Restoration Day 6!

Today began with a headache. It must have been a dodgy late night pizza. Or a dirty beer line. It certainly wasn’t the quantity consumed. I think!

The plan this morning was to start welding the other side of the boat, which got somewhat delayed due to coffee and bacon butty requirements. I managed to prise myself off the sofa by mid morning, and has a slow meander down to the boatyard.

I utilised the time to have a cheeky peek at the new bottom, which has been welded into one sheet measuring about 20000mm x 2250mm x 8mm.

Pete had said dock would be floated just after lunch, so i had a good couple of hours to weld my life away…. Then it rained. Hard. I covered the welder over with a tarp and went to sit in my dad’s van, who had just arrived.

The rain passed after half an hour or so, so i jumped at the brief sunshine spell to continue. The wind had blown the tarp off the welder and stereo, but luckily they were both still working, so i turned the music back up a bit and carried on, until i ran out of rods 30 mins later. I had managed to get about 15 ft along the hull, so at least a bit of progress was made.

I had to leave by 3.30 at the latest, as i had promised to be home in time to have dinner with the family as i hadn’t seen them all week. Knowing dock takes a while to float and get the boat on, i guessed that if Pete hadn’t arrived by half 2, then i’d head off. 2.20 and Pete arrives so it was all systems go to clear a path through the boats, as the Cromford Canal society trip boat “Birdswood” was blocking the channel. We then dragged the boat down, and managed to settle her into her new home for the next few weeks. We shut the gate and started to let the water out. It didn’t take too long for her to settle, as she is sitting on two RSJs on top of the new baseplate. She’s not quite square to the new bit, but nothing a couple of jacks won’t sort out.

Having a look at the state of the hull, what was interesting to see was two different sizes of rivets, above the waterline the heads are 1 1/2″, on the chine plates they are 1″, any ideas???? I think they are all original.

Because she is just sat on two RSJs, it created some point loads, and handily, did this:

As the hull settled, cracks started appearing in the concrete, which pleased Pete immensely.

We spent the last half hour clearing out the temporary top planks and cross beams, and I left abour 3.45, for a mad dash bak to MK to my girls and a roast chicken dinner!