Thursday 6th 
9:30 start on cleaning up the metal components that will become the balcony at the sailing club. There is a reasonably big team this morning which is a good thing as there are a lot of individual pieces to wire brush all over. These have already been shot blasted but need a little more work to make sure all of the potential contaminants are removed prior to the steel being galvanised. All finished by around 3:45.
There will be another work party needed early next week when the galvanising company comes to pick up the steel and then again 3 days later to bring it all back (Photo by Martin Barker).
This evening was another band rehearsal for Helen so I took the dog for her walk then. There was a full moon, no wind, patchy cloud and high tide which created some wonderful reflections as well as there being enough light to get some night-time pictures of the moored boats on the river (all completely free of photoshop or AI fakery. Just a standard Android phone camera.).
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Monday 10th As there is a possibility of the steel going to be galvanised today, I set off for the club at 8:00 via B&Q where I bought some drill bits and a cheap mains powered drill. This will eventually stay on the boat as it’s power requirement is within the capabilities of my inverter but I will be using it at home for a while.
The repaired sensor on the bilge drier has been tested and is working. I also managed to get the laptop serial interface program to work at logging the debug messages which will make it easier to organise the over-run timing.
As there was no message about collecting the steel today, I started working on the cabin entrance repairs. The new oak slide on the starboard side has now been fitted although it needs a little trimming at the top to allow the sliding hatch to fully close. It is definitely better than the previous one as it is riveted to the cabin and has a butyl rubber spacer between the wood and the fibreglass. Also most of the attachment points now have a stainless steel washer on the inside instead of being pop-riveted directly to the fibreglass moulding. This should prevent future problems with the washboards jamming and the starboard side electrical panel is now back together.
It was raining hard by 11:00, so I decided to pack up rather than taking off the port side slide – That can wait for a drier day when I may also be able to varnish the new wood.
Tuesday The steel was supposed to be getting collected today so the plan was to meet up at about 8:30 to move it all out to the car park to speed up loading. Unfortunately the car key decided today was a good time to fail completely.
After trying to put in a new battery and finding we don’t have the right ones, I walked up to the dealership to get one. Their opening at 8:00 meant it was almost 8:30 before I joined the various queues trying to get in that direction.
Nothing much had been moved when I got there so I pitched in.
Once we had moved everything there was a coffee break with doughnuts followed by spending the morning with Andy scraping marine growth off the bottom of the mast crane barge. That revealed a few more holes and meant the general consensus is that we are aiming to deal with the larger ones and still rely on the empty plastic containers to provide the flotation.
After lunch I went to my boat and fitted the new slide piece on the port side of the cabin entrance. Neither of them is completely finished yet because I need a reasonably sharp chisel to cut out space at the top of the slides for the sliding hatch rim. Once that is done I can start varnishing to achieve a neat looking set of waterproof slides.
The galvanising company truck arrived at about 3pm but unfortunately there was not enough room to load the steel today – this or a somewhat larger truck will come tomorrow instead. That meant we had to move the steel back into the yard again but everything except the uprights is now in two stacks and a pallet which can be easily moved using the pallet truck. We are reckoning on getting about an hour’s notice so everyone will go back when we know the collection is imminent.
Wednesday I set off to LSC around 9:00 taking Willow with me. Today was another attempt at getting the metalwork collected but we were assuming that the truck would not arrive until at least mid morning. I got on with some tidying up and other small jobs on the boat with the dog ‘assisting’. I managed to properly shrink all the tubing on the bilge dryer system sensors and also removed the wood off-cuts remaining after the work on the entrance.
At about 11 we put all the steel out into the outside car park again. This proved to be quite a quick process today as yesterday’s failed pickup means it is mostly stacked on pallets or in pallet truck friendly heaps. The truck arrived soon after that was finished but is already fairly full with gate parts and some fancy fencing. After removing one pallet of pieces, we managed to load on all the small decking support pieces and the uprights before re-loading the small pallet. That left us with the large heap of H girders and the pallet of random pieces which will now be collected on a third attempt tomorrow.
I was on the way home at about 2:00
Thursday 14th Priority for me today was to make a start on the shower install now that the ceiling has been plastered. However I went to LSC again at about 11. I managed to finish the work on the washboard slides and started working on installing the insulation around the ice box. Only one piece was trimmed and pushed into place before we got the one hour notice from the galvanising company truck.
This time they had sent an articulated lorry which was only about half full so we managed to load the rest of the parts. There has been an offer from the company to bring it all back tomorrow at about 7:00 but we have declined that in favour of having it arrive on Monday.
There will be a work team on site early on both days because of the mooring maintenance which we are doing at the moment. Andy and I are on the Monday team so it seems likely that I will be involved in the unloading too.
Mon 17 Nov I am on a mooring maintenance party today – Andy as team leader. The theoretical start time was 08.30 but most of us were there by 8. Martin is also taking receipt of the galvanised pieces of steel but that is not expected until after 9 as we have to pay for the galvanising before they will do the delivery.
Our mooring task for today includes raising some spare ground chain and putting a piece of that in one set of moorings that are too close together so we did that first. On the way out there was an impression that the launch was towing us slowly even at full power and the same issue seemed present all day.
