Week 9 Painting The Boat

 Week 9

The boat went "in the shed" on Monday - behind the door on the right.

I managed to damage a thumb and a finger on Monday, hanging up nesting boxes for the birds! It's that time of the year again, Spring is in the air, cold mornings and clear blue sky days. The birds and people seem to come alive with normal day to day activities, a feeling of gloom lifted.

A bit of activity around the haven and the sounds of grinding and sanding coming out of the various worksheds.

My helper Tjeerd and I did all the grinding we could think of on Tuesday. Sadly, it is more or less the same trouble spots as 15 months before...

Tuesday          2 x 4.5 hours     grinding, cleaning, wet and dry sanding

Wednesday    1 x 4 hours     more sanding

Thursday        2 x 4 hours     galley vent, black bottom, masking tape on rubbing strake

Friday             1 x 5 hours     aft deck and roof painted

Saturday         1 x 3 hours     salon deck and rubbing strake painted

With the shorter days, I have still been able to pick up Lucas and take him home again. We now have 6 day clients who need to be transported - it is quite an exercise sometimes. So, Janny is placing a local ad for a volunteer to do the driving. It might suit somebody retired and there might be other things to do here if they are interested...we shall see.

After the last time working on the boat, I reckoned that I needed more time as it is always rush, rush, trying to fit in with the drying times of both filler and paint. (I think I also acknowledged the fact that I am getting slower...and that falling off the boat onto the concrete floor would be rather different than into the water!).

I can't go today, as Janny's Mum has organised a "Family Day" for as many as can make it, including the great grandchildren, of course.

On Saturday, as I was driving down to Heerenveen, I listened to a podcast discussing the likelihood of nuclear war!. Still unbelievable! It was a chilling thought and suddenly Australia feels like a better place to be living, for a while at least.

But, strangely enough, the thought that I had woken up with was "I wonder if the paint dried OK?" - I'm experimenting with adding Owatrol to the paint. I have been using one sort on the woodwork - also an experiment. They say that "it gives rust preventing qualities to the paint as well"  - we shall see

The red colour is the Owatrol for steel when using my type of paint - there's yet another type for water based paints - and quite a few more variations - I think I have the right one! 

Just to prove the point, this photo is from last time - November 2020...(It's there again this year but I forgot to take a photo). The white in all the photos is the (lots of) filler that was used to make it very smooth in 2009 - it lifts off in a few places where water keeps getting (or stays) under it.

Although we did find another one under the galley exhaust fan cover...13 years in the making

The red Owatrol is part of this year's new efforts against the rust. They are the same trouble spots now for a few years, so I am being a bit more particular with reading the instructions and weighing rather than judging the components for the filler.

The red is the Owatrol for directly onto the metal - having removed the lumps and any loose bits.

Then comes the filler if needed...(it says for the Repair of cracks, fissures and small imperfections) Haha! Some of mine are chasms compared to that - but I'm building it up in layers...

to be weighed...

I'm also fixing up a few windows. They have all lasted rather well considering they are a known weak spot.

I tried to take a couple of photos showing a reddish tinge to the paint - it was also noticeable when we sanded with the wet sandpaper - this was also a learning exercise! The paint was still pretty good from last time and so the wet sanding was just enough preparation for a new coat.

At first, I thought it was the lighting or my glasses - but the cloth wipe was also red. The paint colour is Antique White, but I remembered Joy exclaiming to me "Ken, this is the wrong colour, it's pink" - so maybe there is some red basis in the colouring???

The new paint

The old paint (wiped off after sanding)

I'll just have to wait to see it outside again...

All the decks finished...

I'm also doing the sternthruster with the Owatrol. It's the newest metal so I could get it clean and then apply the Owatrol. I'll paint it with proper paint instead of Bottom Coat. It should be a good test...

And now I'm just thoroughly enjoying the fact that I'll have another 9 days to finish off the filling and the Antique Green of the hull, and then lastly the grey anti-slip deck.

Our oak table top had begun to warp - damned wet weather - everything suffers!

