Glenda has been very busy

Glenda has started to experiment with the bedding, curtains and drapes, as we are trying to find suitable pashminas that suit the lovely bedding that Glenda found in a sale ;o)

 

We have a lovely and seemingly rare Jøtul 404 dual fuel range, but we've struggled to get the best out of it because it's Norwegian and all the controls were foreign to us!

After a few online searches we found a PDF version of the instruction manual here 

Our lovely Jøtul 404 has had it's legs shortened at some time.

Once we knew how to use it to it's best advantage there was no stopping Glenda. She was like a contestant for the Great British Bake-off!

We had lovely bread, pies and cake, Yum!

There's a Railroad running through the middle of our Marina!

We returned to boats on Saturday, as we both have some time off. 

There have been a few changes around here in the last few weeks. there is now a slipway complete with railway track and bogey.

The slipway with it's rail tracks laid and the bogey, which will be cable-winched to haul narrowboats and widebeams out.

The slipway, railway, bogey and Clive's dredger (looking towards the new cruiser moorings)

Looking from the cruiser moorings side.

 The cruiser and maintenance moorings have been almost completed.

There was a shortage of narrowboat moorings so Clive has added some shorter cruiser moorings to free up more of the 60 foot pontoons that are occupied by shorter cruisers etc.

Clive will also be moving his floating drydock from WillyWatts Marina (behind the Mill tearooms) around to a spot near the cruiser moorings and it will be under cover.

A lot of boats have moved pontoons and a fair few new boats and faces have arrived, the marina is getting fairly full now, as many people have moved from river moorings to our floating pontoons after all the flooding last Winter.

Birmingham Floating Market

This weekend I drove the Welsh band 'Kids in Glass Houses' to The Asylum venue in Snow Hill, Birmingham. Glenda drove her son Nick up to Harper Adams college, north of Birmingham.

This worked out great, as it coincided with the first floating market on the canals around the International Conference Centre, near Gas Street Basin. 

We wandered around the trade boats and met up with John Sloan who had organised it, then went for a pint and a gongoozle at the Canalside Cafe.

Later we took a ride in Victoria, one of the trip boats that run from Gas Street Basin

We came across a group of lunatic 'pirates' on surfboards!

These 'pirates' were paddling surfboards for charity

The girl on the left about to fall in, damn! wish I'd been videoing it. ;o)
In the evening we went The Prince of Wales pub where we met with fellow members of the fledgling Association of Continuous Cruisers and where I was able to put faces to people I talk to frequently on Canal World Discussion Forum

Hired a scabbler

After struggling to scrape the top layers of paint off Freyja, then attack what was left with a wire wheel mounted on an angle-grinder (with not the greatest of results) we decided to hire a scabbler.
This video does demonstrate how noisy it was, so turn the sound down a bit before you press play! (video by Jac)

We had picked the scabbler up from Brandon Hire in Northampton on Tuesday, but wasted a lot of time trying to fit the dust hood, due to a previously damaged thread. So I only got to use it for a half an hour (not supposed to do noisy work after 17.00 hrs) 
We then turned Freyja around so that we could scabble the other side.

My son Jac cleaning off the paint flakes after I'd done the front of the cabin roof the hard way!

On Wednesday I drove everyone crazy with the very noisy scabbler (glad we bought some ear defenders)
I was close to finishing scabbling off all the old paint when Glenda told me that they were forecasting rain for Thursday.

On Thursday I finished the roof and then attacked the side, above the rubbing strake, the stern and tunnel band.

We had treated the roof with Fertan, which had been left to work for 24 hours, this was washed off, suger-soaped and washed again, it was then a mad panic to get a coat of red oxide of the roof before the impending rain arrived, it was dark when I finished painting.

The roof after scabbling ;o)

The first coat of red oxide going on.

After two coats of red oxide, looking good and reasonably weatherproof.

At the same time Glenda & Jac were scraping all of the loose paint off Christina's wooden cabin.

Glenda scraping and rubbing down the loose paint on Christina so we could get some primer on her before Winter

After priming we changed which side of the moorings they are on so that we can get to the other side.

