Yesterday I was reminded of just how fraught with danger boating in general can be. It has started getting cold and we have had some rain meaning the pontoons other surfaces have become, not treacherous, but dangerous for the unwary or overly confident. It doesn’t take long once you own a boat that you become familiar with the layout of where to put your feet and where the hand holds are. I dance around the wheelhouse and engine room like a bizarre cross between a mountain goat and lemur (ok maybe a sloth but you get the point) while others struggle like a newborn baby giraffe and it is just that familiarity speeds your movements. And this can be dangerous.

A friend of mine whom I haven’t seen for some 10+ years is moored at the same marina with a lovely boat. We had a good catch up over a cuppa and then parted making plans for beer and mutual assistance on our respective water borne conveyances should it ever be needed. I pooled down to the barge yesterday morning with the aim of removing more flooring and possibly tracing some of the electric to have them safely isolated. Despite my ear defenders and blaring music to keep me company I heard someone shouting for me outside and it turns out my friend had slipped going into the main cabin down what are very steep steps in the damp conditions. He had tried to hold himself on one arm but the sudden slip dislocated his shoulder and he collapsed in a very uncomfortable heap on the floor.

I sat with him for about an hour until the ambulance arrived just to make sure he didn’t slip into shock and was ok but it was obvious he was in excruciating pain. He put a brave face on it and after 2 ambulances and some fairly ‘A’ Level faffing he walked out holding his arm and onto the pontoon and was carted away to the Bristol Royal Infirmary. I picked him up about 8 hours later at about 2300hrs and he was a changed man. He sang the praises of the BRI (which is good to know) and was only in minor discomfort.

Getting off a boat with a dislocated shoulder is difficult and ultimately very painful

Loaded onto the stretcher to be wheeled back to the waiting ambulance

What it did bring home is that it doesn’t take much to seriously injure yourself on a boat, not even counting the medieval torture chamber and health and safety nightmare which is my work environment. I will be trying to suppress my inner mountain goat and take things just a little slower, something my long suffering mother will be glad to hear and reassure my other half too.

I spoke with the shot blast people the other day and it seems difficult for them to provide any kind of quotation as they just don’t know how the steel will behave when exposed to the grit blaster. At £650 (ex VAT) per day this is a serious undertaking and could be (very) costly. Having seen the cost of grit blaster hire for a week is equivalent to 1 day of work by these guys I am considering the DIY option. It will need a diesel powered trailer compressor of around 350-400CFM in order to have any effect. I just need to liaise with the marina as to when and where I can do it.

With winter fast approaching I would like to get the masts removed and under cover. Fortunately the marina has the facility to hire in a local lift company (also a berth owner) to lift the rig off. This will make the renovation easier, stop any further degradation and also make fitting new steaming lights and so on much easier. It will also facilitate making a mount for the wind turbine which will ultimately augment the power system during winter. Whether they can be stored in the local engineering company warehouse I am not sure but it would be preferable to hanging on a bosun’s chair in these temperatures.

I have picked up the new portholes which look to be a massive improvement over the big brass ones currently fitted. The thermal break and double glazing should make a huge difference in the long run. The main cargo area will have super large 18" portholes with the 2 front bedrooms having 12" portholes. I only have a couple of drop leaf portholes as the heat exchanger and air circulation system should prevent the need for aerating the main living area.

2 recent acquisitions have been most helpful and probably the cheapest purchase for the barge so far. A permanent paint pen which writes on any surface (pretty much) and a really funky little LED torch. As I work my way like a locust through the flooring and reveal more wires and tubing, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember which ones are live and which ones aren’t and which are the old diesel runs for the old CH boiler. The marker means that I don’t have to build a mind map of what is what and risk cutting the wrong wire/pipe. About £2.95 well spent thank you Amazon.

The LED torch I picked up from a local Homebase. Whatever you do, don’t look directly at it when you turn it on, you’ll get arc eye and will be stumbling around for 5 minutes as your retinas regain their composure. It has 3 settings, supernova and ‘kin bright as well as a flashing red beacon. It lasts for hours and has a magnetic base so I stick it to the hull and voila, light just where I need it. £10 from Homebase. Boom.

I am still waiting for some airline connectors before I can get the plasma cutter up and running and have ordered an industrial type bin vacuum cleaner. There is just too much rubbish on the floor at the moment and with the bandsaw and planer/thicknesser no doubt being pressed into service soon there will be sawdust and shavings everywhere so a decent, large capacity ‘hoover’ was a must. Pretty sure the domestic one we have would have packed up or broken fairly rapidly and I wouldn’t have been flavour of the month with the other half.

I spent some time on Suzy the other day as she is looking sad under cover in the parking area at the back of the flats. I removed the battery and box with a view to making a new lid and took her exhausts off and gave them a going over with Autoglym. They could do with coming off again and being run over a bench mounted polisher but this will stop the 'rot' and keep her in decent nick. Her new front mudguard is on which will prevent much of the crud from a damp road being sprayed up straight into my face. It defiles the clean 'bobber' look but does make life a lot more pleasant. Summer may see the open front wheel again but until then she will live with the mudguard. Once I have my TIG welder up and running I have a mount to make for the new LED headlight but that is a job for another day.