4th July. Happy Independence Day. Its sooooooooooo hot. I have been slacking off lately. Huh! I'm still thinking about work though. Since we came back from our break with Eleanor, my daughter, not too much has been done on the boat. I have been tinkering with the engine, painting bits etc and also trying to get to grips with this C.A.D.program to produce plans for a water tank. I think I will probably be quicker to get out the old drawing board and sharpen up my pencil. This picture of the site was taken from the Manitou access platform shown in the photo gallery. The boat is now completely hidden under the canopies and the Manitou has now gone to its new owners.
But yesterday (the hottest day of this century I reckon!) I decided to start some welding again. I have been cutting out some shapes to go on each side of the front to make the rubbing strakes (Bumpers?) more substantial. It was far too hot to put a boiler suit on so I cut a sleeve off of an old ripped set and just slid that over my right arm to protect me from the Arc burn. I should have used two sleeves because my UV suntan doesn't match now. I managed to get the shapes welded to the starboard side and will have to do the port side another day.
10th July. Julie and I have just spent a great weekend working on the boat. Julie managed to finish all the floor panels, grinding off the thick coat of rust and painting with red oxide paint. When steel is manufactured the rolling process leaves it all covered with a thin surface of impurities called mill scale. This has to be removed by A: chemicals, B: shot-blasting, C: grinding or D: Letting nature take its course i.e. leaving to rust and then hard wire brushing (Using a high speed brush in an angle grinder.) If you paint it before removing this scale, eventually the paint layers will separate and flake off. As its taking me so long to build this boat and all the base sheets had a coat of rust on by now anyway- I opted for the last method. And luckily I have Julie to do all 
this hard back-breaking work. No, only joking. But she has been a diamond doing such heavy physical work. I was cutting out some 8mm sheet to make the side pieces of the counter at the rear of the boat. I should have been doing the welding still at the front but I try to avoid running the generator when Julie is here. Its such an all-invasive noise that really gets into your brain and wears you down.
11th July. Its truly amazing what some people throw away. I found a complete carport frame in a skip last week. I made some adjustments so it is the same width as my other one and assembled it. I have a tarpaulin stretched over 3/4 of it and will have to get another sheet to cover the rest of the frame, but apart from that, its brilliant. I have 16 metres of the boat covered now.
20th July. Its been very hot again. but now I have the canopy along the full length of the boat, I can at least be in the shade, even if it is so hot. I have cut out the bulkhead to go at the front of the boat and cleaned off and primed it. (Some of the steel I bought is second hand and a bit rusty!) I also got the first rubbing strake tack welded on to the boat. I have cut out the first of two bulkheads for either side of the engine room. Later today I plan to cut out the remaining panels to form the stern section. The rear swim can be tacked to the keel plate 
now that the boat is covered all the way along and won't fill up like a swimming pool, Bob! It was the only part of the boat that that allowed rainwater to drain out. Soon I'll have to start to think about putting the roof on.
22nd July. Today I tacked the rear swim to the deck, gave up with CAD and drew the water tank plans with good old fashioned pencil and paper.
23rd July. We've just had a lovely afternoon in Brighton at Chloe and Nicole's 18th birthday BBQ (my nieces twin daughters) so nothing has been done on the boat today but we did meet Worzel Gummidge and you can see his pictures in the gallery!
24th July. I had another quiet day so stayed at the yard and welded. I welded half the rear swim to the deck. (I'd only tacked it before. When Andy and I were lifting the sides into place back in early March, one of the gunwales 
had been damaged by the grab loader and bent. I've tried several times to improve the look of it but finally , today, I decided to cut the section right out and replace it. It still needs some work to be done on it but it looks much better now.
26th July. I picked up my metal working lathe from my Mums house today. She will be glad to get rid of it. Its been in the garage, in its original packing case since I bought it about 5 years ago. It was always planned to go into the boat, but I actually need it working now to make some parts for the engine/gearbox mounting plate, and I am sure it will come in useful for other bits later on.