So, was it worth getting the scabbler?

We started out using two tungsten scrapers at £9.50 each =£18.00
6 x spare blades are £7.50                                                  =£45.00
2 x Bosch knotted wire cups at £27.50                              =£55.00
1 x knotted wire wheel at £12.00                                       =£12.00
1 x Bosch knotted wire wheel at £27.50                             =£27.50
Total                                                                                   =£112.50
And days with lot of sweat, aches, pains & blisters to do just a fraction of the total stripping!

Then hire a scabbler at £25.00 a day                                  =£25.00
1 pair of ear defenders @ £6.22                                        =£6.22 
Total                                                                                   =£31.22
To do the other 75% of the boat in one day!
              The results my dear Watson, are conclusive!               

On the move again, at last ;o)

We drove from Wales last night, and it took ages, with just about every road closed and diversions everywhere. Grrrr! We arrived at the marina just before midnight, and as we didn't know where Clive had moored Freyja, we slept on Christina.

This morning, we found Freyja, moored just outside the drydock :-

The floating drydock, ready for the next customer, with Freyja moored just outside. I took the photo from the garden of The Mill Tearooms

We found that the new rubber endcaps had not arrived, so I re-fitted the old, cracked ones and primed the raw water system, then cleaned out the calorifier, she started easily and, after a slow reverse down between the moored boats that can be seen in the photo, we steered her back to Blackthorn Lake.

We survived our first guillotine lock and, once in the marina, as usual, my crap reversing skills provided entertainment for our neighbours. With a little help, we got her moored and were very happy to have our boats re-united ;o) 
I had to flush the calorifier before we could get any hot water, but after flushing and priming the system, there was more than enough to give Glenda and I a nice shower, and one that didn't get pumped into our cabin bilge! (we've fitted a Whale gulper that pumps it straight out)

Never ask Clive to photograph your wedding!

As we had to come back to work before our new rudder was completed, I asked marina owner Clive to take some pics before Freyja went back in the water. They were taken on his i-phone, reminds me why I got rid of my i-phone in favour of a Samsung Galaxy Nexus LOL!

Apologies for the lousy quality of these photos of our new larger rudder, which features an angle-iron safety step / strengthener on the top.

Freyja is back in the water today, hopefully the new end caps for the gearbox oil cooler should arrive soon, then Clive can steer her back around to her mooring ;o)

We had to come home, leaving poor Freyja in drydock ;o(

We battled to do as much as we could on Sunday, I got up about 07.00 and set about connecting the Whale Gulper to a nearby sink drain, (a nice quiet job which wouldn't disturb the holiday let people) so now, we should be able to have a shower, without flooding the cabin bilge ;o)

I then started to re-connect the raw water, this was when I discovered that both the gearbox oil-cooler end caps were cracked, then discovered that you can't buy replacements on Sundays. Even in Oundle!

So off I went again, attacking the sides with a borrowed angle grinder and a wire wheel, Glenda recommended that I get the bows done as they would be more difficult to reach once she's back in the water.

There were all the colours of the rainbow under the layer of blacking, we decided to take it all back to the metal, Glenda spent 2 days labouriously scraping the bitumin off (as power tools heat it up, melting and smearing it) I finished the job I was doing and started to scrape using a second tungsten scraper, I realised that if I put pressure on the back of the scraper and dragged it backwards, it would take off an eighteen inch strip at a time! Glenda was a bit pissed off that I hadn't shown her this technique 2 days ago! So a few hours later we went from less than two metres of boat scraped to all thirty metres done and dusted.
Unfortunately, there was a side effect, the scraper screeched, like fingernails on a blackboard, amplified through a P.A system!
I was not a popular person that day!

We will repaint with matt black between the rubbing strake and up to the gunnels, on the gunnels will be red paint mixed with petshop grit for extra grip.

                                 

The wire wheel went all 'Kojak' on me! Determining when I should finally pack it in! (much to the relief of the holiday cottage hirers!)