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.

Just to update; the primed area now has three coats of the primer & four coats of the chlorinated rubber paint. We have ordered another tin, to enable the area above the water line to be painted with the same product.

I began applying bitumen paint to the underneath & after a solid five hours, I am about 20ft along, just another 65 to go!(followed by a second coat).

Need a break now so,off up to sunny Sydenham to watch the Palace game tomorrow,the things we do!

Shot blasting & primer coat.

We have had the waterline shot blasted(Friday) & managed to get two coats of under water primer completed by Sunday.

Tomorrow,we have the brackets welded on, to take the new set of sacrificial anodes. Once done,a third coat of primer will be applied. The hardest part of the repainting job, will be the underneath, which is approximately 120m2, to be covered in two coats of bitumen paint,whilst laying in a 2ft gap under the barge, should be fun!

Eventfull week.

'Warrior' shown being lifted by the 70 tonne hoist,quite a scary time seeing your home being moved into the air!

Trying to get everything organized has been quite stressful. Having spent the best part of two days laying under 'Warrior' cleaning off all the sea life that the pressure washer could not reach, the enormity of the task ahead became very clear.Although not hard work in its self, there is just so much area to prepare,it makes for very long & tiring days.

I bought a floor scraper,attached to a four foot long handle, along with a car creeper, allowing me to lay under the barge,which is just over two feet off the ground. Over the two days, I worked my way from bow to stern,going over the area four times in order to scrape off as much as I could; you can se in the above picture just how bad the underneath was covered. It was whilst underneath,I decided to look around for a shot blaster to clean off the waterline. A suitable blaster was found via a mate of my brother in law & arrangements were made for the job to be done,a job that had never been allowed by the boat yard owners, due to the close proximity of some very expensive boats; this only added to our stress!

Waiting is over.

We finally have lift off,or rather,lift out! After waiting for the best part of a year, we had the phone call on Tuesday telling us that 'Warrior' could be taken out at Essex Marina,where previously,we were told we had no chance.

Just after lunch on Wednesday,the ,marina lads turned up to take 'Warrior' from the moorings,along to the hoist.It amazes me that 58 tonnes of barge can be moved by two small work boats,with 50hp outboards! We opted for the walking option so,we could watch our pride & joy (also our home!) being taken up river towards the jetty. It was the event of the year,according to the amount of people on land & in boats, who stopped to watch! Steph was a bag of nerves as we stood on the sea wall to see the hoist gradually take the strain & once everyone was happy, the lift began. Being low tide did not help with Steph's nerves, as our home had to be lifted about 30ft & once there,suspended to allow for the hull to be pressure washed.

By the time 'Warrior' came to rest in the yard,it was already 5pm & time for the lads to go home so, that is where we stayed the night, slap bang in the middle of the boat yard,under the hoist.Luckily a set of Fairline steps were 'borrowed' for the night, allowing us(including Barney dog) to climb aboard.

The next morning, the task of juggling the boats around began, to make space for our 85ft lump & by the time 'Warrior'was safely chocked up,it was 1pm. All the mean time,we spent either watching from the ground level or, drinking tea up in the marina bar, there was much else we could do.

Doesn't time fly! Well over a month since my last posting, with quite a few things done to update.

I decided against turning Warrior around just to paint the far side.In stead, I took the brave decision to stand in the tender & do the painting from alongside; trouble was, I chose a Sunday & a busy one at that! I spent more time hanging on,or telling boaters to slow down, than I did actually painting. Some idiots either don't know there is an 8 knot speed limit,or they don't care & have no respect for others. (probably more to the point). The picture above shows Warrior from the river,showing the new paint job.



The next job was to fit the new saniflow, to pump out the waste water from the bath,shower & two hand basins;usually a fairly simple plumbing job but, just awkward for me to get to so,I decided to pass the job over to a plumber..........five weeks later, I finally located one that was willing to work on a barge & even then, that was down to the fact that he owns a fishing boat moored here. Anyway, two hours work was well worth it, as we now have an efficient, quiet pump,that does not smell!

We had decided last winter that it would be a good idea to fit a wood burning stove up in the wheelhouse, mainly due to the excessive cost of diesel for the central heating(don't get me started on that one!) & after the usual trawling of the internet, we found a local company, just set up by a couple of young lads,in fact,we were their first customers.

With help from our friend Tim, the fire was fitted within a couple of hours & now that the evenings are turning decidedly chilly,it has made a huge difference to the wheelhouse, where we can now sit late into the evenings,in cosy warmth.

One down side to this update,is that we are still awaiting for Suttons Boatyard to give us the nod to take Warrior out for the hull to be repainted etc; another couple of weeks & it will have to be put off until the spring which,is very disappointing.

People refer to 'Warrior' as 'The big green barge' so, I had no real choice in which colour to use for the repaint,just which shade. As you can see from the photograph, 'Warrior' is definitely green!

Only one side has been done so far,we need to turn the barge around, I don't fancy painting the other side with the river flowing under me!

Just for interest, the colours used are; Buckingham Green & Ruby Starlet(nearest I could get to Claret)