9th July 2016 – I finished the frame for the bathroom and even mounted the door. I don’t have enough plywood to finish the walls, but you can now clearly see the size of the bathroom. I used sheets of volkern (trespa) for the floor. Solid and waterproof, but extremely hard to drill a screw through.
Category: MS Op Hoop van Zegen - page 3
8th July 2016 – The wall for the bathroom is done. A frame, insulation and plywood. I started with the side wall, but it was getting late, so, this is a job for tomorrow. I had plenty of old rubbish hanging around, so the last hours of daylight were spent on cutting up the rubbish and putting it in bags.
6th July 2016 – Again a small amount of time spent aboard making the frame. I finished the wooden construction around the second window.
5th July 2016 – I only had some time free this evening, enough to do some small work on the framing around the windows. Since it was becoming late at night, I decided not to cut to much wood and wake up the neighbours.
3rd July 2016 – I spent most of the day at work. In the evening I managed to give the engine room a first coat of white paint. Looks much larger now.
While I couldn’t sleep I put four more sheets of plywood to the ceiling and some insulation. Halve of the ceiling is now done.
2nd July 2016 – The freshly welded parts were painted, also the parts where the primer was damaged. I cleaned the engine room, as far as possible, and painted the new metal on the inside. The problem with this engine room is the heat. It is so hot inside, you can only stay there for 15 minutes before having to take a break.
I emptied the bilges and hovered the dust away. It was a clean engine room in January and since the removal of the old wheelhouse in March, it became a mess. Rain, leaves, metal, etc… all entered the engine room. A next step will be to clean and check the engine.
26th June 2016 – Insulating the ship and mounting power cables. Before you realize it, the day has gone and you barely see any changes.
25th June 2016 – Last year, I salvaged a wheelhouse from a spits barge. It is a small wooden cabin that can fit on the ‘Op Hoop van Zegen’. It was stored in the Watergeus on several locations. It took me all morning to get the pieces. My father came to help. It is now temporary mounted on the roof of the front cabin.
24th June 2016 – I bought insulation. It is one of the most annoying jobs on a ship.
18th June 2016 – Time to continue on the engine room project. Today we welded the roof and the frame for the big skylight.
14th June 2016 – A clean job, this what I wanted for today. Not messing around with oil or any other dirt. I build a frame for one side and enjoyed doing it. It went surprisingly well and in no time, a frame for a wall appeared.
13th June 2016 – I just bought myself a new hoover. Much better then the previous one which is worn out, leaking and badly damaged. I spent 50 EURO and it did the job. If lasts longer, I’m a very happy man. All the sand is gone from the bilges. I have clean concrete again. I dropped some sheets on the ribs so I can walk around and sort out my tools before starting the big job of converting the front cabin.
12th June 2016 – The best decision was to put her alongside. I have descent power, no noisy generator and always light.
10th June 2016 – I cleaned the outside, put a cover of the engine room and had a few more hours of sleep… It seemed that more beer then fuel was used yesterday…
9th June 2016 – We welded some L-shape profiles on the deck and mounted the metal sheets I cleaned yesterday. I have now a square open box above the engine room. This means there is standing height in the engine room. Welding was a success until the generator decided to give up. The engine ran but no power came out. We heard some noise, but were unable to solve the issue.
I asked some power to the people living in the houses opposite my ship on the Houtkaai. Nobody wanted to help. They all had an excuse. I was disappointed in the mentality of human beings , and especially in those living there. They think because of livung in a house, they are worth more then you.
Since I have no money for a new generator, we decided to tow the ‘Op Hoop van Zegen’ along the Watergeus. A friend came with a small boat with an outboard and off we were. It took us half an hour and they had to open the bridge twice.
Once arrived, I opened a case of beer and we had a good drink and a laugh.
