Tuesday, November 06, 2007

nearly there

The repairs have now been finished and in the last 5 weeks we have been non stop fitting out-including loading 10 tons of ballast.
The services are in, the welds were ground and more red oxide put on before the undercoats and now all the paint is done .(we even managed to black the bottom plate).
The lining is almost finished and the floor is laid and sanded and will be waxed by Friday when she wll finally go on the water.the services are finished to end points and the wind and solar will be fitted on the watr which means we will pole it or be towed until the week after launch!
My friend Noel ame down 3 weeks ago and has helped Andrew non stop- 8am-11pm most days.
i have been there quite a bit but have found the whole experience so stressful that most of the time I am unhappy .We are owed almost £17,000 and do not forsee it being paid back even although we have a court clam pending (no money in the business). Parenting and going back and forward is also a drag -it takes 1.5 hours to drive it.
however now that more is done I can see it taking shape and have said that providing certain things are up and running I will move in.
Andrew and Noel have been living in a caravan we got cheap on the campsite at foxhangers. i got a gas bottle converted to a wood burner installed and the caravan heats up to 90 degress in no time!
We even managed at the last minute to get the hatch corected to our origional specs which means the spiral stairs will fir.The calorifier webasto radiator outfit is fitted as is 2 pumps -a grand total of 34 L pressure rather than the usual 17L so the bath will run fast enough and the shower will be powerful enough for all three of our long thick manes.
We went for 240 lighting and chose megaman low energy surface mounted and thin recesssed (23mm) lights which take 9 and 11 watt bulbs.
My daughter who has also suffered the last 4 months -mainly from us being stressed and working flat out ,is saying she does not want to move on so we are tempting her with a 2 wek holiday cruise once we move in. Andrew will move in on friday when it goes on the water and i am aiming for 2 months after that with my kitchen and bathrrom working and no tools all over the place proviso.. wll update after she goes on the water Bradford on Avon

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

But what happened next? I have read all through this gripping story. You are/were doing exactly what I hope to do i.e. build a widebeam narrowboat and fit it out yourselves. I wish you had continued the blog. I must even be close to you, living on the Wiltshire/Somerset border.