A Boat Owner’s Blog

And no, I am not talking about my friend Mark who decided to test out the wetness of the marina recently.  As you can see from the picture, Bandicoot is finally afloat again (and for the first time carrying that name).  The weekend following the Easter break was busy getting things ready to put her back in the water and, at the last minute things started to come together.  At the weekend we did some odd jobs and, most importantly, with the assistance of Mark the new transducer and depth sounder was fitted.

On the Monday the engineer who had rebuilt the outdrive for us put the drive leg back on and I was then able to get on and anti-foul it on the Monday afternoon.  She was now ready to go back in the water and a lift was booked for the Wednesday at 0900hrs.  The one potential fly in the ointment was the missing after cooler bung on order for over 6 weeks from the Volvo dealer.  Taking no chances I ordered one from well known marine suppliers Keypart which arrived Tuesday afternoon.  Wednesday morning as I went on board to secure things for the lift and check everything over ahead of going back in I discovered the after cooler bung was already fitted.  An engineer from the Volvo dealership had fitted it for me the previous afternoon.

So, in she went (after a long ride on a tractor and trailer) and the first good news was that she didn’t sink.  The second bit of good news was that, despite not having run in 7 months the engine struck up instantly and sounded as smooth as ever.  The new sounder fired up but didn’t like the slipway, however it quickly cleared as soon as we started to move, painting a nice profile on the screen, thus providing a third bit of good news.  And the fourth bit came as I backed her out of the slipway and forward gear engaged with a satisfying clunk.  We were on our way.

In fact Wednesday continued to go well as we stopped off at Freshwater Cruisers and had the 8 month overdue pump out of the toilet tank finally done and later in the afternoon I fitted and sealed two brand new roof vents which will hopefully be the end of our leaks!  And it doesn’t end there - yesterday saw the horn working again, new wiper arms and blades fitted and the wiper sweeps altered (corrected), refitting of the manual bilge system, satisfactory tests on the operation of all water, toilet and drainage systems, some light fittings upgraded and a previously blocked vent in the heads re-instated.

So, all-in-all, progress is being made, albeit slow in some areas.

Despite the sporadic rain it was possible to use the time at Easter to crack on with remaining jobs on Bandicoot and the Easter weekend provided the opportunity to paint not just several coats of primer but also several coats of Trilux on the transom shield leaving it ready to have the drive returned.  The hull gel coat also finished getting its polish and finally, on Easter Monday we got the hull anti-foul done. Inside we’ve started piecing together the interior woodwork and the cleaning up of the gel coat is just about done.

There is still much work to be done but she’s nearly ready to go back in the water and once that is done the next phase of work can be started.  With a bit of luck by the end of April she will be fit to use as a day boat - it might take a little longer to get her ready for longer periods of use but we’ll see.  For now the goal is just getting her back in the water and for that I need the drive back - hopefully I’ll have some news about that soon.  A couple of other odds and ends need finishing off too - fitting a new depth & temperature transducer as well as getting a blanking plug for the after cooler drain (ordered 6 weeks ago, still waiting).

For now, here is a comparison between the front cabin before and after.

A month has passed since my last update (slapped wrist!) and we’re still plugging away with the boat but there still seems a long way to go.  I am so busy these days I just don’t know where the time goes and I seem to look up from desk and have missed a week or more.

Last weekend a change of plans was required at the last minute when one of my oldest and closest friends, Phill, was kept in hospital in London over the weekend.  So I jumped on the train and went down to see him on the Saturday, battling as I did with sweeping closures on the London Underground which eventually saw me having to get a bus from Nottinghill Gate to Victoria - and experience I would be happy not to repeat.  But with Phill being discharged on the Sunday I had some time to kill in the afternoon and went out with my new, but unfortunately somewhat rubbish, compact camera.  Still, it was small and light and definitely better than no camera as I slowly made my way along the Central Line (the only line running into Liverpool St Station) as I wandered around on Sunday.

