Saturday 5th Mar

Today has been mostly spent with my arms above my head. No I haven’t been moonlighting as an Italian soldier (just FYI they are the best people to buy a rifle from - never been fired and only dropped once) but have been tearing down ceiling panels.

Old, thin plywood has a tendency to delaminate given the slightest opportunity leaving you with layers of razor sharp, splintery wafers all over the place. Worse than this is trying to coax old, countersunk brass slot head screws out of their holes whilst holding the drill above your head. Tiring, hard work and ultimately fruitless as the screw heads gouge and refuse to budge. The brawn method of attacking with the crowbar didn’t work either, it just resulted in more mess and the panels remained firmly attached.

So, sit down, drink tea, ruminate.... lightbulb moment. Since the butt joints of the ply have one screw either side into a batten underneath I thought, screw the screws, take them out of the equation. So, take your hole saw and drill around them so any connection from the ply to the ceiling battens is negated. Boom, 10 minutes later and a lot less time spent with my arms over my head, the ply ceiling panels are down. Honestly, I am quite proud of that little bit of lateral thinking. I am happier about being able to lift my arms now as opposed to having them flapping uselessly by my sides like a simian T-Rex (if I can mix my reptilian dinosaurs and great apes). I mean, how am I supposed to go out and drink beer like that?

The central heating was a bit of a conundrum. There I was poised with pipe cutter set ready to snip the pipe to one arm of the heating supplying 3 radiators which I needed out of the way when a thought struck me - how do I recharge the central heating and get it back to working pressure. I do still need hot water for the shower so I want a serviceable boiler system. Nuts. Pause the destruction, don head torch, enter fo’csle, stick head in boiler cabinet and like a child’s maze follow pipes until I find one with a cold inlet, a 90 degree on/off and a pressure gauge. Tweak a couple of valves and voila, pressure rise in the system. Back to destruction - yay...

Comedy ensues however as I start cutting through the pipe. Just as I slice through, the pressure squirts water straight in my eye (having doffed my goggles - how dangerous can a bit of water be...), I reach for the push fit stop end which has rolled tantalisingly out of reach and given my cycloptic vision at this point I cannot gauge the distance at all well. I am at full stretch holding the sliced end of the heating pipe with one arm, the other flailing around with a rigger gloved hand trying to pick up a small end stop which refuses to meet my somewhat indelicate grasp... Have you ever seen a bird with water logged feathers trying to get airborne from water. That’s a pretty good analogy of the movement I was making. Eventually more by luck than judgement, the end stop is in my hand and the CH can be capped, my eye cleaned of debris and water and the return line capped. Not long thereafter 3 radiators were stacked neatly in the shower and I was able to get on with further creative destruction.

To be honest the hull seems in pretty good condition although I think the bilge will need a good scrub with a wire brush and de-rusting and priming. There are a couple of tonnes of ballast in the bow area of the bilge which will need removing for this and then putting back in afterwards. The barge sits ‘bum down’ anyway due to the weight of the engine, so I definitely need to keep the weight at the front. The hot water tank, battery bank and electrics will most likely go in the fo’csle which should help the weight distribution as well.

Behind the rockwool there were areas of pretty bad condensation (as you can see) but the insulation had held up ok and hadn’t turned into the rusty water soaked mess I had expected. I still have the minor snafu of isolating the 4 sinks and the water feed to the toilet. I opened up an access hatch in the floor and saw an incredible sight. You know the sort of plumbing you see on hi tech hydraulic controls, all gleaming stainless, perfect 90 degree bends and all kept in place with clips and annotated with what the pipes are and what they feed every 3 feet or so. Yeah. Not that. In fact the polar opposite. It’s a birds nest of 15mm and 12mm piping with spurs and 4 isolation valves which don’t seem to work and if the do turn the don’t isolate anything... I need to clear the debris out of the front before getting the floor up to isolate the right pipes to get the sinks and toilet out and the remainders of the walls etc etc. What a right old naus.

On the plus side, it’s no longer sleeting although there was ice on the inside of the wheelhouse windows this morning. Speaking of the wheelhouse, I have a feeling it is going to require replacement sooner rather than later. The design and how it has been attached to the steel seem to channel water into areas where it can rust and hence there are some serious, flaky nasty bit of rust which need attention. It shouldn’t be too difficult to cut out the rotten sections and weld new steel in place, but I would need a new wheelhouse ready to go. I have a feeling some of the rotten bits of wood would collapse on removal. I have a plan for the wheelhouse, but that’s another blog post on its own.

Tool of the day definitely goes to the crowbar/claw hammer combo. I can double wield those bad boys like a ninja. They made short work of pretty much everything today...

Sunday 6th Mar

Today was a less productive day for the barge, although I still managed to get my MSc dissertation scoping document completed and off (only 4 days late now) so hopefully I can get the green light on that and start working towards finishing my blasted degree. A wander into the old part of Elburg for a cuppa whilst the sun was shining was pleasant and the wheelhouse was nice and warm when I got back so I sat there and scribbled my last notes for the blog.

I will head down and try to complete ripping out the last 2 bunks in the fore end and the last bits of wall/ceiling and insulation. An additional pain in the nether regions is that I am running out of water which isn’t great. Apparently one of the neighbours usually allowed the previous owner to fill up from their supply, but they are out at the moment. I will try them later this afternoon and fill up with sufficient for the remainder of my stay.

Tomorrow I will call in to the agents who brokered the sale and ask about skip hire and how to get rid of rubbish locally. The main cargo/living area is filling up rapidly and I need a day just to get rid of all the accumulated junk. It will enable me to get rid of the old mattresses and useless stuff in some of the other rooms as well. I could start disassembling the big tables and bench seat in the main saloon which would give me more room. Hey ho, onwards and upwards as they say.

Until next time me hearties...