29th July. Today I cut out the 3 sections for constructing the rear deck. I can't weld these into place yet because I am still waiting for the last piece of 8mm plate for the lower deck to arrive. These last 3 sections will have to be welded together into a piece 23 feet long and then lifted into place and welded to one side. Then this will have to be pulled round into a "U" shape and welded to the other side. I also cut out a bulkhead for the gas locker and welded that into place. I have to cut out the piece for the top of the gas locker and construct a hatch in it to access the gas bottles soon. This is where the water tank pointy bit has to fit under the gas locker. This small area would contain about 25 gallons of water so it is worth making use of it. I also finished welding the bow return sections on the inside. So the bow section is well on the way to being complete inside. Mind you I have only tacked the rubbing strakes onto one side outside. I still have to cut them out and weld them on for the port side. This has been difficult to access because of the green truck being parked there. But this has now been moved so I will have to get on with that side too.
30th July. I went to visit my daughter today so only had a short day on the boat. Because my water tank/gas locker design is different to the original plans, I had to make some adjustments to the bow return pieces and weld two little patches on to them so that they lined up with the gas locker bulkhead. I also cut out a hardboard template for the top of the gas locker. It’s turned a little cooler so welding is not so uncomfortable now.
31st July. I have tacked one part of the port rubbing strake on, and cut out the top of the gas locker. But then it started raining hard so I had to stop welding. I have used my lathe for the first time too. Only to make a small adjustment to a part of my powerflushing equipment, I had to bevel the ends of the hose connecting reducers so that the caps of the magnetic filters could be tightened sufficiently to stop them leaking.
1st August. Tonight I finally realized how difficult it is to make a drawing of a water tank without any straight sides. I tried to cut out templates in hardboard to test my drawings. I spent 3 hours and have only done half of the pieces. I hope that Zeus Fabrications will be able to construct a tank from my templates because I sure as hell can't see how they could make it from a set of drawings. I will assemble my hardboard tank with Duck tape and slide it into position to test, before I finally ask them to make me a real stainless steel tank. 
2nd August. I spent another 3 hours trying to sort out the water tank templates. Its nearly there!
3rd and 4th August. Still carrying on with the water tank. I wanted to get it all made and tested for fit so that I could leave it with Zeus Fabrications to manufacture before I go away Saturday but unfortunately it didn't quite get finished before I have to leave. Andy is away next week too for 3 weeks so we have to make sure all the equipment etc is locked away securely for the week that our holidays overlap. I am going cycling with Julie and some good companions (www.companyofcyclists.co.uk) to Suffolk next week so after tonight there will be no updates till 13th August.
13th August. We had a great week cycling in and around Framlingham, Suffolk. Who told me Suffolk was flat? I am so glad we picked last week and not this week. Its been almost torrential rain here today. I hope it brightens up for the group that begins their week cycling today.
I spent some of today rebuilding my water tank which had collapsed in places because of the dampness. I have reinforced it with some silicone mastic on the joints and tomorrow when it's set I'll take it to Zeus in Uxbridge to see if it’s suitable for them to use for templates to cut the stainless steel pieces out. I also did some work on the plate that will bolt the gearbox to the engine. It’s just too large to turn on the lathe so I had to cut it out with the plasma cutter and clean the edges up with an angle grinder. I hope it’s not too unevenly balanced. It’s rained almost continuously today so I haven't done any welding at all. My daughter popped in on a flying visit and Julie came over to pick up a waterproof jacket for her daughter to use next week. She'd left it in the bike panniers.
16th August. Well as it turned out the cold weather on Sunday made people think of getting their boilers serviced a little earlier than usual. The phone was going almost non stop. I need to replenish the coffers after a quiet few weeks workwise, and going on holiday last week, so I "made some hay while the sun shone". But I did finally manage to get the mock water tank to Zeus last thing, just before they closed. Vince at Zeus was quite stunned when he saw the size of it. I guess I'd better get a price from him before I tell him to go ahead and make it. But at least it’s finally in the right place!
