Holy Ship! literaly!

yep, its a big bow
the tres amigos

Howdy guys! sorry for the infrequent update, computer was out of action again. - Boats goin well! Steering is almost done! Weve got our wheel up! and should have a fully steering boat in a few days. Drew and I finished all the ply wood up on the deckhead and should be doing cladding soon! On tuesday we drove to bristol to pick up some stuff and decided to stop off at the S.S. Great Britain. - the first( I think) Iron ship, which was also the fastest ship in the world under power at its time. It was an amazing feat of engineering for 1843 including the 4 piston steam engine that was larger than almost our entire boat! It was abandoned in the falklands but then barged up to bristol and put in the dry dock where it was built which is where it is now. The real cool thing about it is the glass you can see in the pics around the water line. Its got water on top of it so it looks like its floating but what it is really doing is preserving the bottom half of the ship which you can walk around. Below the water line the iron was so impregnated with salt it would decompose if left in the open so under the ship in the drydock is actually entirely conditioned with warm air and dehumidifcation to stop the ship from disentigrating. It was quite wild to see! by the way, the ship was full of holes. our wheel!imagine making that when folks were still riding horses around.

Tea Break

Quickie for yah- heres a pic of our tea break today, been a long day of some sweet hard labor. It was warm, sunny, and windless today so we actually sweated! Wish I was back home sitting in class on a day like this? Nope. For all of you that were in class today, Carry on! And one day, you'll be able to afford us paupers to sail you around! Haha take it easy guys. Oh, and we gave ol duke a haircut!

The Brecon Beacons! and a few pics of some work

Howdy all, short post but lotsa pics. Quick rundown! - Work on boat is goin sweet, getting a lot done, weather is getting warmer so soon enough should be able to get to final fairing and painting of the boat! Interior is about to get majorly underway with putting up the Deckhead ( ceiling) so pics will follow of that soon. Other happenings- Fell in with a sweet crew, met some folks that love the outdoors as much as drew and I do so been going on some good trips, weekend before last went to the welsh national climbing center in the valleys and climbed all day. last weekend we went to the brecon beacons national park and did some great hiking in the mountains, it was so beautiful and different to hiking in the u.s. Parts of the hike were on an old roman fort road of which there were still a few stones in place, next to that were sheeps haha! God has made a beautiful world. The crew weve been going with is pretty international haha, a girl from germany, a guy from sweden, the trip to the beacons a swiss lady and some welsh folks came along too. The pics of working are from this morning when we were modifying the rudder. Take it easy! - Andy
a perdy little frozen pool on top of a mountain
our trail
duke welding, drew cutting, the rudder is hollow so it can be filled with oil, it makes it lighter in the water
doin a little cutting m'self
the crew at a peak about to eat lunch
eating an apple on the verge! so pretty from up top

The Great Flood and' I be Da Beach Mon

Howdy guys! Two stories for this update. First of the new stuff, kallum the aussie arrived finally from thailand, quite a crazy dude, unfortunately, while we went to pick him up at london heathrow we left the water on to fill our water tanks on the boat. While we do have a 640 gallon water tank, 6 hours of hose filling over flowed that so that when we got back water had been flowing into the bilges and the hold for quite a while, wouldnt of been a big deal except a bunch of real sweet books dave was saving for the ships library got soaked, so theres a pic of the flooded hold, and me cleaning it later haha. There was about 1000 gallons of water that overflowed because the hold was a foot and a half deep and the water was flowing into the engine compartment and had been flowing into our diesel tanks ( which hold 460 gallons) for a while. So that was a bummer but all clean now.

Other sweet stuff! boat is going well, should be gettin a lot of work done in the next few weeks. Also I finally made it to the ocean! Took a run there the other morning because its about 3 miles away. We are on the cardiff bay, but the bay has a dam with a lock between it and the bristol channel. The bristol channel has a 40 ft tide rise and fall which is ridiculous, the only way the bay can function is with the locks keeping it at high tide level the whole time. Heres pics of the bay and the crew, you can see how far the tide is out in some of them, its ridiculous. Take er easy guys!

Update-!

Hello Chaps, Ive been meaning to update this here blog for a while but my computer has been cheeky blighter lately so I just finished fixin it. Anyways happenings: Weather is crazy, the other day it was hailing with the sun out. Its either sunny and windy, rainy and windy, or just windy. Tea is phenomenal, I dont know if I will ever not spend a day with at least one cup of earl grey with sugar and milk in it and some biscuits again. Work is going slow at the moment, were all ready to start putting up the deckhead(ceiling) which is done by first using a studwelder to weld a little threaded stud every foot on the metal roof beams, then fitting in and putting a layer of 4mm ply along the deckhead, then curving pine cladding to the curve of the boat on top of that, then laying teak beams along where the metal beams were. Should look sweet. Anyways were all rarin to go but were dealin with a bum studwelder. Other news: we get our aussie tommorow, should be a blast. Oh and I bought a second hand fiddle, try and learn how to play some ol bluegrass tunes. At the moment sounds like a cat in a cement mixer. anyways heres some pics for yah. a typical day of work haha
it was hailing in this picture
sort of what our boat should look like when done, its a schooner as well but ours will have a wooden deckhouse.
a beautiful small wooden boat thats abandoned right next to ours, if possible I really wish I could restore it as its still in decent shape. (It usually serves as our urinal sadly enough.)

Our behemoth!

The Living Quarters!

Hey guys, saw the Welsh sun for the first time since arriving, its been rainy and windy most of the time I've been here which ain't to great because you've gotta go pick a boat in the boatyard and "water" it when nature calls and when youve gotta answer a call and do some reading youv'e gotta hike to the boatyards loo. Lol Beautiful day today, finally got my luggage! (after being 4 days without it.) and put some clean clothes on. Cooked some sweet porkchops for dinner and have had more tea and "biscuits" in 3 days than my entire life, pretty good stuff though! Spent the day trying to find a second hand bike to bruise around on and doing other such stuff, not too much work as were waiting for a electric welding "stud gun" which gets in tommorow so we can start attaching wood to metal! Got the "Aft Cabin" designed and started construction on it yesterday. (made wood bulkheads.) Anyways here pics of the inside! (these are from fore to aft w/ no picture of the fo'xl which is the formost cabin and is small, the yellow stuff is insulation.)

In Wales!

Well Guys I made it! Everything I hoped for, pics of Cardiff and the boat will follow soon! Been a crazy few days, in fact just finished having some hard cider with a tibetan monk (he wasnt drinking it.) a 32 yr old german climber, drew and dave while watching american Idol of all things. American Airlines lost my bags so I should get them tuesday so I may smell a little but now but big deal. The boat is surpisingly real warm and cozy which is fantastic because its been cold and rainy for the past two days and weve done nothing but sit around inside, do a few things, play some guitar, and wait to be able to get stuff done. Got a sweet meal at a classic old pub called the halfway, had a pint of dark with some lamb sausages and mash and peas, best meal of my life. The boat show was phenomenal, heres a pic of Drew ( young dude) Dave, ( crazy welsh dude) and I at the london boat show which was a blast after we finally made it there. Bout to hit the sack but so far, havin a sweet adventure, more pics and posts will follow, Take er-easy, Andy