ON A BOAT

Life on the River!

the happy couple

look, it’s me and pat! (I’m the green one on the right)

arrival of the fittest

tanks.  The fittest tanks!  I was walking over the bridge to the boat and there they were being delivered.  Cath and Tom were trying to find a way to get them out of the van and into the boat.  So they carried them through the mooring and then lowered the tanks through the hole in the roof by tying rope to the handles on the tanks and lowering them down.  They are Tek Tanks and apparently very handsome according to all who saw them.  They are new and shiny and nothing like the rotting old metal horrors that lived in the boat before.  They are made of plastic and they have brightly coloured valves.

On a different note Tom has already laid down pipes and insulation around the pipes and all sorts, I had to hand over lots of money for various things I don’t understand, like ‘Hi Grip S.S. Clip 35-50mm’ and ‘Hex. Nipple 1 1/2’.  I wonder what they are and I understand that they are related to pipes and pipe fitting.  He’s plumbing the entire boat, and it’s quite impressive. He was telling me about how he studied marine engineering at college.  He’s very innovative and knows a lot. I clearly know very little. But I know some things and I’m learning.

My biggest worry at the moment is getting carried away with everything and spending way more than we have.  It’s very difficult not to want to do everything as you look around and see how nice it would be to put a porthole here, and a skylight there.  But we haven’t even got a functioning toilet, shower or kitchen.  And those are the essentials.  At the moment we’re hacking away at everything and it scares me how much more we’re doing.  I suppose it’s not more than we originally planned, but as you start to do it, you realise how everything is connected and one thing leads to another.

The thing with boats is that you really need to cap the amount you spend on them because they will rarely become an investment in the conventional sense.  There is a decided top-line to what a boat can ever be worth.  You see boats for sale at the same price as houses- and some are really amazing and beautiful- but they end up on the market for years and years because no one can get the finance together to borrow that much (with boats you need capital- you can get a marine mortgage like we did but it’s not like getting a house mortgage, it takes a lot of dedication)  and fundamentally, no one wants to spend that much on a boat.  So you need to be realistic about what a boat can ever be worth- no matter how nice.  A boat our size is good- it’s not so big, but if we spend too much we’ll lose out.  Anyway, I shall be keeping my beady little eyes as close to the action as possible.

the holes

I went to visit Tom and Cath working on the boat today and there was activity…  Here are some pics of the two removed bits of steel which have created holes in the boat; the knocked out bulkhead and the hole in the roof to get the tanks in (it was exposed to day, you see).  There will be more holes soon- Stuart is going to carve out some steel in the roof of the bedroom (front cabin, there’s no picture of it here) to make a skylight.   The hole in the roof which you can see below will be sealed because it would be too expensive to create a light source there… shame.  We could just leave it open.  But that would be daft and cold.

sunshine!

The sun has finally come out!  This is good.  AND there are two other good things that happened yesterday: a birth in the family (little Max, Pat’s an uncle- yipeee!), and the bulkhead has been removed!   Tom and Stuart have cut out the bit of metal between the main boat at the front cabin, and apparently (I haven’t seen it yet) it looks AMAZING!  Tomorrow I shall go and take pictures of it.  I’ve been a bit low on pictures lately, must be ever-so boring.  That’s what happens when you have to go into work instead of spending the day being freelance and drawing things.  (Actually I might start drawing the boat instead of taking photos- or maybe as well as- that would be quite good).  Also Tom has advised that we get a Kabola boiler system for all the radiators which is much more expensive than what we’d planned- but apparently essential.  AND we’ve found a beautiful red stove which we want for the main living area- it’s also quite expensive.  Hmmm. At least I’ve got some work on, I suppose.  And we’re still waiting for the darned scaffolding planks which don’t seem to ever arrive.  Perhaps plan B will need to be instated.  Tom also mentioned something about Portholes for the front cabin, which could be interesting…  There will be a big skylight over the bed also.  I’m a bit jittery.  Must be the excitement of the film I’m currently editing.  It’s called ‘Insurance: the Big Opportunity’.

sunday, sunday

I popped by to do some small things that needed doing and it’s been raining a lot so a bit leaked into the boat where the chalet (also known as the hump) was cut off.  Have I ever mentioned the chalet/hump?  Maybe… Well anyway, it was a steel hump on the boat (you can see it on the pictures) so that you could get over it in the days when it was a conference boat.  We decided to cut it off as this would also be a good way to get the new tanks into the boat without having to cut a hole out the side windows.

Anyway it feels very rainy in London, and the sun is trying to get out, but not really succeeding.  So I walked over to the boat and when I got there I felt lazy and looking round at the general mess and state of it all made me a bit defeated.  I know it will get there eventually, just feels like a long way away today!  Hmmm… then I tried to get some more water out of the bit where the water lives (between the hull and the re-plating) and instead I think I hoovered out a load of waxoyl that Pat had put in- so I’m not sure my effort was very successful!

It’s very windy today so the boat was moving quite a lot and because there are no tanks in the bottom (all the diesel drums are on the roof) it feels very light.  I love the movement of it- I wouldn’t want it all the time as I might get sea-sick, but as the boat is only entirely out of the water for a few hours a day it’s kind of special when you feel it.  I imagine lying in bed with the skylight above me, the little stove going in the bedroom, the boat swaying away.  Pat will be outside making something, like a floating platforms for birds.  And I will be reading a book, and there will be lanterns and the smell of wood smoke and cups of tea and red wine when it gets dark.  And then friends will come and we’ll all sit in the kitchen around the wooden table and look at the reflections of the lights on the water.  That will be good.