Thursday 24 Aug 2006
MISSING BITS
17th Sept. It's my daughter, Eleanor's, birthday today so Julie and I are taking her out for a treat. I'll be back working on the boat later on tonight though. During this week I have at last welded the three pieces of the rear counter, formed them into the curve, lifted into position over the rear swim and tack-welded into place. this 
was not without misshap though as one side of the counter slipped off the counter floor and landed on my foot - just above the steel toe-cap of my safety boots. Julie says I'm not safe to be let out alone! The rear counter was as difficult to position correctly as the front of the boat and will still take some pulling and pushing to get it into a correct shape. As it turned out I have made a narrowboat with a pretty unique rear shape - but hey! Its nice to be different.
Over the next few weeks I will weld these sections on fully - inside and out
14th October 2006
I've been working away on the rubbings strakes, which are steel reinforcing bands that help to protect the bow and stern of the boat when entering locks etc. One of these has to be welded to the boat all around and a couple of extra shorter ones just below at bow and stern. But today I have had to stop work to attend a big society wedding. Julie's daughter, Kelly is marrying Ricki at The Aurora Garden Hotel in Windsor. www.auroragarden.co.uk/ Julie thoroughly recommends this venue, the organisation could not be faulted.
After the wedding I will get back to these rubbings strakes which have to be welded top and bottom to the sides of the boat.
22nd October 2006
Julie and I had a very enjoyable day learning to paint Roses and Castles on a one day course at the London Canal Museum, near Kings Cross. 
Here's some of our work.
MORE MISSING BITS
Thursday 25 Jan 2007 As you can see there's been a slight hitch with this page. Mike's been working 8+ hours a day, welding on the boat for another 4+ and then updating this page late at night - guess what.........
HE DELETED IT ALL
If anyone out there in cyberspace made a copy or printed off recent entries from this blog, I'd be grateful if you could contact me to help fill in the missing blanks. I didn't have an internet connection from 5/10/06 until 25/01/07 so hopefully there is not too much missing but I'd like to rebuild it as it was if possible. My email address is at the top of this page
I'll leave the above gaps and maybe fill them in in the future as time and memory permit.
13th February 2007
Last week I finally collected my stainless steel water tank from Zeus Fabrications. By mutual agreement its been made to a more simple pattern. The design I planned, although making use of all available space, was just too difficult and expensive to build. It would have required ordering much larger sheets of stainless steel and would have had much more wastage. at least the area under the gas locker is utilised and I can used the area above for storage.
I have been cutting out some of the pieces for the cabin recently. This is all made from 4mm and 5mm steel. I got this a bit cheaper because it wasn't new but unfortunately it is rusty so needs to be cleaned off and primed before welding.
Its easier to clean it as flat sheets. These pieces have all to be cut and welded together as two complete sides before lifting them into position and welding them into place. The covers will have to come off the boat to lift them in so I'll be praying for a few dry days at that point.
I have also been cutting out the pieces to form the diesel tank. The top is a crescent shape but the front is made up of 5 pieces of steel fitted inside the rear counter. Its made of five pieces because it contains a recess where the weed hatch sits. This hatch allows access to the propeller to remove weeds ( Or, more likely, plastic bags or rope!)
3rd March 2007 We were promised a bad day weatherwise today but apart from a brief shower at lunchtime, it turned out to be a beautiful, early spring day. Robert the Welder rang me , out of the blue, one day this week and offered to come over to see progress today. Julie was there too so we had a good productive day. Julie carried on with cleaning rust from steel and painting with red oxide.
Robert showed me how to weld uphand so that I could do the underside of the rubbing strakes. He then proceeded to do 4 hours of welding of these same strakes. Robert is going to come and do some welding for me for a few days as soon as he has finished a couple of projects that he is working on. I was working on the lathe to cut out two discs of 8mm steel to form into two mooring studs that are welded to the top of the fuel tank. I tacked these into place just as it was getting dark.
