Welding, Water and a sad ending

We set off on Tuesday from Nottingham along the canal to Beeston, via the river through Cramfleet lock and round the bend at Trent Lock.


We arrived at Redhill on the River Soar by around 4pm after a drop off at the tip with the accumulated water bottles. Thank goodness they have gone, we now have our bow back!

Our builder at Clean Sailing came to make the necessary arrangements for our stern deck and we planned to get the new deck going the following day. We pulled up by the electrics at the boatyard and by the morning Soar Valley Steel Boats were setting up with the welder in place.


So it was off with the old boards, good ridence, and instead we were having the steel plating either side and buffalo boards in the centre.


I had to head off to work so took the pathway along the fields towards the train station.


And when I came home, this is how it looked!


Today Leigh and I worked hard, hard, hard. Leigh did the necessary business of pumping out, we paid the builders, we filled the water tank. Yes we actually do have running water!

Alas, it was not a straight forward event, as with most things. I've realised that having a boat doesn't mean you know what you are doing. There unfortunately were no manuals for our boat, Haynes missed us out! So today we worked out what switches to have on, valves open, where to fill up and, joy! to have hot water coming from the taps!


There were some necessary tweeks involved after the first run of switching on the water pump. The tank takes a good 100litres so after Leigh's calculations of what we have so far been using this should last 10 days, mind you now we can shower it'll probably go down to 7days. The water tank is below foot level so we have to have a pump and small storage tank to get the water up and out of our taps. After some well needed PTFE tape and a bit of Leigh's tightening skills all initial drips from the pump area ceased, we had success! It might be a simple thing but after having not had running water at home since the end of April it seemed like a miracle we were actually running the taps!

Delia is not in our good books today after catching and wounding a small bird.

The tale continues....

Water pump done!

Here she is our lovely narrow boat at her new destination, with beautiful foliage in the background, including the odd willow tree. She is being looked after by lovely Lizzie who found herself without a roof and is really chuffed hanging out onbaord. We will be persuading her to purchase one and not go adrift to burn money in Brazil as she plans.

As you can see on the stern deck, we have decided that tarpaulin covering the rotten boards will suffice as a tempory brolly, as when it is peeing down and the tarp is suspended across from the roof to the rails it is a nightmare to get into the boat and we can stand there battling with bungies trying to get in for a good 5 minutes whilst gradually becoming soaked to the bone.


And most excitingly, I have successfully installed the water pump! Horrah! I am the official plumber onboard. You'll have to excuse the awful quality of the following pictures, the camera phone isn't all that great.


The pump and filter are positioned on the floor, with spacers to restrict the vibrations, the small storage tank above the pump is for when running a small amout of water and not having to switch on the pump every time.


We decided to buy a par 3 Jabsco pump and matching filter as after hours of research by Leigh this seemed the best option, expensive but guaranteed to work and work well. The pump and filter have their own output connectors and it took a while to realise that hosing and jubilee clips were all that was necessary to connect from part to part.


Note the bronze adaptor from the hosing to the grey plastic 'Pex' piping. This connector was recommended by Midland Chandlers in Braunston.


The Pex piping is used for both hot and cold water and needs pipe stiffeners when making an attachment. Here the Pex pipe went into the bronze connector of the tank and plenty of PTFE tape (about 15 wraps) was used to ensure a water-tight fit.


I inserted a stop valve to use when we need to stop the water flowing through the system.


And used clips to fasten the Pex piping in place, this is particularly important because the pipe is quite flexible and can move around in the space.


Above is an example of the PTFE tape and below are the tools I used for the job. Note the blue handled pipe cutters used for the plastic piping and hose, these were expensive but did the job with ease.


And there we have it, all installed and ready to go. Our next step is to get some one to do a check over the pipes and water tank to double check there is no break. Then we can get going with using the water system as usual.