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.
Category: Daily Life around the water - page 35
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 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.
13th May 2007 – Went visiting a spits barge for sale of a friend of mine. She had seen the boat before and planned to buy it. She made a temporary contract, both parties signed. She made a nice deal. I’m hoping her barge will be moored in front of me. It is a nicely maintained Plaquets spits from 1944.
10th May 2007 – I helped making up a contract for a friend. I’m always used in making contracts for selling a boat, it was a bit harder to make one for buying a boat that will become available in the next few months. An article on how to make contracts will follow in the next couple of weeks on Living Afloat.
7th April 2007 – I have the boat exactly one year. The biggest problem of house boat people with a partly converted boat is finishing it. They can only work in their free time and often then is the moment to visit friends, going on holiday, etc… So instead of working, I went to Ghent to take pictures of the barges and how they were converted. It was nearly a year since I last visited Ghent by camera. It was sad, really sad to see how barges are being converted into floating lighters. Everybody has his own taste and comfort often is the primer concern above the look of a ship.
In the afternoon I visited Philippe, a man who lives on a converted spits. I wanted some advice and he was kindly enough to take time to explain how he built his interior. He certainly loved his vessel and that’s the first rule for converting a boat!
And in the evening I went to a birthday party…
31st March 2007 – Instead of working on my own boat I visited some friends in Sluiskil and helped working on a boeieraak. It is a lovely boat. If I had some more money I would have bought her for using as a workshop. She has such a nice original looking line, a real museum piece!
I also bought a new rope for my boat, since a few of them had their best life…
25th January 2007 – This website moved to its new location: http://www.livingafloat.com. ‘Living Afloat’ will also become more then just a site on my boat. You’ll discover more in the future!
8th December 2006 – A small accident happened and I broke my wrist, so I don’t think many changes will happen in the next couple of weeks.
13th October 2006 – Early in the morning I helped my neighbour with his work to unload a cement barge. Two hours later we left for Ghent. Today, we would sail with my girlfriends spits to the shipyard in Sluiskil. We arrived at 10 o’clock, left at twelve and arrived at the yard around five. Till six o’clock the Varta was completely dry-docked. We had a drink…
12th October 2006 – It looked a nice day but being on my own, I couldn’t do much. I put away my stuff that I loaded yesterday evening. In the morning, I visited Andy’s ship. On my barge, I did some small inside repairs, such a fixing a heater, repairing the compass support and some more.
In the afternoon, I went to the scrapyard in Vlissingen. It’s sad to see so many ships being scrapped, some very nice barges that could have got another future then being cut up. I bought a blue board for my boat. I took it from the Laverna.
The Laverna was a sleepschip built in 1928 by Groot & van Vliet from Sikkeveer. She was 66,97 meters long and 8,119 meters width. The Laverna was motorized in 1955.
17th December 2005 – I joined Andy on a journey to London and had a chance to meet some people at the moorings in Brentford. Since I could not believe what I saw, I took so many pictures. So many different barges, tugs, lighters and other ships. It was interesting to see such a close community.
13th January 2005 – I had some time to take pictures of the fishing boats in the harbour of Ostend. Every time I walk here, things have changed…