21st March 2007. I haven't had time to update this site for the last two weeks. Andy is now working full-time for a company and may be going to wind up the yard in a few months so the pressure is really on to get the boat on the water. Also I have finally got a mooring in Uxbridge. I have had my name on the list for about 5 years. But unfortunately this means I have to start paying for it now or risk losing it. So there are 2 compelling reasons to float my boat!
Julie and I had a week off last week. But no boat trips or cycling holidays this time. We spent virtually the whole week cutting and cleaning steel. I have started making the pieces to fit the rudder stock into place and also the front and rear decks. Julie spent the entire week angle grinding rust to prepare steel. Robert came again on Saturday and spent all day welding. He is here for two days this week too so hopefully the rubbing 
strakes will be nearly done. I will continue to clean and prime metal. I will be adding photos to this page soon, but at the moment I want to get on with the boat.
6th May
Well here is the promised update. Robert came as promised and completed the welding of the underside of the rubbing strakes from bow to stern.
Andy and I shared the expense of a new liner and torch for his big 3-phase Cibora mig-welder so I started to use this. I hadn't had much practise with a mig welder and never with such a good machine. Its so much easier not to have to replace electrodes every 5-6 inches. I had cut and Julie had cleaned and primed to front well deck so I lifted this into place and tack welded it.
Then over the course of a Sunday evening a few weeks back I fully welded this into place and then just to see some real progress I lifted the front bulkhead that had been ready prepared for months and tack welded that into place. The next part was the cants 
on either side of the bow and the gas locker. I cut the top and sides of the lid, welded, ground and primed it. Cut and welded the frame for the gas locker and welded. And finally cut out the mooring post pieces, turned down the ends on the lathe and welded that into place. After a final clean up with the grinder I gave it all a coat of red oxide. There's just the rubbing strakes to clean and paint and the overspill holes to cut out for the gas locker and the whole bow area is done.
The diesel tank at the stern was a problem. The rudder post is designed to run through the middle of the fuel tank in a box inset into the tank. I made up a box because I didn't have access to a preformed piece of steel box 6"x4" without buying a long length. This caused me a lot of problems. There was some small pinholes inside this box and once it was welded into place it was almost impossible to access it to repair the welds. After spending countless hours trying, Robert suggested putting in a smaller box inside the larger box and closing off the area between them. So this is what we finally did. Then the tan
k could be pressure tested to check for leaks.
Once the tank had been checked I cut and made the weed hatch box. This allows access to remove weeds, plastic bags, cables, ropes or whatever else is wrapped around the propeller without having to actually jump in the canal and dive underneath. This is welded to the front of fuel tank so that the tank forms the fourth side. Then the rear deck could be welded into place.
Lastly, yesterday, while Julie continued her endless task of cleaning rust from cabin side pieces, I cut and welded the engine drip tray and the engine bed pieces to bolt the engine down onto. I have some more bracing to do on this but essentially, the engine is 
now in its final place. I have been undecided exactly how long to make the back cabin but have finally settled on a fairly traditional 9' and now this has been "set in stone (steel)" by the positioning of the engine bed.
After Julie had left I continued with the engine bed and also finally started to make the transfer plate from engine output shaft to gearbox input shaft. When I played around with this before I was trying several different options and had been trying to make a plate of about 12" diameter to bolt to the flywheel. But now , with a lathe available, I can adapt the original flywheel boss with a plate exactly matched to the gearbox input shaft and welded into place. Andy has located a source of propshafts with UV joints at each end that can be cut to the exact length I need and then balanced to avoid vibration. So thats the propulsion system well on the way to being sorted. I still have to consider the controls but I need the roof on to fix them to so that will be sorted later.
Sunday 13 May
Its been raining a lot for the last few days and not very warm. I finally managed to get the engine bolted down onto the engine bed and the gearbox bolted to it. The inside of the drip tray is painted white to quickly show oil leaks from the engine or gearbox. I have completed painting the side of the engine that
was inaccessible when it was outside the boat. I measured the length of the prop-shaft that has to be made and made a sketch to be passed on to the company doing the work. I have also started to paint the ancilleries such as the starter motor, dynamo etc so they can be bolted onto the engine. As its so wet I think I'll finish the weekend by dressing off the welds on the rear deck in preparation for a coat of red oxide.
