The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

So said the eternal optimist, Robert Burns, in his poem "To a Mouse" in 1785. As is no surprise to many people who have undertaken a big project, often life, luck and other elements throw a king sized adjustable spanner into the finely tuned workings of one's highly fettled, honed and streamlined plan. It is not the fact that your plan has gone awry, it is how quickly one can deal with the problem which will determine if your beautiful plan will remain so (with a few tweaks) or whether it will shake itself to death and fall apart around your ears.

And so it was with our carpenter. Although we had engaged early and tried to get his services booked well in advance, his major clients had booked him for the entirety of May and June, which subsequently overran. In short, he wasn't going to be available to set the walls and ceiling battens so it was going to fall to me to fill in. We don't really want to keep Zeelandia in Holland much beyond August as we want good weather for the channel crossing and thence around Cornwall to Portishead.

I returned to Zee on Friday the 13th after an uneventful night crossing on the ferry. I was met by the disaster zone that I left last time, still with the final bathroom to be disassembled. Having found the local 'skip' place, I ordered another 6 cubic metre skip and then merrily started about the task of removing all the leftover waste from the hold and then onto deconstructing the bathroom. Since the skip wouldn't arrive for another 3 or so days I had to do something to fill the void.

It became fairly obvious once I had started tearing apart the bathroom that the years of damp had taken their toll on the wood supports. Not that there was any risk of it collapsing due to the design maxim employed throughout the barge of "it needs to be able to survive 2 large rutting rhinos high on meth". However, many of the planks and beams merely fell apart in my hands and some collapsed into dust onto the bilge boards.

They were quickly removed along with the deckwash pump, main water pump and one of the large 500ish litre water tanks. Unfortunately these are too large to be used in our design so I will try to shift them via a couple of boat/barge websites. Failing that it may be able to get them "cut and shut" to reduce their overall size but only if I can't get rid of them through other means.

The previous owners came over one day and very helpfully showed me the ropes (literally) of how to rig up the sails. Along with this were countless hints and tips on best practice for ropes, knots, where to position people, crew size for sailing etc. The sails are certainly not the sort of high tech, rip stop nylon that are easily raised by a single person, indeed the mainsail needs one strong person on the "claw" (the end of the gaff which slides up and down the main mast) and another on the other side raising the gaff. These are certainly sails with attitude and there were several health warnings about jibing in strong winds (don't...) and other tips too numerous to mention. However, the previous owner's final tips were I think the most prescient, "Take it easy and learn by doing...". Wise words indeed.

Although the engine hasn't missed a beat when we have started it, the compressed air system has a leak in the main bottle which we were struggling to locate. Its usual leakage rate was somewhere around the 1 Bar per week, whereas now it was losing that in a day. After much toing and froing around the cylinder with washing up liquid attempting to locate a leaking valve with no joy I believe I found the culprit. The valve which allows you to use the engine's own compressor had some lateral movement on it and would allow some air through if wiggled (even when fully closed). It could be the valve seat, although I couldn't feel any damage with a carefully placed digit and although some gunk was in the mouth of the valve (see image to the left) the deat seemed in good condition. I have removed the valve and hopefully we can find somewhere to service/replace as necessary.

Given the somewhat dangerous working conditions, my worst nightmare of a serious injury almost came to fruition. After recently going over on my ankle (a hangover from too much rugby) I was moving around the hold trying to tidy up and put my foot on what I thought was a floorboard only for it to instantly yield to my weight and I crashed through the half metre to the bilge boards below and twist again. It was a piece of stacked wood for recycling. This supported my theory of not allowing anyone to help at this stage of the build. I don't mind hurting myself, but injuring a generous kind hearted soul who had come to help out would be too much even for my limited guilt centre. On another H&S topic I have to reiterate the face mask thing:

The one on the left is about a week old, the one on the right about a day old. They were pure brilliant white when they were purchased. GIven my time again I would invest in one of the more serious masks with the replaceable canisters on each side. These did the trick, absolutely no doubt, but I still inhaled some of the dust that's for definite.

The wombling has gone well. I now have a large stack of pine and some hardwood which, once planed and thicknessed, should provide a good source of raw material for various bits and pieces. It turns out that the bilge floor boards under the actual floor are very heavy hardwood. They aren't mahogany but a similar density and colour. The plan will be to recover this and use them for furniture within the barge. There is no real need for them to stay in place and any pumps, tanks or mechanical elements under the floor will be cradled in custom made steel frames welded or bolted to the frames of the hull.

The ceiling has defied my attempts to remove it. It would appear that the old cargo hatches which are under the metal roof are balanced on a metal lip at the outer edges and then the large beam that runs centrally holds them pinned at the other end. The central beam is held in place by large bolts which cannot be accessed with a normal spanner/socket set and the other ends of the bolts are welded to the metal roof. It would appear that the ceiling is forcing my hand to use more extreme measures. The central beam seems to be pine so will have to be sacrificed in order to retrieve the old cargo hatches. It would be good to get these shot blasted and then sanded back to the original wood (they are oiled black) and then used in the ceiling again. I feel more serious equipment is needed in order to see the beams deathlike grip on the cargo hatches finally released. Chainsaw whilst balancing on a stool anyone?

After a week of long days hauling a good tonne and a half of waste out of the hold I was physically shattered and ready for home. The good news is that the all singing all dancing sewage system has passed through customs VAT free, saving us about £700, so picking that up is Monday's job. The weather wasn't too special for some of my recent trip, but I was treated to a beautiful sunset or two while I supped a cold beer as reward for a job well done.