Shipyard blog-4 !!!
These pages are designed to share the work in progress on the shipyard. They cover the work that needs doing to restore and convert our lightship. We decided to do some work ourselves, and leave the "heavy work" to the shipyard people who are much more capable than we are with steel work and such. On these pages you can follow our progress and frustrations...
This blog is split into several pages now, since it took too long for all those pictures to load at once! For the previous one click HERE. For the next page click HERE. Enjoy!
By the way: feel free to leave comments on our project HERE!
4 Dec 2009: Preparations for the construction of the new wheel-house are ongoing: hand-railings from the old one were removed by Steve and Dan.. leaving it look even more horrible! But with all materials in next Monday, the new wheel-house will come together soon, no doubt.
2 Dec 2009: Down, WAY down in the ship, Agnes is painting as well, still going strong in the storage room. Since this room is in the bow section, the walls are odd shaped and it takes some creative acrobat thinking to reach those difficult areas. Here she is: no stopping her painting no matter where. And even a storage room starts to look perfect!!
30 Nov 2009: Blasting of the super-structure completed, the primer went on. This time the bronze coloured one! It's getting funny now: parts of the ship are still red, other parts are silver coloured, other parts bronze! It certainly shines nicely in the sunshine, almost like a golden ship!
25 Nov 2009: And the blasting goes on! The superstructure is almost complete and the bulwarks to. They should be finished by tomorrow and start on the tower by Friday. It remains a spectacular event! Can you spot one of the blaster in the first picture? Yes.. he is in that cloud of steam somewhere. Whenever there is a tiny hole in the structure (like an old cable entry) the room behind it, in this case the shop, gets filled with a mist of water! Spooky huh? The good news is that the fog disappears again after 10 minutes, unlike dust you get from traditional grit blasting. Times move on!
20 Nov 2009: Although the blasting off the old paint will continue next week Wednesday, Gary started to put the first layer of primer on those bits that were blasted earlier. The colour? SILVER!! And the funny bit is that the second layer will be bronze coloured before the final coats of red paint will go on. It's a strange view: part of the ship is bare metal (with a shine of rust), part of it is still red, and other parts are silver! Shame it is showing up as grey on the pictures below, but it IS silver coloured. Gary is doing a good job putting the first new coating on!
19 Nov 2009: With the days getting shorter, we needed some extra lights on the ship. Although some areas have been re-wired, non of those new circuits are "live" yet. We decided a while ago to keep the original light fixtures, so I pulled new cables and re-wired the old bulk-head lights throughout the ship and got them going again. Creates that nice "ship feeling" when you switch them on. Let there be light!!
18 Nov 2009: Besides the big bathroom, we have a nice separate shower-room as well. But since this room is mid-ship and below deck at the cabins, a long and complicated vent system had to be constructed. It runs through the workshop (where the in-line fan is located) through the old starboard coal bunker area to the deck. All made out of steel to reduce friction for the air flow. Steve and Dan made a good job of it (as usual) and the vent pipe on deck will be blasted and painted soon.
17 Nov 2009: One of the only safe places on board is way down below the treatment rooms where Agnes is painting the future storage room for the shop. It also is a testing ground for colour mixtures of paint! So we currently got: black, grey and.... PINK! Don't ask...
13 Nov 2009: Blasting is still going strong. So far only a tiny hole, less than 1mm has appeared! Very good indeed. Today we spend some more time on the Diaphone, the system inside the foghorn that creates the typical (loud) sound. The principle is very simple: compressed air moves a piston backwards and forwards inside a cylinder and opens slots to allow air to go through. The piston typically moves 180 times a second, hence creating a tone of 180Hz. The piston though was well jammed inside the cylinder and it took Mark some effort getting it out and clean it all up. Stuart in the workshop then repaired and made the piston fit tightly again. We then tried the assembly but we couldn't get enough air volume to make the Diaphone work. But we have a plan for next week! The pictures show Stuart and Mark working on the contraption and the last picture shows an animated cross-section of a Diaphone, showing how it works. Thanks guys for making it work so far!
