Moley

So to recap, we had the options of either spending a few hundred pounds having the worst pits filled with weld, some new shoes attaching and re-launching on the first Monday in July, but wouldn't know how long those repairs would last before we were back in the same situation, or we could spend a few thousand on the full overplating job but were told from the outset that wouldn't be possible for a few weeks. However, the marina's July crane-out wasn't fully booked so the boat could stay out until the first Monday in August. As I removed side panelling and lifted or cut out the flooring I found that all the paving slabs were wet and some of the flooring had white mould growing on the underside. Quite clearly, through condensation, rainwater seepage (I have discovered a couple of leaks around windows and damage behind panelling) and maybe even the start of some slight weeping through the hull, it has been permanently damp below the floor for quite some time, particularly in the back half of the boat. We found another suspicious looking pit on the other side of the hull, also about an inch above the base plate, I tapped it with a nail and it went straight through. As I scraped, wire brushed and shoveled sheets of rust away it rapidly became apparent that option 1 had expired and that most of the damage has been coming from the inside. When he has had some spare time in between other jobs, Steve the welder has ground off anodes and made a right old mess of my new blacking below the first rubbing strake. He has compounded the felony by cutting a sodding great big hole in the back end, because if there's any slight air space between the new steel and the existing skin tank, it's not going to cool the engine. Last Monday the steel was delivered and the first section of the new base plate was levered, hammered, jacked into position and tack welded. On Tuesday that was properly welded across the front end and the second plate offered into position, jacked and tacked. The chair is only to stop people from walking into it and cutting themselves off at the knees. We are thinking of leaving the wings for extra protection in locks and to see if we can get her up on the plane. A couple of side panels were also cut and tacked into position. On Wednesday the new back plate was positioned, jacked and tacked .... .... and most of the other side fixed in place. My main concern has been the bathroom, which I really did not want to have to strip out. If you remember (or go back to the first couple of pages of this blog), I insulated below the gunwales with two inches of Rockwool, but I had also painted the inside of the hull with a domestic bitumen paint. The Rockwool should be inert, I have previously tested it by holding a blowlamp against it, but the paint was a worry. Well it seems to bubble, melt, smoke and stink a bit, but hopefully behind the Rockwool it is starved of oxygen. I removed some insulation after a test weld and it shows some scorching, but hopefully that's as far as it goes. Steve seems happy with that, but I won't be happy until he has finished welding the sides. On Thursday he did most of the final welding along the chines and they fitted and bent the tricky bit at the pointy end. And by Friday they had had enough, or did something else, somewhere else.

Isn't that what the horn's for?

Wherever does the time go? It's strange (and somewhat frightening) to think that young lad pictured above is now fully grown, away at University and starting to forge his own way in the world. For the record, we're quite proud of how he's turned out. But Ben, I hope you can now understand why I didn't like the idea of you and Emma taking the boat out over the Summer holidays. It's not that I wouldn't trust YOU, but she's an old and delicate tub with structural weaknesses and mechanical foibles, and I wouldn't trust ANYONE else to take her out. When we've had the work done and she's toughened up again, then you might be allowed to borrow her.

Bringing someone else in isn't an option. Besides which, when she was dry docked in Stourbridge and we were questioning the need for overplating then, it was Andy-the-gas who called Steve (from Ashwood) in for an expert opinion. If the work needs doing, she's in the right place with the right man. I will be seeing him today to discuss our options, and need him to give us a firm quotation, but the figure he has guestimated wasn't as scary as we expected.

Thanks Allan, but the chines aren't the only concern and angle irons or shoes might not solve the issue. That leak pictured is about half an inch above the chines, and I've now poked a key into the hole and made it even bigger. I will discuss options with the boat builder / welder tomorrow, but probably not until I've whacked a few of the other deepest pits with something hard and pointed. There was another weep at the front right.

So what's the deal here? 3 moles should be dropping in on the Saturday afternoon, I've got a vague idea where Pelsall is but where do we find anyone?

Oh dear, I'm gutted, and so is my poor boat: Now with indoor paddling pool: ... and outdoor water feature: This was only a rapid drip before I dug the corner of a scraper into it. Survey commented on worn chines and some fairly severe pitting. If you remember, the last time she was dry docked and blacked we found some horrible electrostatic pitting, and then discovered a voltage difference (1.2v) between our mooring pontoon and the water itself. I stopped using a chain between boat and mooring cleat, and this pitting now appears to be dormant. However, a few of the other pits must be deeper than our surveyor thought, and pressure washing has blasted through at least one of them. So, do we spend a few hundred pounds getting the worst pits filled with weld, or do we spend significantly more and get angle irons welded along the chines, but how long is it going to be before any other pits break through, and we're back in the same situation? Or, do we bite the bullet and get her overplated now? This is largely rhetorical, we couldn't sell the boat as she is, we could cut corners now and be in the same situation in another couple of years' time, and we wouldn't have any confidence in using the boat as she is or would be terrified of scraping (for example) the Shroppie shelf. I think we've decided it's bullet biting time.

