Between the showers

Well it seems summer is taking a break after quite a long period of hot dry weather. August has brought the rain, which is pretty inconvenient as this is the time we are trying to do some much needed boat maintenance.

Gluttons for punishment we are, I know, but we're trying to keep the Hennie H in good order while making arrangements to replace the engine. At the same time, I'm doing my best to smarten up the Vereeniging while Koos instals an alternator to make sure that when we do eventually go faring, we can charge our batteries without using the generator or shore power. Complicated? Yes, it is rather.

You may remember that back at the end of May we bought a second hand replacement engine for the Hennie H. I wrote about the crane we also bought for hoisting it here. I have to say we are more than pleased with this incredible piece of equipment. Considering what it means to us, it was cheap at €150. It has enabled us to lift and turn the engine round in our passage and also to shift it for removing parts. There is no way on earth we could move this beast of a block without it.

The might crane and the new heart

Unfortunately, we won't be able to use it for lifting the motor onto and into the engine compartment as there's no room for it on the back deck. So, that's the next hurdle. Meanwhile, Koos has disconnected everything from the old Hanomag, and that's now ready to haul out. I've been the one fetching scalpels spanners, forceps pliers and other necessary surgical instruments with which to prepare it for the transplant. I've also been scraping, sanding and painting those parts of the boat I've been able to attack between the showers.

Then there've been the mad dashes back to the Vereeniging to work on the paintwork there. The weekend before last, I managed to scrape and paint half the foredeck before it rained.

The halfway situation

Then during the week, I kept my beady eye on the weather forecast and saw that on Thursday, it would be dry all day, so I booked a leave of absence from the Hennie H and hightailed it up to Rotterdam. After three hours of chipping old tar of the edges (a horrible job that always makes my face burn), and then a couple of hours sanding, I was ready to paint some more. I still haven't finished it, but this is what it looks like so far. The red blotches are where I've applied anti-rust treatment, which I couldn't paint over.

A bit like my skin: shiny with red blotches

Now it looks set to rain for several days, but I'm hoping I can still get a bit more paint on...it's ironic that water is a boat's greatest enemy, isn't it?

One big bright spot in the last week's activities was a trip to Gent that we made last Tuesday to see boating friends we met in France in 2017. Jude and Roger have a cruiser with the brilliant name of 'Beats Working' and they're currently pottering around Belgium at a suitably leisurely pace. We met up with them at their mooring in the centre of my favourite city and shared lots of laughter and fun as well as my first baking attempt in months, a plum and apple tart. It all went down very well (the fun and the fruit).

I said to Koos 'pick your nose or something,' so he did...clot :)

So that's the state of play this week allemaal.
Wishing you all a good week wherever you happen to be and I'll fill you in with our news and views again next week.