An adjacent set of moorings needed checking and we had arrived and got the barge attached to one of the pick up ropes when the launch was accidentally put into reverse with the tow rope attached. The tow rope got wound round the rudder and we ended up spending the next hour untangling the mess before we could re-start the launch engine or begin doing the work we are out here to do.
As well as inspecting it, the first set of moorings also has some extra ground chain which we were supposed to be collecting. This was achieved without further incident by undoing shackles rather than having to cut any chain. However the length we removed was very worn and we decided it was scrap rather than potentially being added to another pair of moorings. We also swapped a rope and chain riser for a 5M all chain one.
The second pair on our list have been reported as being too close together. That was traced to potentially two causes – a 7M riser chain instead of the 5M one supposed to be used in that location and also an anchor which had a tangled lazy rope and seemed to be lying on the surface rather than embedded in the mud (Shellfish and barnacles growing on top of the flukes). We changed the perfectly usable riser for a new 5M one and added about 5 M of ground chain between the pair before trying to set the anchor properly this time – Somewhat doubtful due to low pulling power from the launch while straightening out the ground chain.
We decided to try to do a third set of moorings but it took rather more time to find the right one than should have been the case. One of the moorings on this ground chain was only represented by a red pickup buoy (ie no numbered winter cans yet) and the other of the pair was numbered as 37 when the location suggested it should be 35.
We moored the barge to the red pickup buoy and cast off from the launch so they could check adjacent mooring numbers and work out whether we were in the right place. The conclusion was that this was the right one for the next checks and had hoisted the ground chain ready to change the riser and check the ground chain. While returning to the barge the launch started behaving strangely and those of us on the barge eventually became aware they could not steer. Having somewhat randomly arrived at the barge using a floor board to help steer, we discovered that the rudder had broken and fallen off.
We secured the mooring barge as best we could and all transferred to the launch taking the tools with us and also two shovels which we used to try to steer the launch. This worked reasonably well and we slowly progressed into the lagoon and up to the end of the pontoon pier. The launch was tied to the pier as close in as we could drag it and as it was rapidly getting dark we left the launch and went home.
Tuesday 18th November Helen is doing a flute lesson this afternoon at 3:30 which coincides with low tide when I should be able to work out what Karl and I need to do to create the replacement hinge piece for the launch rudder. When I arrived there was a team working to jack up the other launch (which is undergoing significant maintenance work) from the trailer so that the newly broken one can be brought out on tomorrow’s morning tide. I helped with that so we are now ready for a small team to move the launch round and get it out of the lagoon where we can work on it.
It turns out that the lower pivot pin on the rudder has worn and is no-longer present which would explain the rudder failure although that may have been sped up by our tow rope accident yesterday. There was also a piece of thinner rope wrapped round the prop which would potentially explain the lack of power yesterday and may also have contributed to if not caused the rudder damage.
Wednesday Another morning spent at the sailing club doing my bit to help sort out the repercussions from Monday’s mooring work. The plan had been to meet at 8:00 which was a little before the top of the tide so we could float the launch round to the slipway and take it out on the trailer. I was about 15 minutes late due to traffic but they had not yet got beyond initial attempts at lining the launch up with the trailer. A couple more of us meant we could have two on the bow and two on the stern with ropes to line it all up while powering up onto the trolley.
With the aid of a car we then got it up the slipway and round to beside the mast crane barge to work on it. We have evolved a plan to wed a 16mm bolt onto the plate as a pivot so I added a pack of suitable bolts on my current Screwfix order and collected that ready to work on the shower plumbing this afternoon. I then dropped off the bolt and some other possibly useful bits of steel for Karl to collect when he returns from working in Portsmouth tonight.
I then spent the afternoon working on our shower room. During our tea we got a call from Karl to say he had finished welding the pivot onto a plate so I could go and collect it. Helen and Willow came too so we had drinks while the dogs played.
It turns out that Karl is not working on Thursday this week so he can do the alignment and weld the pin onto the launch in the morning.
Thursday 20th Karl has done the welding and Colin done the woodwork so the launch rudder was fully assembled by the end of today. The re-launch and recovery of the mooring barge should take place tomorrow.
Saturday 22nd Today it is my turn to be on the yard duty team. The two outdoor tasks were sweeping up leaves & pine needles from the front car park then organising mooring cans, pallets and ground chains in the inside parking spaces to make room for more vehicles during today’s craft fair.
Sunday 30th 
We have arranged to meet at 2pm to start work on patching the mast crane barge. Both Andy and I arrived early so it only took about two hours to empty the first half of the barge of flotation containers. Only three of them were damaged enough to be completely full of water and in fact two of those seem to be associated with leaking lids rather than actual failure. Andy emptied out the barge while I stacked them and threaded cheap rope through the handles to stop them blowing or floating away before we are ready to put them back. The next step will be to hose out all the mud and then decide exactly how the bottom is going to be patched. Three options are being considered – Fibreglass sheets, aluminium sheet and plywood. I suspect the aluminium will last longest but it id up to the more experienced people to make the decision.
First published 10th November. Updated 14th & 30th.