Tuesday 15th May. Robert came again for a day of welding. He checked all the difficult to reach areas that I had done to make sure they were ok. I hadn't finished cleaning rust from the sides so it was just tidying up jobs today. But still he managed to find enough for a full 8 hours of welding.
17th May. I did a bit of research on t'Internet a few days ago to find out how steel would be cleaned commercially. It seems that they use acids as a matter of course. Oh how I wish I'd paid attention in Chemistry at school. So I bought some brick acid. This is 
now called brick and patio cleaner. Its hydrochloric acid. Just paint it on steel and watch the mill scale dissolve. Julie wasn't best pleased when I told her how much easier it was. But she was a little mollified when I told her that it doesn't remove rust, only mill scale so it still needs light grinding but it does make it a
lot quicker. (Oh No-she wasn't mollified. She's just 'murmered' in my ear from the other side of the room that she's not sure yet how she feels about it!!!)
21st May. Julie has been to visit her son in Sheffield this weekend so I spent from Saturday till now cleaning sheets ready for when Robert comes back on Wednesday. There's only a couple more sheets to clean and all the sides are ready to lift into place and weld. I am not going to attempt to do them as one piece. We're going to make a frame for support and lift them in one by one and weld them in situ. I will have to remove all the canopies first though to be able to move the gantry along to lift the sheets into place. Hope its fine weather!
25th May. I spent most of Tuesday cleaning those other two sheets so now I have all cabin side pieces prepared. I woke about 6am on Wednesday and after a bowl of shreddies started to take down the canopies.Robert arrived around 10am and we stripped off the rest of the tarpaulines and removed all the framework. We welded supports onto the sides to support the cabin sheets and then started to lift 2 sheets into place. I had to go off to do a job and when I got back, Robert had welded those 2 sheets and put 
more supports on for the rest of the sheets. We worked on until we had 6 sheets up in place and clamped securely. Robert left me tidying up and went home about 6.30. He called about half an hour later to warn me of black clouds on the horizon. I spent until 10 pm dragging the sheets back over the boat just in case but it didn't rain although it was very overcast.
Next morning I took this picture then took down all the sheets. I lifted the last 4 sheets roughly into position with the forklift ready to be tacked into place. we worked on till nearly 8pm and finally got all the side sheets tacked into place on the sides of the boat. I was absolutely exhausted by then and just dragged the tarpaulines back over and went off to Julies for the day of rest and relaxation. (Shopping!)
26th May. Mike left early this morning as Robert was coming again today - they are like men possessed. It was wet when he left and the boat was quite wet so needed a bit of drying out before work could start. When I arrived late afternoon they had put all the roof braces on and the boatmans cabin roof was in place. The sides had also been braced to make them straight and true. The weather reports are not good for the next few days (typical bank holiday weather) so until the other roof steel sheets are ready welding will stop and some much needed cleaning up will take place.
5th June It was a miserable Bank Holiday wasn't it? On Sunday Julie and I made a start on clearing the water from inside. But then it started raining again so I had to put the framework up again and drag the tarpaulines over to keep from filling up the boat. Julie helped and together we got soaked through so we called it a day and went home.
The rest of Sunday and Monday Julie and I stayed in out of the rain and did some research and planning on fitting out the boat when the time comes. I went to the boat on Monday evening and removed some of the water from inside the boat ready to start work again. I got a price for steel sheets for the roof (Ouch) so I decided it would be worth cleaning up some of the sheets I already had. I had 2 cut ready so cleaned off the undersides and Robert and I pulled them into place. We had fun forming the bow in the roof. Robert tack welded a strut onto the edge that hung about 2 metres out into space. Then I hung on this and lifted 
my feet from the floor and pretended I was heavier than I was. We moved and tacked this strut all the way along the boat until the roof was tacked on and nicely curved except for the last sheet which was just too badly rusted to use. I will cut it up and use it as ballast, that's all it's good for. Robert then started welding these roof sheets fully to the sides. I cut out the rear bulkhead and tacked that into place. I then had to go and do some paid work for a day or so.
