BOAT INTERIOR TAKING SHAPE

Apologies for the lack of updates. I’d normally update the blog once a week during the fitout but since New Year we’ve had a number of new bookings and any spare evenings have been taken up with sending out cofirmation letters and booking packs. These bookings mean that we’ve already got 65% of the 2008 season booked out!

For this update i’ll just quickly bring you up to date with the fitout progress of Aqua Vita so far.

Above: Downlighters and switches fully installed – I just need to change the bulbs from the supplied 20watts to 10watt bulbs. This will reduce the amount of power being drawn out the batteries.

Left: The kitchen floor and cabinets in place. The space on the far wall (bulkhead) will be where the cooker is fitted, although some supporting framework will be required. More on this below.

Above: The water pipes brought through into the cabinets. The small round hole in the back of the cabinet is the waste outlet for the separate sink drainer. There is another outlet in the far cabinet for the sink bowl.

Above: Water pump before….

Above: ……water pump after. This is the water pump that feeds all the tap outlets on the boat. The blue box at the base of the pump is a pressure switch that senses the drop in pressure when a tap is turned on, this drop in pressure automatically switches the pump on pulling fresh water from the stainless steel tank on the far left of the photo. The black tank at the top of the picture is an accumulator tank. This evens out the water flow and prevents the pump from cycling (or pulsating) which helps to extend the life of the pump. It also allows a tap to be turned on for a few seconds without the pump switching on, handy if you need a glass of water in the night and don’t want to wake anyone up with a whirring pump! The white round box connected into the pipe is the sensor for the water tank level gauge.

Above: Worktop, taps and sink in place. The tap to the left is a filtered water tap.

Above: A mitred joint has been made at the far end of the worktop ready for the cooker framework to be made.

Left: Frame work nearly complete. The hole at the top is for the gas pipe connection and the wire on the floor is the 12v supply for the cooker ignition.

Above: And finally cooker in place. I’ve just got to finish off with some oak trims at the sides and base of the cooker.

John & Mick Day from Kingfisher Narrowboats started work last week on the beds, steps and wardrobes and are making good progress. I’ll post more details on their work in my next update.

Thats all for now!

Justin.

THE LAUNCH

Happy New Year! I’ve finally managed to squeeze in half an hour to update the blog after a Christmas mainly consisting of a poorly family (luckily the bugs stayed away whilst we enjoyed a New Year trip to Disneyland Paris!).
As you can see the boat arrived safely from Colecraft on the Saturday morning at the Clock Warehouse Pub, Shardlow. Unfortunately we had a few minor hiccups, firstly the crane driver had been given the wrong time and arrived a little later than planned. However this gave myself and the driver from AB Tuckeys chance to try to track down the owner of a 4×4 who had parked right at the point where the crane needed to be to avoid an awkwardly placed telephone line! We soon realised that this was probably owned by someone that had taken a taxi home from the Clock Warehouse’s Party Night and was probably at that moment nursing a hangover…. just my luck!

Although once the crane driver arrived he soon calculated that he’d have enough room to park on the far side of the telephone wire, lift the boat up and over both the line and car, and then still have enough crane height to reach down and place the boat in the water. However this meant dragging the rope over the phone line – you can just make this out in the photo. The crane driver did a fantastic job of gently pulling both bow and stern ropes over without a ‘hitch’! I half expected a ‘ping’ and a bill for a phone line re-connection but thankfully all went well and the boat was lowered in gracefully.

Once the boat was in the water she listed quite severely port side. The additional ballast port side had been installed to allow for the final weight of the fittings on the starboard fitout. But she wasn’t stable enough to cruise on the river down to Trentlock so we made a quick trip to a local Wickes to purchase some temporary ballast.

We arrived safely at Trent Lock late Saturday afternoon. Over the Christmas break I’ve managed to get started on the fitout by installing all the downlighters and switches, with lights functioning work can now progress into the evenings if necessary! More to follow shortly.