Laid Up

Well Moonshine is laid up for the next 2 to 3 weeks. Not in the conventional sense ie out of water, but we have no internal doors in the saloon due to the re varnishing work, and no dinette seating, and no galley appliances.

The seating has been removed to be refurbished by a leather specialist. I presume he will lightly sand down any rough areas, possibly re-spray and then re-lacquer with its surface coat. The specialist said we have got it in time and that it will cost between £250 and £275. A lot cheaper than having to replace the leather itself.

 

The on-going re varnish work is going well. This is the curved toilet door which has been stripped back to bare wood and varnish applied. This will probably need about 6 or 7 coats.

Once all the varnish work has been completed, Moonshine's varnish work should be good for another 16 years at least!

Finally, we have received a quotation from Chris Potts the canopy maker at Burton Waters www.marineandindustrialcovers.com.  He has quoted for both a new canopy and sunroofs (the latter of which will need to be modified over the existing design), and new cockpit upholstery, all of which have come to a very competitive and favourable price. We are just waiting for his fabric samples to come through the post so we can then sign on the dotted line. His lead times are around 8 weeks once the order is placed.

So all in all Moonshine seams to be coming together pretty quickly considering we only bought her last Christmas. Our previous 2 boats took about 5 years each to get up to the standard we are accustomed to. I put a lot of this down to cost and the fact that the money we save each month by not frequenting our boat club any longer gets ploughed straight back into the boat, as we seem to have a lot more cash since we made the break. Hopefully next year we will be able to enjoy her a bit more rather than working on her for what seems like forever.

The next job on the horizon will be to upgrade the saloon and cockpit lighting to LED lighting, but that will have to wait until next month, and new cockpit carpet once the canopy is replaced. Next year we hope to replace all the star crazed Perspex glass in the portlights, new Perspex chart table and flexible bathroom mirror, all of which can be done locally, and lay a teak and holly wood floor throughout the saloon, front and mid ships cabin.

Once all this work is completed, Moonshine should look every bit as good as the more modern Seawings 355 if not better!!!!

No Going Back

On Friday morning I received my lovely iphone 6 so I just had to take a few photos to show how impressed I am with it.



Forward Cabin Door being stripped

 

Peter had visited Moonshine earlier on in the week and removed the forward and mid cabin doors, as these are easier to strip and re varnish at home.

Cabin doors ready to be varnished

The aim at the moment is to focus on the saloon area, and take home any loose woodwork ie cupboard doors and anything that can be removed without being damaged. Any woodwork that has suffered over the years is being stripped back to bare wood and will be re varnished with a minimum of 6 coats.
Therefore my conservatory is out of bounds for the foreseeable future.




Galley woodwork being stripped

Today Peter applied the paint stripper to the fixed galley woodwork. This takes about half an hour to work its magic and then it is easily removed using a scraper.



Toilet door removed

 

 

The curved toilet door was also removed and brought home for the same treatment, and since Peter has the week off work he will be doing the same with the door frames. Its a bit laborious, but in a few weeks time the saloon should look brilliant.

Forward Cabin door removed



However, as you can probably see from the photo, the leather sofa is in need of restoration. Therefore, we have decided to leave the LED lighting until the following month and use those allocated funds for having someone re spray and re lacquer the leather upholstery. Hopefully this shouldn't be too expensive, and we will look into this within the next few days.



 

 




Mid ships and toilet door removed

 

We have also been in touch with Chris Potts at Burton Waters for him to make a new canopy and also quote us for the cockpit upholstery. The cockpit upholstery is ok at the moment but since we are having a new canopy made it just makes sense to do the whole job lot, as half the battle of having these type of jobs done is getting someone out to do it and visit you on site.






1st Coat of varnish

With any luck we should have the saloon reassembled for the first weekend in October, ready for our next tidal trip to Hull Fair.

 

Sykehouse Lift Bridge and new Blue Lights



River Went Aqueduct

This weekend we visited Sykehouse on the New Junction Canal for a quiet BBQ and hoping for the added bonus of some good dog walking on new territory.
This journey took us an hour and a quarter traveling time. Usually when we visit the New Junction we moor just at the mouth of it where the canal meets the Aire and Calder, however after having had moored here several times in the past we thought we would head a few hundred yards upstream to the Sykehouse Lift Bridge.



 

Sykehouse Lift Bridge Moorings

Even though we have travelled this canal network numerous times in the past, we have only ever stopped here twice before.

The moorings are excellent, with good mooring bollards and on nice clean concrete.

There is a decent village pub within walking distance, and Sykehouse Lock is not far upstream.  Beyond the lock is Kirkhouse Green, Kirk Lane and Low Lane bridges and the River Don Adqeduct which merges off towards the Stainforth and Keadby Canal
and Sheffied and South Yorkshire Navigation.



 

Moonshine no mates

Sykehouse Lift Bridge

                                                                                    

Burnt out Lock Keepers Cottage

Sykehouse Lock

Unfortunately, the lock keepers cottage that was once a happy family home has been destroyed by vandals and arsonists, but hopefully this will be restored and will once again serve as a good home for someone. 



Saturday evening gave us the opportunity to test and display our new cockpit and transom blue LED lighting. This appears to be a great success! 



 We had yet again another fantastic BBQ, thanks to our Weber Baby Q1000 gas bbq on Saturday evening. On our old charcoal ones we never cooked meat as it always had a tendency to burn, and always stuck to the norm being sausages, burgers, mushrooms and corn on the cob...boring I know.

