Shipyard blog-5 !!!
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!
17 Feb 2010: Did I mention the blasting yet? Yes... still ongoing but the hull is almost completed now. The ship looks weird: the red paint is off and the rusty shine slowly covers the hull. With the paint on the floor of the dry-dock it almost looks like she has been bleeding! But the first batch of new paint arrived. Scaffolding has been erected for blasting the light tower and I must say it looks impressive!
15 Feb 2010: Yes.. the blasting is still ongoing. It will be going on for the rest of this week. In the mean time, Chris is finishing off the work way down below in the ship. The piping for the central heating is almost done in that area. Agnes is working on the portholes in the galley. They are covered in MANY layers of paint and she is using all kind of grinding tools and paint dissolvers to get it off. It's taking time, but the brass is getting to the surface at last!
14 Feb 2010: Denise visited us from Winchester and I took her into the dry-dock! She was well impressed as any First Mate would be!
12 Feb 2010: After a while, the noise of the blasting is getting to you! A very loud hissing noise that seems to be everywhere no matter where you hide on the ship. Good progress was made though! More and more layers of paint have been removed. Below a couple of more pictures of the blasting, and if you want to hear the noise, click on the last picture for a short video!
11 Feb 2010: Blasting is in full swing now! A crew of four is working hard to remove the old paint from the ship back to bare steel. Special equipment is used to blast high-pressure water at 2500BAR from the nozzles. The guys have to lean with their full weight against the gun to compensate for the back-pressure. Two men working on the hull and one guy is working on the light-tower. You can clearly see the difference! The steel starts to rust straight away (see the shine on the last picture) but this is actually needed for the high-tech primer to stick onto the steel later on.
10 Feb 2010: With the lightship on the dry, we could get a good look at her from the dry-dock floor. You only realise how big the ship is when you're looking up! It makes you feel very small indeed. Picture-1 shows her bow: can you spot the person on the left? Gives you an idea about the shear size! Picture-3 shows Jan inspecting the hull. Most of it is covered in mussels and other shell creatures. Picture-4 shows the rudder damage. Picture-5 was taken way underneath the ship and shows the blocks she is resting on. The last pictures shows a happy Agnes! The blasting crew set-up their equipment and started the job of removing the paint from the ship. Some pictures of that in the coming days!
9 Feb 2010: Well, it took until 17:30 today to get the lightship completely on the dry.. There were some problems with the little tug that is dry-docking together with us: she simply didn't want to sit properly on the blocks! But with the water levels going lower and lower, and the draining of the dock resulting in a nice big vortex (pic-1) we finally started to see the blocks. You can just see them on pic-2. Also, the rudder got more exposed an showed an almost 180-degree (!!!) curl. The ship must have had some battering on the rudder at some stage. It was too dark to take pictures with the ship completely on the dry, but tomorrow will be the day she will be fully exposed for all to see!! ;-)
8 Feb 2010: Today, the shipyard crew started on the dry-docking procedures for our lightship. This is always a delicate matter, especially if the ship (like ours) doesn't come with a docking plan. We had to go by the original drawings and a remaining single picture from her last dry-docking about 8 years ago. Firstly, the ship had to be exactly dead-middle of the dock to ensure she would land on the blocks correctly. So 4 wires (2 at the bow, 2 at the stern on each side) were pulled under tension. Two laser meters were used on each side to measure the distance from the wall to the hull. The wires were manipulated in such a way so that the ship ended up spot-on in the middle of the dock. (Pic 1 shows Steve with the laser device) Next, the water was dropped until the ship rested on the blocks. Then wooden poles were set-up between the ship and the dock wall that will keep her steady once the rest of the water is drained from the dock. At 16:30 this afternoon, the ship was partially exposing her rudder! The final draining will take place tomorrow.
6 Feb 2010: Last night we picked-up a generator that will act as a back-up power supply to the ship. Originally there were three 2-cylinder Gardner generators on board. However, it proved very difficult to find such generator for a reasonable price. So we bought an almost similar gennie with this 2-cylinder Lister set! This morning I tested the unit and it's running smooth like silk. Well.. as these engines SHOULD run that is; far from modern 4-cylinder engines, but I love the sound of a good old Lister. Click on the picture for a short clip of the engine running.
4 Feb 2010: With the wheelhouse in place, it was the fog-horn that could be replaced onto the ship. Still in grey primer, it sat on the side of the dock before it was lifted on top of the wheelhouse. At last the ship looked "complete" again..
3 Feb 2010: Today, the new wheelhouse was transported from the workshop to the ship. Paul in the crane made sure it was navigated in-between all the wires from the mast and antennas so that it could be "landed" onto it's original spot. It fitted PERFECTLY in the old frame on the top deck! Although a lot of people contributed to this success, credit goes to Nathan who did most of the work on the wheelhouse, and "Boss" Steve who coordinated the construction! Tomorrow the fog-horn will be put on top of the wheelhouse and the ship will look normal again. Still lots of work to be done on the wheelhouse: it needs to be welded onto the deck, the wooden window frames needs installing, a new air-supply pipe to be constructed to the fog-horn, etc. We also tried an old anchor in the starboard bay: it looked the biz! We now need a similar one for the port side. All-and-all a very productive day: well done to all at the shipyard!
2 Feb 2010: With the tide in the river Severn higher then ever, it becomes difficult to drain the dock. This situation should improve over the next couple of days and so it was decided to do some more work on the wheel-house in the workshop prior to lifting it on board. The railings were re-installed and Bob (middle pic) is making some final adjustments on the wooden framework for the door to go back in. Not sure about the last picture Stuart!
