted his gearbox to be repaired. I helped him moving from the boat into a truck. For such a small gearbox, that thing was really heavy.
9th June 2007 – In the morning I continued on the anchor winch, removing piece by piece to clean it properly. I have rewelded the handle for the breaks. It broke while trying to loosen the break a few months ago.
In the afternoon we went shopping and I bought a small cupboard for downstairs in the living area. When getting back to the boat, I discovered, and this has happened multiple times, that it was to big to fit downstairs. So it is now standing in the wheelhouse…
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.
8th June 2007 – In the late afternoon the last of five people came to make a price for the metal roof. I’m very convinced of the ideas of the last person. I believe with what I’ve learned, I’ll make nice detailed drawing of what I want.
A friend of mine came to have a drink. She noticed my idea of removing the hatches and found it a shame, so I’ve decided to put the hatches back after the roof has been placed.