11 Nov 2009: The ship has turned into a living hell!! With two blasters on board the whole ship is engulfed in water mist and a noise that goes beyond believe. So much so, that I decided to take Steve and Dan from the ship; it simply isn't safe to walk on deck. The high-pressure water blasting equipment spits out 2500 BAR or 26000 PSI (!!!!) of hot steamy water jets that peels the paint from the steel. The tiny pieces fly all over the place.. The ship transforms to a black ship (the colour of the bare steel) covered with flakes of multi coloured paint. The jets turn around at high speed and leave a nice pattern on the paint, see the last picture. The bad news: there are more than 8 layers of paint on top of each other! The good news: so far the steelwork looks perfect!!! Yahoo!! Fingers crossed it stays like this! It will take well into next week for the job to be finished..
9 Nov 2009: Today, Steve and Dan completed the construction of the new top vent for the training room. The original one included a jammed extractor fan that isn't needed anymore. The new vent can be opened and closed to control the ventilation. And today also started a major event: SBS started with the high-pressure blasting, removing the MANY layers of paint on the super-structure. It is important to see if we need to re-plate some areas since we cannot continue insulating the inside in case welding on the outside has to be done. Fingers crossed, but so far the steelwork looks to be in good condition! This blasting will take a while, and will be covered by 2 layers of primer. Once we are in dry-dock, and the hull has been blasted as well, we will finally paint the whole ship in her new red coat of paint!
5 Nov 2009: We decided to have an extra skylight above the staircase going down from the shop to the treatment rooms. So Steve Brain made a perfect one for us to match the other skylights on the upper deck. "Canadian Steve" and Dan cut a hole and welded the new frame onto the deck. Then I installed the thick glass.. and this is where it became complicated.. it all went fine until I walked down to have a look up through the new glass! Not.. it was all shattered.. SO: today I replaced it with unbreakable plexi-glass. Looks the biz!
4 Nov 2009: Lee, our carpenter, is back to do some small jobs: he carefully removed the hard-wood window frames from the wheel-house. It revealed the true extend of corrosion damage to the wheel-house! (see picture 1-3 ) Proved to be a wise decision to replace the whole structure.... The window frames will be re-used in the new wheel-house. After that, Lee went on varnishing some of the outside doors as preparation for something really exciting next week! Mark moved the foghorn inside the workshop since the weather isn't that good around here at the moment. Steve and Dan replaced the cross-member from the light-tower and welded the hand-railing back together. This completed the installation of the heating oil tank underneath the tower.
2 Nov 2009: With the heating oil tank hanging underneath the light tower, the foundation was moved underneath it and made to fit. Martin made sure all was painted. Mark started on cleaning the fog-horn. We estimate there are 7-8 layers of paint on it! Will take a while to get it all off but it will be all shining again. We will remove the diaphragm from the horn as well to clean-up. This diaphragm is causing the typical sound of the horn when air is blasted through it. Of course the horn HAS to work! Citizens of Gloucester: you are warned! ;-)
30 Oct 2009: Today the heating oil tank was put in it's new position underneath the light-tower. The tank is a "double-skinned" tank meaning that if the main tank would leak, the oil will be contained by the outer tank. Also, the position underneath the tower ensures a minimum change of external damage to the tank. A cross-section of the tower and some hand-railing had to be removed to slide the tank in; a tight fit indeed!! The framework for the tank can now be installed to fit the tank onto the deck. Although the frame was finished, there was nobody left to drive the crane! The shipyard crew won a footy against the Dragon Alpha team last night and I THINK this might have something to do with it.. It gave Russ a chance to paint it. The last picture shows the tank temporarily installed, awaiting the frame. Once this is in place, the cross-member of the tower can be reinstalled. You wouldn't even know it was there!
29 Oct 2009: During the past year or so, we used a gangway at the aft section of the ship to get on board. But since we no longer use this now, the "door" was put back in place. First the gangway support had to be removed, always a spectacular sight with the blow-torch! Then de door was put in position and welded temporarily to make it secure. Once we are in dry-dock, the final welding can be completed. Then the starboard bollards were tackled: the old (rotten) wood between the bollard and the base was removed, a rubber mat installed and the bollards hoisted back on. Once the new bolts are in, it will all be fixed back together.