So, I sanded it all back and put a couple of bags of concrete on it. If it gets flat again, I'll glue and screw some wood to it! (Or we'll get another one from the Op-shop for €10,00).

In other news...

Janny's Mum is on the mend. We are thoroughly enjoying having our evening meals with her. She also enjoys the company. We are managing to stretch our Hello Fresh boxes for 2 people so that we get 3 meals out of it. Renny is enjoying eating new things as well - always a surprise for her. We let her order last week and she chose "Hot Dogs" - that was a first for her but we are now editing her choices...

Ben is still in South Africa.

He is getting only a few modelling jobs but he can stiil do all his other work on line. He even picked up a new client - they sent him a laptop computer pre-installed with their software. Not sure what business it is but Janny reminded him to get some paperwork about the new taptop - otherwise he would have to pay import duty on it when he comes back with two of them!

Words...

After our evening meal, we try to do the weekly cryptic crossword with Rennie - at 89 she is still amazingly keen!

I heard a podcast during the week that had a Ukrainian women explaining how to say Kiev or Kyiv. The American talkers were having trouble with the K... the woman said that it is pronounced Keh-Yiv, NOT Keeve! and Key - ev is the Russian way.

It reminded me of the Dutch word for knee - "knie" - looks very similar, but is pronounced 

"keh-nee" - they like to pronounce every letter and syllable. 

Knoop (a knot or button) is pronounced "keh-nope".

One of the most difficult words for me to get used to was "hygiene" or hygiëne, in Dutch.

The pronunciation is "hi-ghee-ane-neh".

Anyway, the K in Keh-Yiv was something that I could understand because of pronouncing the K separately....

It now grates on me when I hear (almost everyone) saying Keeve.

Air raid siren special test

We have a National Warning system here. Every first Monday of the month an air raid siren sounds over the whole country at noon. I was walking in the forest one day when I heard it on another day - it took me a while to think "hang on, it's not 12 o'clock and it's not even Monday!"

It was for a fire somewhere and they were worried about noxious smoke.

The air raid siren is going to have a special test tomorrow - just to remind us how serious it is!

Gas Prices

As expected they are going through the roof. On the TV news last night it was announced that the energy suppliers are no longer able to offer a fixed price contract due to the uncertainty of supply and price.

A Consumers Program early in the week also looked at what happens when an energy supplier goes bankrupt. They usually go under if they are stuck with fixed contracts with consumers at a low price. The consumer has no say in what happens next.... the contracts are open to bidders - the highest bid gets to take over the old contracts BUT can charge whatever they like - they are not bound to the old price. So, instead of the "normal" profit margin of between 5 and 10 cents, the new contracts surveyed were between 57 and 78 cents profit margin. The consumer is bound by law to accept this new contract for a minimum period of one month.

There might be an investigation - but other events have taken over, I imagine!. It was revealed that the Netherlands has the highest tax on gas in Europe...this is a well-intentioned effort to get people off gas and does allow them to reduce the tax during these times (which they have done).

I'm having to pay for heating the workshed for the boat - the painting and filling is recommended at a certain temperature...

I hope they can stick to their price!

New houses are not allowed to be connected to gas. There is a house in our village, currently undergoing renovation - they left one wall standing so that it could be classified as rebuilding rather than "new". The rules for new houses are much tougher (probably a good thing in the long term) but much more expensive (in the short term, which is when the money has to be found). 

This raises the question "can you afford to do it or can you afford NOT to do it?". This is a question for us at the moment as we weigh the options of heat pumps (7 of them!) or high gas bills....the money still has to come from somewhere, no matter how attractive it seems in the long term (for which we may not even be around!).

Janny discovered that there is one house in our village that has gone for the pipes underground as the basis for the heat pumps. This enables them to derive heat all year round instead of still having to rely on gas when it is too cold. Another sticky-nose visit coming up...

I have the feeling that there was much more on my mind this week... but Boeke and I have been for our walk...so that's it for this week.