My son works for a steel company now so I rang him and asked if he could arrange to get another sheet of 4mm steel for the roof and also some tube for hand rails and a few other bits of angles and solid bar. He said it would all be delivered on Monday 4th June. I postponed the job I had and stayed at the yard to accept delivery. It turned up at about 10:15 BUT it was minus the 4mm sheet that I had been waiting for. The lorry had been overweight so it was left off. WHY MY BIT OF STEEL? So I got onto the company and was promised delivery today. WRONG! Allegedly the driver didn't turn up for work! I was fuming. I called the company and cancelled the steel. Then I spent about an hour trying to source it from another company. No luck. Finally I had to eat humble pie and ask for it to PLEASE be delivered tomorrow. We shall see.
Anyway, while all this was going on, we tacked 8mm rod along either side of the roof sheets and then Robert fully welded them . I tacked the 8mm rod around the shaped parts on the front well-deck. Then I started bending the ends of the handrails and cutting the small bits to fix them in place. We managed to get handrails fitted to all the pieces of roof that were in place. This boat is 
really starting to look like a boat now!
10th June. That sheet of steel finally turned up on Thursday!!!. The driver was not used to the area and ran out of time so took my steel back to base. It was promised to be here definately by 10 oclock Thursday. Wrong again! It arrived at about 2.30 just as every other vehicle that uses our yard turned up too. There were so many lorries I had to unload it on the other side of the yard and bring it to the boat on a forklift. But we had it on the boat, cut to size and tacked by the time we finished that night. On Saturday Robert continued to fully weld the roof and we put the rest of the handrails on. Julie cleaned the rubbing strakes at the front of the boat 
and gave it a coat of red oxide again. I was trying to cut out the doors to the engine room and galley but we had a problem with the electricity. I need 3 phase electricity to run the compressor to power the plasma cutter. One of the fuses on the 3 phase had blown so I couldn't cut anything. I will have to get one on Monday but until then I'm taking the day off.
14th June. I spent most of Monday chasing round electrical wholesalers to find a 200 amp fuse. I finally found one in Uxbridge. I also bought some spray-on leak discloser from Slough, which was quite expensive but would be cheaper than having to lift the boat out of the water to repair leaks in the welding. I fitted the new fuse at the distribution cupboard but the damage had been done to the compressor. The motor had burned out. I managed to source one locally and fitted it at about midnight on Monday. I spent the time in between sweeping out the living area of the boat and running 'Henry' hoover round prior to spraying on a leak detection fluid. The prop shaft arrived on Monday evening. On Tuesday Robert came back and we began doing more work on the cabin top. I cut out the apertures for the doors either side of the engine room and the galley door. I may put another door in the galley later on but not at present. We may need the wall space to fit the kitchen. I cut angle to make door frames. I had trouble cutting and preparing steel quick enough for Robert to weld. On Thursday Robert 
welded the stern gear into place and connected the prop shaft to the gearbox. We began to fit the rudder that I had cut out so long ago (May '06). We found that because of the slight variation in the shape of the rear counter the trefoil shape was fouling at either side. I cut off the trefoil and cut a triangle to add on to the rear of the rudder. Then welded the trefoil back on. It looks as if it was designed to be that way!