28 Oct 2009: More lifting today. First, the life-boat was removed to be restored. Then the main extractor fan for the old engine room was removed. This will be replaced later with a simpler design vent system. Whilst the crane was there, other heavy items that had to be removed left the ship. I can imagine that people looking at all this activity might think we are scrapping the ship, removing bit by bit! But fear not: all to be replaced!
27 Oct 2009: AN EXCITING DAY!!! The wheelhouse had to come off to be replaced later on with an exact replica since the old one was rotted beyond repair. But first the foghorn, made from fibreglass, had to be removed very carefully. With Paul in the crane and Steve, Martin and Russ on the deck, the job was started. The foghorn came off rather easily. Once it was off, Russ stuck his head through the manhole to double check it was gone ;-) The wheelhouse was a bit more stubborn and it took some effort to get it off. But Steve with his torch and Martin / Russ with the hammer did the trick at the end. Excellent job guys! A new wheelhouse will be fabricated in the workshop soon. More lifting tomorrow!
26 Oct 2009: The hatch in the tower has been completed and is upgraded significantly compared to the old one. It might survive the rest of the ship in years to come! This afternoon, the guys started to clear the decks, taking lots of rubbish, scrap metal and other items that accumulated over time. Looks like a spring-clean in autumn!
23 Oct 2009: Today the shipyard crew moved the lightship from the North to the West quay side as preparation for some heavy lifting including the removal of the wheel-house for replacement, the lifeboat for restoration, and some other stuff that simply needs to come off. Also, the new heating oil tank will be installed. All this work to be done next week! Here are some pictures from the event. The ship is simply pulled with ropes by pure man (well..) power. See the guys in action!! The final picture shows me struggling to get off the temp ladder after the final inspections on the ship, as a captain is suppose to do ;-)
21 Oct 2009: Work was started on the last access door, this one way up in the light tower. A new frame was fabricated, hoisted to the top and made to fit by Steve and Martin. In the mean time, Josh was painting the newly constructed flue pipe in the boiler room.
19 Oct 2009: Clearing the galley was started with many old piping and other stuff to be removed. Especially a huge foundation for the old stove was a challenge! Next project was to restore the old flue for the boiler way down below in the bowels of ship. This stack is almost 9 metres in total and is basically a huge heavy pipe. Although the new (modern condensing) boiler won't need a pipe this size, we wanted to make sure it looked the way it used to. So the boys had a battle on their hands! Here are 2 pictures of work in progress.
16 Oct 2009: A lot of small outstanding items were tackled this week: the renewal of the last drain-pipe, and the replacement of the middle hatch cover. We also saw the arrival of our new heating oil tank. It will be installed later on underneath the tower and painted red of course to blend in nicely.
07 Oct 2009: The preparations for the wheel-house removal are almost complete. A lot of rivets had to be removed allowing the whole wheel-house to be lifted in one go later on next week. Holes were appearing where the rivets once held the wheelhouse securely fixed to the ship. Lots of electrical cabling had to go as well. Steve and Dan were burning away with the torch to get it all out!
06 Oct 2009: Lots of activities on board again! The last lugs in the living room have been burned off, the entrance to the engine room (training room) has been prepared for cleaning and painting. See mad Tony with his grinder in the middle picture! He clearly enjoys it!! Preparation has also been started to remove the wheel-house. Instead of re-plating it (remember, the wheel-house is very corroded) we decided to replace it completely with a new one. The old one will be removed soon and a new one fabricated in the workshop.
Sept 2009: Most of this month was taken by the "drain pipe project" Many of the drains draining rain water from the superstructure was found to be badly corroded from the inside and had to be replaced. Most of these were pretty straight forward, but one in particular was a challenging one. The original pipe drained on the deck just where the new access from shore will be for our customers. Of course we can't have them having wet feet the moment they step on board! So the pipe had to be re-routed to the inside, down the deck, and through a new hole made in the hull. Steve and Dan did an superb job!
Aug 2009: Some of the hatches needed replacing. The biggest one was the escape hatch for the treatment room area. This door was very heavy and the counter balance weight had to be right so that you can open it with just a gentle push. A couple more to go. Here's Steve burning off the old one, installing the new one that was fabricated in the workshop, and the magical primer paint finished it off for now.
The previous blog page (click HERE)