It's true. I do have wood. Mostly it is now accumulating in the cargo hold but I still have plenty of it despite more gargantuan efforts to cram 12 cubic metres of stuff into a 6 cubic metre skip. They are not going to be happy when they pick that up...

Anyway, I survived my trip out on Suzy and managed to dodge the rain, although it has to be said a hardtail custom is not the ideal long range commuter bike. However, the attention and photos demanded by her adoring public kind of made up for the fact I now prefer to stand rather than sit. Still, I am sure that will wear off in a couple of months. She is a bit of a slut when it comes to photos to be honest, flaunting her minimally clad frame and big engine, but she does still scare the kids when she starts up. However, her headlight is being changed. Driving in the pitch black is akin to driving with one of those old metal torches with the iffy sliding switch and a couple of half used D batteries. I have a new LED light and bracket sitting next to me which will be fitted as soon as I can get the motivation to do so.

This trip would be 10 days and would essentially be ripping out more of the internal structure to get to the hull. The other half of the ceiling revealed more of the original cargo hatches which was comforting. That said they seem to have been oiled and will no doubt need stripping somehow. I am hoping the big petrol compressor and a sand blasting gun will make short work of them and bring back the original colour. I have been looking at ways to strip the masts which need doing this year before winter hits. I did consider sandblasting with walnut shells or pumice but have ruled this out as it can damage the wood and 'dig' between the summer and winter growth. I am not too worried about the cargo covers as they are less vital. I will try on the rear sides first to see what works best before going hammer and tongs and stripping them all. The mast will have to be sanded mechanically and then I have yet to decide what it will be painted with. All of this has to be done while hanging up to 16 metres off the ground in a harness/chair... Yaaaaay, oh no wait...

I managed to remove the kitchen and 2 bedrooms in my time as well as retrieving a fair amount of wood from my Wombling sessions in the evening. These sessions became evermore important as time went on as even with a skip I was pulling out crazy amount of wood and was rapidly running out of safe space in which to work. As can be seen, I ended up wrapping up the Wombled wood in batches with gaffa tape just to keep them out of the way and in some semblance of order. Still no idea what the hell I am going to do with 18 life jackets though.

One of the frustrating bits of ripping out the interior and trying to save as much as possible is seeing really nice bits of wood damage through cutting corners or just speed being preferred over good practice. The piece of wood in the shot opposite is a solid mahogany plank. Given some work this will be a beautiful piece of timber apart from the dirty great sheared screw bolt left in it (in fact there were multiple left in this piece - annoyingly).The time spent trying to get these out will be time better spent doing other things but there is no reason to throw away a lovely piece of timber like this. For reference, when you are dealing with very hard, dense wood like mahogany, maple, oak etc you should always use pilot holes. You may be able to get hex screw bolts in with enough force without pilot holes but, as the pieces of mahogany bear witness, it is highly unlikely you will be able to get the screw out again. It could be that I end up having to trim an inch or so off with the bandsaw and discard the bit bearing all the sheared screws. At least I would accept I had saved as much as I could.

Once I had disassembled the 2 bedrooms directly behind the saloon area I was confronted with a wall of solid (quite literally) maple. As with the rest of the barge, this could have survived a small thermonuclear blast and the ensuing zombie apocalypse. Each piece was secured to vertical wood frames and noggins/cross members with at least 4 screws and then sandwiched between floor joists and flooring at the bottom. Given I am trying to conserve as much of the old, quality wood both for environmental, monetary and preservation reasons this makes it a much harder job to successfully extricate all the wood in usable condition. To my credit I managed to save almost all of one side. The remainder which backs onto the other bathroom I feel is going to be a pretty mammoth job.


There were a couple of areas of slight concern as I stripped back the wall coverings but in general they just went to confirm my decision about going down the route of spray foam and insulated/thermally broken portholes. As you can see on the left, an old brass porthole has over the years sweated condensation down onto the wood and insulation material underneath it. The fibreglass insulation has mopped it up and unfortunately was in direct contact with the steel, hence the moderate amount of rust. It's not too bad, but does show the importance of limiting poor insulation in all things.

I was greeted after a couple of days by a heartwarming sight of the marina toilets and shower being opened and ready for 'business'. This meant I could disconnect the water and start bleeding down the central heating system piece by piece. I now have about 8 radiators and many feet of both stainless and copper pipe which could do with going to a scrap metal merchant. I am not sure these even exist in Holland but will hunt one down next time I am out and see what I can get for the waste metal. I don't really want to haul it back to old Blighty to recycle. The other benefit of the toilets being open is that I don't have to make a visit to a local pub, sit down, drink a cup of tea and then casually slide of to go and damage their Doulton as if it wasn't the prime purpose I entered their establishment.

On ripping out the remainder of the last bedroom I was faced with a dilemma about how to deal with a metal shelf like protrusion which houses the gas bottles above. As with all things we are going to have to remain flexible with the plan. We may use the area under this shelf to house the washer and dryer and turn the remainder into a storage cupboard. In the anally retentive slightly OCD way I do, I am now thinking about the best way to ventilate these areas and keep the airflow circulating... No doubt more on this little conundrum in the future.

So what did I achieve and learn on my latest trip to Elburg.

1) Thank the Lord/Gaia/Vishnu/the harbourmaster* for the ablutions block. It's been a revelation to be able to stand under hot flowing water for more than 2 minutes at the end of a long day.
delete as applicable

2) Always wear a mask when doing anything that disturbs dust etc. I did about 15 minutes without a mask and regretted it. They are invaluable pieces of kit and judging by the fact the ones I have been using are now dark tan on the outside compared to pristine white on the inside they are doing a good job of protecting my lungs.

3) We may have a leak in the air system to the starter for the engine. However, I managed to start the engine on my own for the first time and use the onboard compressor to charge the main tank. I have isolated it from the pressure gauge which I think has the leak so I am hopeful it will retain pressure for next time.

4) Saving stuff for use later (like wood) takes time. That said, I have a stack of probably 150kgs of both hardwood and pine which I can use again. I also have around 150kgs of mahogany (including a solid mahogany table top) and a large wooden table top of unknown origin. Add it up and it can make a significant saving should we end up using it all. If not, we can always sell it.

5) The hull has been oiled in a traditional manner to preserve it. Although this has done its job, the oil has migrated down towards the bottom of the hull around and below the waterline in a bit of a goopy, sticky mess. The rest of the hull I am sure will be able to be stripped back with a wire brush, but the lower regions may need degreasing. It's going to be a longer job than I thought and may involve the added mess of some areas being shot blasted. To quote Blackadder, "Bugger..."

The Joys of MarketPlaats

I thought I would attempt to flog some of the stuff we have decided we don't want or can't use via the Dutch equivalent of eBay called MarketPlaats. Things like the oven, stainless steel splashback, cooker hood and diesel boiler/controls/hot water tank. After much thrashing around on t'internet (thank you Google translate) I was ready to pay for a month worth of adverts for the diesel boiler. Wroooooong.... Once again I fell foul of the iDeal system seemingly specifically designed to frustrate free commerce of non residents in Holland. You can't pay by PayPal or Visa or anything like that. What a farce. Looks like they will have to go on eBay and hope they come up in international searches. I might ask arund next time I am over and see if I can get the word out that we are trying to get rid of some items. Otherwise they are going to have to be scrapped.