16th June. Robert's last day was yesterday. We started cutting out the doors and I cut the angle steel to fit to the front doors. We managed to get most of the doors cut out but then the power went off again. The same fuse had blown so the compressor is out of action again. I have decided to get a single phase compressor of my own. It will be useful in the long term and it means that I am not reliant on an increasingly uncertain 3 phase supply to get my boat finished. We spent the last couple of hours on Friday grinding the welded frames to allow the front doors to fit as tightly as possible. Robert 
then left to join the sailing vessel 'Lady B' for a crewing holiday on a trip from Dover to the Baltic Sea. The next time I see him he will be bringing my 12 portholes back from Poland in late June or early July. This morning Julie started grinding the welds on the rudder. I had to run some errands but as it turned out weather stopped work. Its been raining a lot in the night and on and off all day so we called it a day about 2 o'clock. There is a lot more grinding to do as well as cleaning the rust off the older sheets on the roof. I have ordered some lighter steel to make the door reinforcing frames so will just carry on grinding welds until that arrives.
1st July. New steel arrived for the doors and they are now all cut , welded and fixed in position. I also made the top hatches for 
engine room and galley doors. I cut up an old Ford Transit exhaust system and used sections of it to construct the exhaust system for the Petter engine which goes straight up from the engine, through the roof. I still have to play around with the engine to make it a variable speed jobby. If anyone out there has some variable speed governor weights for a 1965 Petter engine available- my email address is at the top otherwise I will have to cannibalise the old weights that are in already.
Saturday 7th. Robert was back in England and came over again to bring my portholes. He had them cast in Poland and they look very good. It was a little bit cheaper. Now I have to get glass for them and then maybe next weekend, get them all fitted. Robert's son Karol also came with him. He is in England to visit prospective universities. I thought Robert was just coming today to deliver the portholes but they both stayed all day and worked on the boat. Robert carried on doing various welding jobs and he also made one of the extra fuel tanks that will sit either side of the engine. Karol started the mammoth task of cleaning the rust from the roof of the boat. He managed to get about 1/3 of the roof done today. Julie carried on cleaning rust from the doors and red oxiding them. I am not sure exactly what I did but it took me all day. Ah! Julie just reminded me that I was cutting out the pieces for the extra fuel tank all morning ready for Robert to weld it in the afternoon. 
Friday 13th
We had a crisis with electricity this week. Southern Electricity have come in on a regular basis over the last few weeks to reset the trips on the 3 phase supply to the whole site. This time they refused to reset them unless the offending circuit was disconnected. That meant that our power was cut off. It was through no fault of our own but we were the ones to suffer. So on thursday afternoon the power was cut and wasn't reinstated untill about 19.30 tonight. The problem was caused by skip lorry drivers parking on top of the 3 phase cable. So for all these weeks we have had one phase down and a burned out compressor motor because of a skip driver. I helped the electrician run a new cable from the site power hut to the pump room where our supply was joined into the circuit and we finally have 3 full phases on again. Hooray! So the compressor is back on and the 3 phase welder is back in action again. It turned out to be a lucky day after all!
Saturday 14th
Robert and Karol were there when I arrived at the yard this morning. Karol started on the roof again and Robert welded in the stern tube brace inside the boat. Meanwhile I cut out the pieces for the 2nd extra fuel tank for the engine room. When Julie arrived she started cleaning rust from the last pair of doors. I cut out two holes in the front doors for two smaller portholes. Robert also welded in a steel tube from the side deck, down through the well deck so that I can fit a hose connection from the water tank filler to the tank. After Julie had finished the doors, she carried on cleaning rust from the rear counter and primed it and the doors. Karol managed to finish cleaning the rest of the roof and got a coat of red oxide on it. Robert fully welded the other fuel tank and I pressure tested it. As I have to cut holes in the cabin sides for 13 portholes I spent some time making an adjustable circle cutter for the plasma cutter so the I can cut accurate circles. to finish the day off I spent some time cutting out 4 pole and plank brackets to weld onto the roof tomorrow. We had a very productive day today and I reckoned up that between the four of us, we did a 42 man-hour day. Its a pity that Robert and Karol are heading back home to Poland tomorrow but they have got the boat one step nearer completion.
Monday 6th August As you can see we've been working hard, in fact so hard Mike has asked me to put a very quick update on. He's at the yard working as I type.
Ok on to the important stuff, the Boat Safety examiner arrived Thursday (2nd), and passed the boat as fit to go on the water Phew! Insurance was then purchased and the launch arrangements started.
