Nichola / Mild, rain, windy
02/22/2012, Brandy Hole, River Crouch, Essex

Pic - the narrow end of the aft cabin - rotten wood :-(

The forward cabin is all finished and Colin did a fantastic job with his usual great attention to detail. The new water tanks are in and held securely in place on the new shelving. Having lined the sides of the hull with insulation and tongue and groove last winter, we've added more insulation under the bed base and at the end of the bed to reduce the cold spots. A new storage cupboard has been made to make the most of the space between the tanks to replace the drawers we had to take out to put the tanks in.

We had a chance to see how well the insulation worked when we had snow a few weeks ago. It stayed cosy and warm in there so now it's time to do the same in the back cabin, where we sleep.

We moved to sleeping in the forepeak and began the job of taking apart the back bed. We were a little horrified by how bad things had got in there and cross with ourselves for not having done anything sooner (although we were doing lots of other jobs too!). Most of the bed base was rotten, so Colin has replaced the worst of it which will be painted to hopefully help protect it better. We'll need new foam and a cover for the mattress as what was there is mouldlyunderneath and the old cover has disintegrated.

Under the bed mattress we use a wirey fabric similar to this: HyperVent to create an air space between the mattress and the cold bed base. On top of this we have some wooden Ikea bed slats that are curved and lift the mattress off the HyperVent creating an additional space for air to circulate. Our old bed mattress does fit quite snugly into the surrounding woodwork so I'm thinking of getting the new foam cut slightly smaller to allow an air gap around the edges.

A design 'feature' of our boat is that at the narrow end of the bed, where the hull curves up at the stern, bare hull is actually touching onto the mattress. The hull is very cold (we live in the UK - perhaps the boat is telling us something - go somewhere warm) and our heat against the cold leads to rivers of condensation forming in that area. This has resulted in rotten wood along the sides of the bed which Colin is in the process of ripping out and replacing. We'll line the inside of the hull with underfloor insulation sheeting (this is what we've used elsewhere on the boat) and also the underside of the bed base.

The insulation we use is this and so far has worked well where we've used it to line the spaces between the hull and the back of cupboards and shelves in the saloon. Condensation will still form against the hull but it should now run straight down into the bilges rather than soaking into all the woodwork as it was before. The insulation is not affected by moisture so should last plenty of years and keep the boat cool once we get somewhere hot.


Pic: Emerald in the snow a couple of weeks ago

2011\12: Winter jobs at Brandy Hole

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Nichola / Brrrrrrrrr!
01/31/2012, Brandy Hole, River Crouch, Essex

Pic: Colin and the weeny washing machine

January is closing on a cold note with our first light dusting of snow this morning, more like icing sugar than snow. The wind is picking up from the north east increasing the chill factor and making it tempting to just stay under the duvet all day.

After our travels to family over Christmas and New Year it took us a while to get back into the swing of boat jobs. Colin is still working away in the forepeak, putting in insulation, making repairs and building a storage locker between the new water tanks, making the windlass battery breaker switch more accessible. I've been doing some sewing repairs and other little odd jobs.


Pic: The new locker door in the forepeak ready to be varnished and the new wall sides covering the holes where drawers used to be.

We decided to take a trip to the London Boat Show but we found it pretty disappointing. There were hardly any chandleries there and those that were there were mainly selling electronics rather than the bits and bobs that we were after. We only got half the things done that were on our list and the show seemed much reduced in size compared to our previous visit. There were a few interesting displays including a beautiful boat made with donated wooden items including guitars, cutlery drawers, spirit levels and hockey sticks. You can see more about the project here

Part of the space had been given over to an Outdoors show which I actually enjoyed more than the boat show, not least because I got to have a free go on a 500ft long zip wire with Go Ape! This was my first go on a zip wire - I don't mind heights but I don't like ladders and I had to climb one to get to the launch platform. I chose the wooden ladder rather than the rope one - the way it wobbled when others climbed up that one made my head swim just watching them. Launching off the platform was exhilarating and as I zipped down the wire spinning slowly around I got a 360 degree view of the show. I've since won a voucher for a tree-top session with the same company - top bananas!

Our main excitement of January is finally getting lucky on eBay on our bids for a second hand compact washing machine. We've gone for a Zanussi ZWC1300 which will be installed into a space next to the engine room which so far has been filled with stuff that we've never used and probably never will. So that will be emptied and an access door made in the aft head wall. It's a luxury that we've been thinking about for a while and have been up and down about whether to get one or not but having saved me a cold walk to the launderette this week it already feels worth every penny. It runs really quietly and with its low power consumption and small water usage we think it will pay for itself very quickly.

Pic: A frosty morning in Brandy Hole

Back off under the duvet now!
Nichola

2011\12: Winter jobs at Brandy Hole

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Nichola
12/16/2011, Brandy Hole, River Crouch, Essex

It's been a while since we last blogged, so thought it time to give an update of where we are with the winter jobs.
We now have a couple of new mini radiators run from the hot water that Rupert (our Reflex heater) generates; one up in the forepeak and another in the aft cabin. Rupert is great at heating the main saloon but getting that heat around the rest of the boat has proved a problem; with these mini radiators we hope to resolve that and so far so good. We also have a towel rail also fed with Rupert warmed water built by Colin in the heads to keep the chill off in there.
Our forward heads used to have two doors - one for access from the main saloon and the second to access from the forepeak so as to provide an en-suite. The plywood panels in the doors were beginning to delaminate due to age and water ingress from having showers. Rather than put new panels in, we decided to get rid of the forward door completely and replace with a solid panel, onto which we could fasten the towel rail on the heads side and the mini radiator on the forepeak side. The inside of the panel we've tiled to match the rest of the heads, on the outside we've put some tongue and groove to match the walls of the forepeak.
For the door from the saloon, we removed the old panels and put in single sided teak ply for the saloon face. On the heads side I've created two mosaic panels which can be seen in the photo above.
Colin is currently connecting the pipework for the new bow water tanks. Earlier this year our stainless steel bow tank started leaking and we removed it in October as it was turning into a teabag. We investigated getting a similar shaped tank custom made but the costs were pretty astronomical. After days of research and measuring a million times to find something that fit the awkward V shape we went for 2 rectangular Vetus solid plastic tanks which sit either side of the space. We've lost a couple of storage drawers but gained some storage between the tanks that we can use for tools and spares. The old tank held 265 litres, the new tanks 220 litres so we haven't lost too much and at a fraction of the cost of a custom tank. Colin has built and fitted flooring and walls to hold the tanks snugly in place whilst we're bouncing about in big seas.

Bow water tanks in place

2011\12: Winter jobs at Brandy Hole

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