Just the mess to clean up.

Although we kept the site as clean as possible, on a daily basis,there was still a lot of mess covered by the hull. Most of the area was covered in the remains of the shot blasting grit,after a couple of hours of sweeping & hosing down, we were finally ready to leave our boat yard prison.

Back on the mooring, safe & sound.

We could not relax until Warrior reached the water, as there is always the chance of the hull breaking its back. When something weighing 58 tonnes & 85 feet long is lifted, any weak points are going to be found out under the stress.

At least they chose high water this time, so there was not too far to go!

At last!

8.30am Friday 11th December & Warrior is lifted into the misty air,ready for the nervous journey back to the mooring.

I finished painting the areas covered by the chocks, at 9.30pm the night before. I make that about 50 hours spent just painting underneath, without the preparation time.

Nearly there.

Just the sacrificial anodes to bolt on then, Warrior will have to be lifted by the hoist & moved a few feet forward to allow access to the areas covered by the wooden chocks. I will have to paint these areas during the evening prior to the relaunch.

Five hours spent painting the underneath of a barge with bitumen & you could look like this too!

Steph applied the third & fourth coats of the chlorinated rubber paint,to the area previously shot blasted.

Almost there!

Four weeks to the day since Warrior was taken out, we are almost ready to go back to the mooring. The underneath took nine days to paint although, the day only lasted five hours, due to the winter light. Mind you, five hours spent under there seemed a lot longer,especially the last day, as I had to work from the shingle under the stern.

Today, I painted the final coat to the hull, above the water line,leaving just the area covered by the chocks holding the barge up off the ground, which I will do tomorrow evening. The only other job to do, is fit the ten sacrificial anodes,which is a simple bolt on job, that I will do tomorrow day.

We are already booked in to return to the mooring on Friday morning, something we are both looking forward to.

I will upload some more pictures when the signal allows.