29th June 2015 – So finally working a whole day on the Aquarel. I did manage to build most of the bar. The main issue was the heat. It was so hot aboard I couldn’t work for more then one hour before holding a break. I lost most of the time putting the hatch in front of the bar. I’m reusing a part of an old wooden hatch in front of the bar. I’m not sure whether I will keep it that way. It is dark and hard to recognize a hatch. I’ll have night sleep before making my final decision.
Category: MS Aquarel - page 6
28th June 2015 – I opened the floor where the bar will be built. part of that floor is becoming fixed so I cleaned the bilges and oiled them. they are looking much better when they are greasy. I was surprised to see how much dust has been collected since I last cleaned them, nearly a year ago…
17th May 2015 – Still sorting out my stuff. I’m surprised to see how many things I have, but once they are sorted out, it seems acceptable. My barge can only handle 165 tons of cargo. If I continue like I have been doing the last two years, I’ll get close to her maximum capacity. I did manage to clean the front deck. Only one engine and two big sheets of metal are left. The other items are now stored aboard the ship.
13th May 2015 – I started building shelves in my workspace area. I’m storing everything in boxes and old pieces of furniture. It works me that way, but I’m loosing to much space. Second reason why I want to build them is so I can finish one area in my work space. One wall had been insulated, I still had to finish the other one. It takes more time then expected.
While taking a break, I decided to add the second wheel to my anchor winch. It looks much better now.
7th May 2015 – After a hard month, I could finally think again on the conversion of the Aquarel. I was no longer interested in any boat. Now I’ve just draw some plans for the work area. I need a sink, more shelving and a descent floor. Just the idea I’m planning again gives me satisfaction!
6th May 2015 – A friend of mine is selling his boat and my stuff needs to go. Last week, I managed to put some in the Aquarel, but now I can’t enter the boat. I have some shelving in the work area. It was time to clean them and resort my stuff. I was surprised to see how many drill bits I found back. I will have to make my way through all the items I have.
24th April 2015 – The stairs to the hold are not finished. A lot of welding is needed and I don’t want to continue with the woodwork till they are finished. Most of the metal was put in place but another day of welding is needed.
I’ve also started with the bar in the hold. In my exhibition space, I would like to have a small bar or a kitchen.
21st April 2015 – It is taking me to long to finish the bathroom. There are to many things where my only answer is “I don’t know yet”. I tried finishing the wall between the bath and the rest of the bathroom till I ran out of wood. While mounting the fittings for the bath and shower tap, I know the bathroom is getting there.
A major job will be running all the pipes for cold and warm water.
6th April 2015 – A third day of working on the Aquarel is starting to be hard. I wished I had slept a little more… Anyway, work wasn’t waiting and I started. Pulling some more wires through the bathroom and starting to strip the wires for the sockets, switches and connectors.
In the afternoon, I looked how to build the bar. I finished the wall behind the bar and added some more wires.
5th April 2015 – I had some more power cable left on the Watergeus. It took some time to pull a wire from the front end to the back end of the ship. At least I now have decent 220v power in the engine room.
4th April 2015 – Working a bit on the engine, dismantling water and fuel fittings. One of the new deadlines is to have the engine running or replaced by the beginning of the summer. The engine room is one of the few areas I left untouched since I own the ship.
In the afternoon, my parents came to help me moving boxes and cables in my workshop. I need to pull wires from the fusebox to the hold, but a lot of stuff stands in the way. There was still an area underneath the front accommodation that was filled by the previous owner. It took us some time to get to it. Anchors, cables, old wooden doors, wooden hatches and some more stuff was stored. Nice things, but most of them useless. It was impressive to see how the ship was built, where the square side of the ship slowly turns into the curved bow. I found back traces from the bow rudder.
After the big cleanup, we started pulling the wires. I ran out of cable, so the perfect excuse to go home and stop working for today.
30th March 2015 – The idea is to finish all the woodwork by the end of the week. So I started yesterday finishing one wall, doing half the frames around the door and chatting with my neighbour. So I didn’t do as much as planned…
29th March 2015 – I will have some help next weekend. My parents are coming to paint the bathroom. When I look at the size of the room, 3 meters long and 1.5 meters wide, it looks small. Once you are in that room and you realize how much should be done…
23rd March 2015 – I don’t know the English word for it. In Dutch it is called zwierbomen or zwaaibomen. They are metal bars to the side of the ship. Skippers used them for getting to land where mooring their ship wasn’t an option. These bars had a hinch on the den or the deck over the hold.
I was looking for a set of zwaaibomen for some time, but couldn’t find any. A friend called me a few days ago he fond two sets in an old warehouse. They were cleaning out the building and I could buy them cheaply. It took us some time to get them out. I find my ship is fully packed with stuff, but that warehouse is a through nightmare… Four metal bars each of them 6.5m long, it wasn’t easy to transport them to the Watergeus. They will make it one day to the Aquarel, but not in the near future.
22nd March 2015 – My plan for the day: Putting the bath in the bathroom and finishing the walls around it. At the end of the evening, the bath was in place but no walls were build. Leveling a bath wasn’t that easy. Some parts of the bathroom were painted in white, but it still looks like a small area. I have to think on how to give it a bigger look and feel.
Covering an issue doesn’t help. It does not go away. On one of the small leaks I put a sheet of multiplex, so I wouldn’t see it anymore. Every time I looked at it, it distracted me. I had to move this sheet to continue with the second part of the bathroom and there it was again, a puddle of a greenish kind of product. When you look at it, it might be Anti-freeze or fresh oil. Another thing on my list is to clean the engine room. Maybe I discover the cause in the bilges of that area.