As the famed rapper Nelly was heard to utter in his 2002 classic, although contrary to his direction will not be 'taking off all my clothes'. Health and safety and all that... Plus I might scare the horses.

Whilst everyone has been basking in the tropical weather I have been descending into the bowels of a large steel vessel and either welding or removing excess steel structures with an angle grinder, all of which require additional layers of clothing to ensure no long lasting burns/arc spatter blisters or other drastic dermal damage. With temperatures in the wheelhouse rising to a heady 35 degrees, I suspect it was at least 5 degrees warmer in the uninsulated hull and with no breeze available through the vessel, I believe Satan himself may have broken into a sweat.

Having been in touch with the dry dock, they have confirmed that Zeelandia is booked in towards the end of July. I have pressed them for a date as my annual pilgrimage to that Mecca of shooting in Surrey is coming up and if it clashes, I need to get Zee up there early. In preparation I have been doing some jobs which could otherwise damage the fresh paint on the hull. First of these was to weld some new lugs onto the frames to support the metal floor supports as and when they are ready.

Space was limited and it was generally uncomfortable, hot and awkward, However, if it saves any possible heat damage from welding at a later date to the (expensive) hull paint then it was worth the sacrifice. The other side needs doing next and then after that the roof needs making more rigid with angle iron welding to it to stop any 'popping' of the steel as you walk over it. Eventually it will support multiple PV panels and 2 large skylights so needs to be stiffened up.

The foc'sle still had the chain locker in place which needed removing in order to get to the very bow for shot blasting, painting and generally a nose around to make sure its condition was ok.

It all came out ok and wasn't too difficult to remove although the metalwork which formed a slide for the chain to run down into the locker was in very poor condition and was only wedged in place. Judging by the corrosion I suspect that had been there for some considerable time. Having removed the woodwork and metal work I lifted the anchor chain by hand through the hole in the hull in order to get to the area beneath the anchor chain. Nothing like heaving half a tonne of chain around in 35 degrees and bright sunshine...

Unfortunately, that little chink of light you can see above is where the anchor tube has corroded through so it will need replacing with something suitably heavy duty. I am not sure whether I can get a hard, thick plastic liner for the tube so that the plastic can take the brunt of the wear and be replaced instead of allowing the passage of the chain and anchor to scrape off any paint and start the whole rust process again.

Once the chain was on deck, what I can only guess is 20 to 30 years of crap, corrosion, rust flakes etc could be seen at collected at the bottom. The state of the steel underneath I do not know but I will aim to remove all the crud, load it into buckets for removal to the tip and prep for shot blasting. Long term I will get a replacement chain of somewhere around double the length which will remove any anchoring problems in the future. I am hoping there is a wooden sacrificial sub-layer which will hopefully have protected the inside of the hull from the worst of the damage but until I get it all out I won't know for sure.

Although I like the warm weather, trying to work in a steel oven does limit the time you can be productive. After about 4 hours today I had to give up but it will still be there when I get back to it. The next 'fatherless child' of a job is going to be getting 1.8 metre sections of angle iron up to the roof whilst standing on a ladder. With an arc welder in one hand. Wearing welding gear. In 40 degrees.

"Buy a barge" they said. "It'll be fun" they said. My ar$e....