All clear

The is something quite pleasant about starting the day here on Gannet.  Especially today.  The rubbish is cleared.  I awoke at 6:20 as usual and exited the boat through the rear door as usual to find a bright morning and the tide in.  Made even better by the fact I could walk across to the edge of the boat and stand and watch the ducks paddle by, something only made possible by the clear deck!  Yea!

Ta Da!

My meeting with Dave yesterday helped me understand the amount of work that took to do.  So well done guys for the clearing of the rubbish.  It took 2 men 2 weeks to clear.  But I understand they did ok with the scrap so I hope they found it worthwhile.  Sorry to hear about the boat.  Issues with the boat used to move the rubbish meant that the last few days needed the remaining rubbish to be removed by hand.

Dave has been busy on board too.  The old hatch at the front has been refurbished.  This is the new emergency exit for the front of the ship.  The hatch was old and rusty.  It was also all but impossible to open from the inside due to the weight. 

Dave refurbished it and added a counter weight on so the hatch now opens easily.

Inside the hatch Dave has added a bolt.  All the hatches will be secured from the inside.  Much easier than fiddling with the padlocks and of course a padlocked hatch is no good in an emergency if you are inside.

The doors have been cut into the chain buckets.  These will enable me to get to the cabling more easily.  Thats a big job to do.  The supplier of the cable stripper has let me down.  No answer of any emails or calls and no product.  Luckily done on PayPal who are proving to be next to useless in helping to resolve the matter. 

The pipework from the old lube tanks has been removed and the tanks capped off.  They still have oil in them.  That can be pumped out from the top deck.  This will leave the tanks in place as original features.  They just need to be painted something other than battleship grey!

Next steps for Dave are to get over his knee accident (hope you recover soon) and to start the refurbishment of the three hatches under the helipad.  Not a big job.  After that there are the main doors on the deck at the top of the gantry which are in a terrible state.   Inside no further work is needed until the portholes are procured (nearly 30 of them will be needed, so need to save the pennies).  The last job is then the floor on the chain buckets.

I will need to start pulling my finger out on the woodwork inside.  Months on and only one room completed.  I may get help!