Bandicoot (the boat formerly known as Grenick, but not officially yet known as Bandicoot either) is still stuck on the hard standing.  A sterling effort from Susan has gone a long way to restoring the interior and she’s now looking a lot more like Silver Dream did, though still in pieces and still with leaking vents and windows.  On the outside, the names are all gone, the hull washed and cleaned but not yet polished, the underside scraped ready for repainting and a series of bits of damage to the gel coat and nicks out of chines have been repaired.  The transom drive mount has been cleaned up and ground back to primer (bare metal in some places) and is waiting for painting.  The drive itself should be largely finished (though I haven’t heard from the engineer for a while) but it can’t be refitted until the shield is painted.  Both the shield and drive will also need to be anti-fouled (as will the hull).  We also still need to fit the new transducer and I am still waiting on the blanking plug for the raw water system.  It seems to me that she will remain where she is for a while yet!

Pictures from London are here.

I think it’s an interesting reflection on the times when I receive an SMS in teenage text speak from my 65 year old mum asking me if I can sell her Nintendo DSI (whatever that is!) on Ebay for her!  And no, I am not being derogatory, I think it’s great!

I’ve been meaning to update this blog for some time but not managed to get around to it.  Continuing poor weather has  been a significant deterrent to getting on with work on the boat, of which there seems to be plenty.  Hardly a day seems to go by when we don’t find another problem and each problem we start work on becomes like a domino toppling event where every few minutes you find the issue becoming bigger and bigger.  The drive leg is now off and away for a complete rebuild and we’ve pulled a huge amount of the interior out as well.

Unfortunately we found the roof vents had been leaking which has all but ruined the roof lining in the front cabin.  It has also made the carpet very wet and it has slowly gone rotten.  No matter, we intended to replace the carpet anyway, but unfortunately a previous owner had decided to carpet all the walls and bulk heads as well as the floor.  As we have gone around pulling it down we discovered practically every fixture and fitting had gone on top of the carpet meaning everything has had to be removed to get it out.  As a result the interior is now almost entirely stripped out and the mess left behind by the glued carpet is something else.  Bringing the interior gel coat up to spec is likely to take most of the season but, fortunately, will not prevent the boat being usable in the meantime.  She won’t look very presentable though!

In amongst the snow / rain / storms we also managed a weekend in Lincoln.  What a fabulous city - all the history you could want together with some well preserved old streets and buildings, plus the odd Steep Hill or two.  Our hotel even had a wonderful view of the cathedral, which isn’t surprising since it was exactly opposite!  I didn’t quite get the photographic opportunities I wanted, owing to the weather in Lincoln being just as bad is in Norwich, but I was sufficiently impressed that I think we will be returning when time allows.  Before that, however, we’ve just got a keep cracking on with the boat if we are to have a boating season to speak of.  Pictures from Lincoln are here.

Allowing myself a little time off for the evening I went out on Saturday night with a few friends to a pub in Wroxham, The Shed.  Don’t be fooled by the named, it’s actually quite posh inside, but the main attraction of this place is the 50 real ales on tap.  If you’re a lager drinker, this is probably one to miss - then again, you might end up drinking something decent!

Well a little over a year has passed since my accident.  This time, one year ago, I was lying in intensive care in Innsbruck (Austria) unconscious, being kept alive by a machine.  One year on I have pretty much a normal life again for which I have to thank Innsbruck Hospital and the excellent surgeons, anaesthetists and nurses who cared for me there and in particular Dr Manfred Waldegger who, in his longest ever operation, managed to fix a leg which it was not always clear could be saved at all.  Thanks are due also to the excellent care provided by the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital on my return from Innsbruck and ever since.  I’ve put an album of scans and related items on Flickr for people to see.  Click here for that.

I generally only talk about the accident if asked because I don’t want to be defined by it, but I’ve quietly enjoyed the horrified looks of people when they see the scans.  But I’ve had my fun with that  now and I’ve got plenty of challenges ahead of me to be getting stuck into.  I’m now entering the 6th month since becoming the head of department at work and much has been achieved already but there is so much more to do.  Then there’s the boat, no longer named Grenick (or indeed anything at the moment) but still sitting up on the chocks awaiting a whole load of work ahead of the spring and it’s also about time we got on with the job of updating our house, work started but never finished by the previous owners.  Too much to look forward to so no time to spend looking back!