28 Jan 2010: Today, the ship was moved from her trusty quay-side into the dock. All done by pulling on ropes by pure man-power! Tony, Mattie, Chris and Stuart pulled like mad under the watchful eye of Paul who stayed on the ship. The first couple of pictures show the guys pushing the lightship of the quay, just missing a floating pumping station. Tony put his full weight against it to prevent collision. It was a tight move to get her out! The lightship was then positioned at the entrance of the dock, but with the wind picking up it took Will with a forklift-truck to pull her in. With the ship temporarily secured at the dock side, and the dock door closed, she is safe for the night!
27 Jan 2010: THE BLOCKS ARE SET!! Paul and his crew prepared the drydock for our ship to go in! Although it looks simple and easy, there is actually a lot of thinking and science into this as Paul explained to me in the first picture. We have made a comprehensive schedule of all activities that will take place whilst we are in drydock, including hull inspection, blasting and painting, seawater inlet valves inspection, re-installation of the wheelhouse and lots more. It all will be very exciting: to see the underneath our ship for the first time!
22 Jan 2010: The wheelhouse starts to take shape in the shipyard's workshop! Dan (left picture) is welding on the plates, whilst Nathan (right picture) cuts the windows with the plasma cutter. Middle picture shows Brian and Nathan proud of their work so far!
19 Jan 2010: More and more piping keeps appearing in every corner of the ship. Pete (pictured here without a beanie-hat) and Chris are doing an excellent job curving pipes around the most challenging corners; remember: it's a ship, nothing is straight! In the mean time, new plates were welded on the old wheelhouse framework. Soon the holes will be cut for the windows. With the snow gone, and the temperatures reaching double figure during the day, some people take it a bit too easy: here's Barry and his gang on comfy chairs at the quay site working on another ship.
13 Jan 2010: An action shot of Pete, one of the plumbers, working in the upper hall making a T-off for a radiator. Underneath the treatment rooms, all the piping has been completed. A pump unit pumps the waste from the hand basins to the back of the ship into the grey-water tank.
12 Jan 2010: The plumbers make great progress running piping for the Central Heating. Where the pipes are visible, we chose for nice big 32mm pipes as it looks authentic and "shippy". All new pipes are shining new copper ones... shame to paint them later on!!
7 Jan 2010: With the arctic conditions still upon us (we had -12C overnight!!) it is difficult for the guys to work, even inside the ship! The plumbers kept a smile on their face and more shiny copper piping was laid down. In the warm workshop, the old wheel-house plating was removed bit by bit to end up with the framework only so that new plates can be welded onto it later on. All the railings were carefully cleaned as well.
5 Jan 2010: We escaped the wintery weather so far in Sharpness, but today the winter finally got a grip on the ship! The deck was soon covered with an inch of snow. Agnes continued with the manual bilge-pump restoration, and Dan kept drilling new holes for the plumbing through several bulkheads. The work goes on regardless the weather!
4 Jan 2010: With the festive season behind us, and with a new year ahead, the first steps were made with the installation of the plumbing. We started at the bow section of the ship, at the treatment rooms. Before we knew it, piping was laid for the central heating. Below decks, Dan welded several support brackets for the piping. It will take a while for all plumbing to be completed, but it started of well. Can't wait for it to be finished: it is VERY cold on the ship this time of the year!!
31 Dec 2009: The past week has been all about the preparations for the installation for the central heating system, the hot & cold water systems and waste water system. The plumber will start early next year (this Monday LOL) and we had to sort out the radiators, the holes to be drilled in the steelwork for piping to run through, and so on. And so that brought us to the end of another year, another decade! 2010 will be en exciting year!! It will finally see the opening of our lightship! And we can't wait to meet you all on board!
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!! 2010 WILL BE THE BEST YEAR EVER!!
22 Dec 2009: The shipyard's manager Steve proved this morning that he can do ANYTHING! He even got hair back on his head! Isn't he AMAZING?!?
18 Dec 2009: Josh finished grinding the walls of the training-room entrance and has moved his activities to the hall. He is doing a perfect job removing all un-even bits and pieces on the walls so we can start the painting soon! The dust is flying everywhere, but with dust masks on hand (or on his head) it looks the biz! Dan and Ross replaced the last of the hatch covers on the ship. Almost a routine job! But it's all done now.
11 Dec 2009: Although today was foggy, the harbour has some nice weather too every once and a while: the first picture was taken yesterday, with sunshine and water as flat as a mirror! Mark started to restore our life-boat. It is one of the first of it's kind ever made out of fibreglass and proved to be in perfect nick after 50 years when all the layers of paint were removed. It will be stunning again when Mark has finished it. Dan installed the new locking mechanisms on two of the heavy metal doors. Once the wheels are on (they have been ordered) they will look like submarine door locks! It looks fantastic and very "shippy" Dan did a great job indeed!
9 Dec 2009: Josh completed the wire-brushing of the entrance to the training room, and so the first layer of primer paint went on. What a difference it made! Agnes decided to have a go at the manual bilge pump located in that area. As to be expected, it was covered with many layers of paint. But we couldn't believe what was underneath it: a solid brass pump with teak handles! Clearly the former crew didn't like polishing brass, so they just painted over the lot.. Needless to say we are going to restore it to it's full glory! We now need "buckets" of liquid paint stripper to carefully remove all the paint and than hand polish it to perfection.
7 Dec 2009: A new week with a lot of activities on the first day. Josh started to clean the walls of the training room entrance with a wire-brush and grinder to make the walls smooth so that when the paint goes on it will look perfect. Not the cleanest of jobs, but Josh made it all look great! Steve and Dan started to "clean-up" some outstanding things on the super-structure. There are many little screw holes and such that are no longer needed, so they started filling them by welding them up. On the new primer, it looks like the ship has got the pocks! Some actions shots from Josh and Dan:
The previous blog page (click HERE) Enjoy!