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Highbridge Crusader- Free Spirit


harrybsmith

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What have we here? Is it a narrowboat, or a GRP cruiser? 

Whatever it is, the person who blacked it was a wally. 

IMG_20170425_163218788_HDR.jpg.88f6bd4be73570ffb09755ddd781dccf.jpg

( And yes, it's likeness to Ivor the engine hasn't gone unnoticed...)

It's a pretty sound, if unloved boat that is hopefully going to be generally titivated to the tune of:

- Do something about the paint and blacking, hopefully stripping it off to reveal a pristine, undamaged gelcoat underneath

-Service the Enfield leg, "It only wants an oil change"

-Fit a cooker and coax my dear old mother out of her rocking chair to do the upholstery (a wertherers original on a stick should suffice)

- Cruise it 181 miles home with no incidents

Not sure which of the above statements is the most ambitious, only time will tell.

Wish me luck

 

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8 minutes ago, harrybsmith said:

What have we here? Is it a narrowboat, or a GRP cruiser? 

Whatever it is, the person who blacked it was a wally. 

IMG_20170425_163218788_HDR.jpg.88f6bd4be73570ffb09755ddd781dccf.jpg

( And yes, it's likeness to Ivor the engine hasn't gone unnoticed...)

It's a pretty sound, if unloved boat that is hopefully going to be generally titivated to the tune of:

- Do something about the paint and blacking, hopefully stripping it off to reveal a pristine, undamaged gelcoat underneath

-Service the Enfield leg, "It only wants an oil change"

-Fit a cooker and coax my dear old mother out of her rocking chair to do the upholstery (a wertherers original on a stick should suffice)

- Cruise it 181 miles home with no incidents

Not sure which of the above statements is the most ambitious, only time will tell.

Wish me luck

 

Welcome and I hope all goes well. :cheers:

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1 minute ago, harrybsmith said:

Thanks for the warm welcome MrSmelly, cuthound and rusty, I'm excited to get into muddy water boating having sailed dinghys on the lumpy stuff as a yoof. 

 

Your never too old for dinghy sailing. I have just started again (fink it's a mid life crisis) 

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43 minutes ago, rasputin said:

The blacking may be antifoul 

Now that would be sensible... Alas, it is actually bituminous blacking. Hopefully careful use of a sharp scraper and a tiny bit of heat should see it off, but if anyone else has any suggestions then please say

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  • 10 months later...

Crikey, didn't realise it was almost a year ago that I bought the boat, how time flies! Prompted by a thread encouraging the use of this section, here's the boat's journey so far.

Point 1) " Do something about the paint and blacking, hopefully stripping it off to reveal a pristine, undamaged gelcoat underneath"

Well we all knew that wasn't ever going to go to plan...

Ah, the perks of a GRP boat- easy road transport (by an insured haulier, not me)

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I then started to crack on removing the old blacking, carefully using the blade from an old plane to scrape it off. It had become brittle from the UV (I assume) so scraped off quite easily, nevertheless it wasn't exactly pleasant, especially with no functioning shower on the boat or in the yard. 

 

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It was upon washing my hands at the end of the day that I discovered that swarfega does absolute wonders for removing the blacking, so the following day (much to the amusement of other yard users) i slathered the hull in Swarfega, left it for a couple of hours and pressure washed it off. This did largely remove all of the remaining blacking.

It became clear that she has had a fair few coats of paint in her lifetime, so getting it back to gelcoat was going to be an impossible task. Instead, the hull was primed with Tekaloid and painted. At this point i feel the need to add that the colour choice was somewhat accidental, I intended for it to be in the classic Highbridge colours of brown and cream, instead it's closer to sickly yellow and safety orange, but i stuck with it.  

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I don't think it turned out too bad really !

Shame it rained on my gunwhale paint though. 

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Next time i'll move on to updating you all on the outdrive work. Thanks for reading! 

 

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  • Greenie 3
  • Haha 1
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Just now, Halsey said:

Ditto - I love Highbridge boats as well, I did when they were newly built and I do still today - proper affordable strong boats - very underrated like Nauticus and Ormelite

Enjoy.

And again.  It came down to a tossup between a Highbridge and a Nauticus for us, and we ended up getting the Nauticus.

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2 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

And again.  It came down to a tossup between a Highbridge and a Nauticus for us, and we ended up getting the Nauticus.

And we bought a Brooklands Aviation Dolphin 24 centre cockpit from Blue Line Marina @ Braunston!

Edited by Halsey
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  • 4 months later...

Hi Mary, great to hear there's another Highbridge owner on here! Any questions just ask and I'll do my best, I've done most jobs imaginable on mine now!

 

Having said that, I suppose it would be wise to do a thread update later, I'm fitting a BMS today

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  • 1 month later...

I must admit I love the look of the Highbridge. I have a Norman 27 centre cockpit which I will continue to "do up" after our house move has settled down (living out of boxes!) Once done I might well start looking for a Highbridge as the ideal cross between GRP and a Narrowboat.

Glad there are more GRP owners appearing on here.

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  • 8 months later...

Hi Harry Smith just trolling the Internet on a cold day thinking about boats we have owned in the past and came across your page.we had a highbridge called Free Spirit back in the 90sbought her second hand from Whilton marina Northamptonshire sold her a year later at the same marina and got a NB  wonder if is the same boat she was Brown and cream and had a canapé often wondered where she went will lookout a photo that showed her reg number.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 9 months later...

Hi there Harry,

I've been searching the internet off and on for a few years now, trying to find a trace of what happened to my beautiful old boat Free and low and behold here she is!  You've done such a stunning job on her, it's really lovely to see her being properly taken care of as I was very concerned that she had been disregarded somewhere, or worse still - sunk!  I've added a little photo of her that I thought might interest you, it's of a little live-aboard boating community that was based in Norwich.  If you'd like to see anymore photos or here some of her history do let me know as I'd be happy to share!  She was a wonderful boat and I had some fantastic times on her, I truly hope she brings you a lot of joy! 

All the best, Abbie

Free Spirit.jpg

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