Fiddlesticks moors in Stourport basin, and we've met NB ‘One for the Vine’ a couple of times while out on our travels - that's a Genesis reference.

Yes, we're talking about the tea towel drawer, the drinking glasses and spare mugs drawer, and the other drawer full of clingfilm, tin foil and all the other galley odds and sods. When several people board the boat at one time and come down the side corridor, the resultant list sends the drawers flying open with a fairly alarming crash. Mrs. Mole's drawers have been the butt of many wise cracks ever since.

Thanks madcat, surveyor said that a short run of weld needed fixing before the boat was relaunched. “Short”, in this case, is defined as “less than 1cm” and that was repaired. Last night I exposed the inner of that seam, and no, that isn't the culprit. Surveyor also said that chines were badly worn in places, but didn't call for any immediate repairs. No cracks are visible from the outside, even with a magnifying glass, but this is why I am trying to inspect the inner welds. I already have a couple of bottles of red food colouring which will be added if we decide to flood the baseplate. Hi Jan, I think a change of drawers is long overdue for Mrs. Mole.

With pleasure Peter, it's thehomebrewforum.co.uk and we offer help and advice for beer, wine and cider from absolute beginners to craft brewers, kit mixers to microbreweries. Here's a beginner's guide to a quick, easy and cheap white wine, which is very popular.

Some of the innards needed a re-think anyway but things were never going to get changed until something like this forced the issue. For example the galley area has always been wrong with the draining board towards the stern, and the ceramic floor tiles were a bad idea. I'm not saying it's a blessing in disguise, I really could have done without this and dread to think what it's going to cost, but there could be a flip side. There's nothing to stop you visiting ours

Thanks folks. Apologies for the extended absence but interest in the waterways had waned somewhat, Ben's away at Uni, Vickymole doesn't want to know, when we did go out for a jaunt down the Severn in the direction of the Droitwich we got as far as Stourport when the drive plate failed, which ended up with me spending a week in Stourport (and I can think of worse places) while wife & kids went to the seaside! Other than that, I spend most of my time on another forum devoted to home brewing and winemaking, and where I am one of the site crew. And yes Richard, at the moment the plan does seem to be to lift the floors, fill the cabin bilge with water and see where it comes out.

Hello, do you remember me? So on Tuesday 7th May a rather scruffy looking narrowboat was craned out of the water and perched on railway sleepers. The hull was pressure washed to remove the crud, algae and most of the old bitumen. The following weekend I was away for a homebrew forum social event and the weekend afterwards I couldn't do much because I was waiting for a hull survey, which flagged a couple of minor concerns but was generally ok. The long bank holiday weekend and last weekend were glorious and I worked all hours. The hull got a good coat of red oxide primer below the waterline and wherever the old bitumen had come away, then three fresh coats of the black stuff. As time was still on my side and the weather remained warm and dry, I sanded down and red oxided the roof and repainted most of the topside. I even cleaned, dried, scraped, wire brushed and repainted the injin'ole: A mobile crane is brought in on the first Monday of every month, except that 6th May was a bank holiday .... .... so yesterday morning the crane arrived and a much smarter boat was returned to the water. As the blunt end of the boat sits lower in the water than the pointy end, any water in the cabin bilge drains to the back of the boat. If we have torrential rain blowing in the wrong direction it's not uncommon for some to run down and under the back door, so there's an inspection hole cut into the back of the cabin floor and I have a bicycle pump with the piston reversed so it sucks rather than blows, and which I occasionally use to suck the odd couple of pints of rainwater out of that inspection hole. I pumped out a couple of pints. Then a couple more. The next half gallon I pumped into a water bottle and it became sickeningly obvious that there was too much of it and it was canal-coloured. I emptied the inspection hole a few times but it kept filling up again, so there was no option but to crane her back out again. Craning has obviously cracked a weld somewhere, but neither myself nor any of the boat yard crew can find any obvious fault, so I now have 4 weeks in which to strip out the flooring in order to locate and repair the source of the leak. As the floor went down first (with no thought towards removal) and everything else was built on top of it, this means that much of the side linings, furniture, cupboards, fridge, cooker and woodburner will also have to come out. It's looking like re-refit time

Recognise this? At one point, son did stand up and begin to walk back along the roof towards the stern, but was advised in no uncertain terms by his mother to sit down again!

where it was 56.9p last week, but as Tiny implied, that's probably not a lot of help to you

Chester is on pages 106/7 in ours. The town is lovely, the basin is quite pleasant and mooring (7 days) seems safe. If you fancy a day at the Zoo, go through and moor by bridge 134. Other than having to head towards Ellesmere (p.109) to turn, I can't see any detriment to your missing that page. If you do moor in Chester basin, watch out for a dark blue boat with a pram hood moored on the ‘wrong side’, I didn't get the number and can't remember the name, something triple-barrelled, it had Club-type ‘loop’ music thumping out all night - and I do mean ALL night! BTW - we were there last week.

But it often helps if you are able to spot Vikings or Canaltime from an increased distance.