Launch day will be Friday 10th August in the morning at Croxley, near Watford so watch this space..................
I just logged on to put the launch date on and found that Julie had beaten me to it. I will add that Andy and I spent all of Sunday emptying the yard and manouvering the boat out of the yard for easy access when the stretch trailer arrives on friday morning. Its strange to look out of the bus window now and find that I am unable to see my boat, I got used to seeing it just outside over the last 20 months. There are a still few small jobs to do, like repairing a weld on the sliding hatch and fitting a couple more bolts on doors but for now, until we start actually fitting out inside the boat, the shell is complete! PHEW!
Friday 10th Well what a day. More stressful than moving house! I woke at 6 and was up and ready to go by 6.30 - just in case the lorry turned up early. At just after 8 Julie arrived laden down with cameras and video cams- but no lorry. I started throwing all the scrap offcuts into a skip while I was waiting. At about 11oclock I went to see Dave who had organised the lorry. He rang the company and found that they had forgotten the job! (It was a verbal arrangement made on Monday with one of the directors of the firm) OK- It was on its way from the other yard at Iver and would be there by midday.Finally at 1 oclock the lorry came into the yard. We lifted the boat on two very large forklifts and the lorry reversed under it with no bother at all. Then out through West Drayton, Uxbridge and onto the M40 then M25 to Watford. P and H Marine at Croxley really know their stuff and the boat was lifted up on a couple of slings in no time at all. They lowered it gently into the water and I jumped on board and quickly checked for leaks. None to be found yet!!! It will stay moored there overnight and I hope to get a tow back to Uxbridge from some kind person tomorrow. I'll check again for puddles inside then. But for now, I'm off for a shower and a beer! Cheers!
Pictures of it all.
Sat 11th. Mike managed to arrange a tow (thanks Chris and sorry to stop you doing your floor) for today so he went off just after 6am but I'm going to leave him to it as my mum is down (yoo hoo mum) for the weekend and we are going to have some time 
out and shop.
13th October 2007 Well it's now 9 weeks since the boat went on the water and we haven't done a thing to her. After Chris towed me back to my home mooring it was nearly three weeks before I got chance to even go and stand on the deck. All was ok when I did, she was still afloat and still breasted up to the Harbour-masters boat, where she'll stay till the rest of the boats have shifted back up to their allotted spaces.
We then went off on holiday up to North Shropshire. We'd hired a cottage so that we could go to the 
Vintage Marine Engine rally 7 - 9 Sept, but it was cancelled. We still went to the cottage in Whitchurch and had a fantastic week. We had smashing weather and a very canal orientated week. We went to the
Anderton Lift, Elsmere boat festival, Ponty....... aquaduct and the Elsmere port boat museum. We also met up with Mick and Jennifer, a couple we met at last years VME rally. Hi Mick and Jen, hope you're ok, you never know next time we meet we may be on our own boat. All in all a very relaxing week.
About a week or so later I went off to help dig a trench across Hillindon Canal Club car park so that the 
club can now have it's own water supply and hopefully better water pressure. I've also moved in to Julie's (she's holding her head in her hands at my hoarding nature) and all my boat building stuff out of the yard (she's now wringing her hands and wondering what the hell she's let herself in for). I've hired some storage space at Shurgard for a while or I think it could have been the end of a beautiful friendship. We 
need to get a shed/workshop built pretty quick so we can finish unpacking boxes. The thing is it's now my busy time of year work wise and I also have to go and update my Gas training so that I can stay Corgi Registered, there goes another £1,000+ pounds.
I thought I had a couple of small pinhole sized leaks when I went to the boat the other day and was worrying that I might have to get the boat out of the water again but when I went back a week or so later there was no sign. There had been some really heavy rain just before I went the first time, so it looks more like a hatch is leaking a bit or even some condensation - Phew!
Well here she is, in all her glory, safe and sound at the home mooring in Uxbridge. All we need now is to paint and fit her out, only another couple of years work.
