Fast pace

Dave is now rapidly outpacing my ability to keep up with progress.  By last weekend all the portholes for restoration had been removed and ready for taking off to Craig.  Lots of work done.  The pipe work on the water tanks are now ready for connection to the pump.  The cabin portholes are now all cut out and the supports for hanging over the side to cut off the outer layer of the porthole covers are now complete and ready for Dave to start work there.

Phew, it wears me out just trying to keep up with his progress on the blog let alone the work.  Well done Dave!

He was kind enough to share some of his photos of his work.  See below with explanatory notes.


Before.  Note the square window closest to the camera.  This was used to replace the missing ones at the front.  It had that engine air vent right in front of it anyway.  Also all the rear portholes (the round one for example) are now gone too.

As you can see below the original front of the ship wheelhouse only had two windows in.  You can now see (later below) that all the slots have windows in (5 windows in the front in total).  Makes a huge difference to the view.

Dave on the scaffold.

The pipes below are lead.  They had to be cut into short chunks to make them liftable.

These two sea ports originally carried out waste water from various places.  One will now be taken off and closed up and the other will be the air vent for the sewage tanks (apparently, if you dont vent them you can get gas build up and a lot of smell).

You can see here below the first 4 round discs that cover the portholes up in the cabins. The first 4 from left to right have now been removed ready for the first restored ones to go back in.

All the large portholes from the living areas are now removed.  First 4 have been taken for restoration.

Pipes everywhere!

Cabin porthole spaces now cut out.  Getting close to the point where the new ones can be fitted.

These are the new windows in the front of the wheelhouse.

Hard to see but the two 6000 litre water tanks have now had their pipies fitted ready to be connected to the water pump and the filters.

Lead pipes still to be moved.  I feel my back aching already!

Portholes ready

Exciting times.  The remaining portholes are restored (big thanks Craig) and will be collected tomorrow.  Big bill too but they look superb and worth every penny.  Dave has worked hard this week and has cut out all 8 porthole holes and is building the hangers to allow him to cut the remaining bits off the outside.  Then the 8 can be fitted and thats the cabins done (well the first set at any rate).

The next set of large portholes is now ready to cart back to Craig to be restored.  Hopefully they will come apart without massive engineering work as per the last 4 of the smaller ones. 

Dave has fitted the pipework to the water tanks so I can start to put those in place now (Dave doing plumbing work, what jobs can't Dave do!) with the new water pump and start to lay piping.  Will be starting to measure the rooms for battening and get the wood on order.  Then my favorite job of all.

I get to buy more tools :->

I will need a saw to speed up the job.  Off to B&Q (or screw fix).

Bog standard

A brief visit to the boat at the weekend has shown that Dave has made fantastic progress.  All the holes for the cables are in place and ready to start lining (need grommets) and placing conduit.  The toilets are out and the wall between then taken down.  This has left a roughly square room which will be a lovely size for a toilet and vanity unit.  Its one of those decision you make which turned out to be a no brainer.

The toilets though were just the beginning.  The toilet sewage pipes ran down through the floor and into the cabin below before routing down to a seaport in the wardrobe.  Nice.  Who wouldn't want a sewage pipe in their wardrobe!

Dave has done a superb job at removing the pipies.   Turns out they were not steel or copper but lead.    If you can imagine trying to cut and remove a 2 meter long toilet sewage pipe attached to a ceiling made of thick lead then you can imagine the fin Dave had.  It all had to be cut into short sections as the sheer weight of the pipes were unbelievable.  Even trying to lift a 2ft section from the floor was no joke.

But as usual, Dave managed it and came out the other side uninjured.

All other pipes were removed and capped and the cabin ceilings are now all but clear of pipes.  The toilet floor will need concrete to level it but that should not be a big issue.

The pipe below is just one of the lead sink drains.

The main sewage outlet in the wardrobe now capped off.  Had to be done well as this is only just above the water line.  No leaks wanted here.  The sea ports on the other side will be taken off and welded over.  This will free up some space.  This one can stay as it will enable me later to fit a sewage outlet (much smaller) to enable us to pump out sewage from the ship to a boat.

There are a few minor bits and pieces for Dave to complete before we can start the rebuild but we are close.  The porthole fitting will start soon.  I am still waiting for the last 4 portholes which I hope to get in the next week.  We have decided to restore the main ones in the rooms that will be regularly inhabited and leave the rest.  Especially the ones in the bathroom as that will be a wet environment and would require lots and lots of cleaning.

I am still investigating the electrics and heating.  The pipes from the water tank (the thread) has been identified and a simple pipe will join the two water tanks up and enable us to us one pump to extract the water (hopefully).

More holes than swiss cheese

Progress is being made on board ship.    Dave has been working hard on cutting all the holes needed for all the pipe work and cabling.  All done.  The toilet wall has been removed and the toilets too.  The door has been walled up.  Dave is due to remove the piping (eeek) this week.

The front window on the wheel house has been removed and is ready for clean up. The spinny bit makes this a difficult job.   But I am sure it will look fine when Dave has finished.

The next stage is to liberate the last 4 portholes from Craig and we are ready to go.

The list of work is starting to shrink.  The cabin portholes need fitting which is a big job and the anodes still need to be fitted.  Then the cable room and the front cabin needs a lot of steel work to do.

I think Dave will appreciate the work inside as the weather starts to worsen.