Our new BBQ is excellent, be it somewhat heavy, but is certainly quicker at cooking than even the Smev gas oven onboard.
Therefore for Sunday lunch we decided to try bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes for the first time. The tomatoes fell to bits since they were small cherry ones, but next time we will try larger ones. Writing this is making my mouth water and my mind turn over with ideas of black pudding...now that's a thought....

This Weber was an expensive piece of kit at around £150, however every time Peter cooks on it he likes to tell me how he wouldn't have bought it himself but it is a bloody good piece of equipment. With that in mind,  and since he is the one that uses it, he can clean it!!!                             



Knashers
 

After returning back to base, the Jacks were allowed off lead to attack anyone that felt the need to get in their way. Check out those teeth!!!

Ongoing varnishing project

Always being busy with some project or other saw us partially dismantling the lower galley in our strive to re-varnish and make good all the woodwork on Moonshine. When we purchased her we knew it was very tired looking and had at some point in the past been abused by what we think were young children. Peter had previously taken home the saloon table, top units of the galley and the dressing table to strip and re-varnish. These look that good that they now pull the rest of the woodwork down, therefore the galley front doors to bottom cupboards (right) were removed, oven  (left) and fridge (centre) removed for re-painting and tiding up of outer rim and to strip and re-varnish all fixed wood work to galley base. The grab rail was also removed to gain easy access to galley. Peter is going to be a busy bee for the foreseeable future, and we don't envisage having the galley fully operational for another 2 weekends. After that part of the varnishing has been completed he will then turn his attention to the bathroom, cabin and wardrobe doors.

 

Next weekend and that following week we will be looking after my mums Yorkshire Terrier Molly. With any luck when we return her Peter will miss having a 3rd dog so much he will relent and allow me to get another Jack Russell...He says dream on...



South Yorkshire Boat Club Open Weekend 2014

Drizzly start

Moonshine set off from her mooring at Goole Boathouse on Friday evening to make the 2 hour journey along the Aire and Calder Navigation to visit the annual Open Weekend event held at SYBC.

Upon arriving in the basin there was a bit of confusion as to where we should moor, however the Commodore quickly directed us to a vacant mooring on the south side of the basin very close to the club house. Peter moored her stern to, as the length of their moorings do not lend themselves to the length of Moonshine with access at her stern. We had approx 6 inch to spare on the beam, and with not a lot across the width of the basin it was a tight squeeze, however once moored up we were very pleased with the mooring provided, even though we had at this point grounded.

After sorting her mooring lines and sorting ourselves out, we all piled into the clubhouse to enjoy the evening ahead and to reacquaint ourselves with members/friends we haven't seen for a good while including the Commodore of Lincoln Boat Club and his family.

Saturday morning started off drizzly and the rain progressively worsened throughout the day, which was rather unfortunate due to the fact that there were a lot of outside stalls and attractions, and considering the fact that it is the members themselves that put in a lot of hard work into organizing the events to provide visitors with a good day out, this was a huge shame as undoubtedly this would have an effect on  visitor numbers and takings this year.

Turning to heavier rain

However, no one appeared to let the rain beat them, as the umbrellas and rain coats were in full flow, and as most of the stalls were under cover of tents or gazebos stock and visitors could stay relatively dry.

One of the stalls we visited was a boat bits stall, and Peter managed to purchase a plastic water deck filler cap for £4. He wanted this just for its black plastic cap to replace for the damaged one on Moonshine's holding tank pump out.

Peter's sister and family visited us as it was the first time they had seen Moonshine...and I think they liked her. We also met up with two very good friends of ours who we hadn't seen in a long time. It was very good to catch up as they have been a big part of our club and boating life over the last 2 or 3 years.

After having a BBQ for our Saturday evening meal at our mooring, we once again went to the club house for drinks and to socialize with other friends who had not been in the previous night.

Outward view of basin

Rain, rain go away

 Sunday, sunshine at last

 Sunday morning brought us a much better day.
We got up early so Peter could complete work on his cockpit blue LED lighting project. After a couple of hours work this was completed so we will see how effective these are next week when it is dark.

 Sunday also brought us Natalie's 13th birthday. I am sure she enjoyed it as she had her best friend Immogene stay with us, along with getting her birthday presents early (on the Friday). She was particularly pleased with her Iphone and the fact I had previously purchased a dual SIM card cutter to cut her standard SIM down to a micro size, I still had to re trim with scissors, but she is very pleased with the end result. 

I also forgot about the traditional Flag Officers Sherry morning. In the olden days myself and my sister used to grab a few sherries at this event at 11am and then converge back to either boats for more...a LOT more, but unfortunately those days are long gone as I am off sherry and brandy for good!

Beautiful sunny morning

After such a great weekend, but no thanks to Saturday's weather, it was time to depart for Goole. It was a bit sad leaving the club, after we had been made so welcome again by some members. But at 2.35pm the decision was made to depart prior to the duck race, as we didn't want a telling off for leaving just as they had set them free.

After returning to Goole and getting safely moored back in her berth, all the necessary safety checks were done to make sure Moonshine was safe to leave for the week ahead.

Next weekend we hope to have yet another BBQ, destination Sykehouse Road Bridge for a change....not far, but as long as we are enjoying Moonshine whilst the weather is good is all that matters, and it will also be a test for the new domestic batteries and those blue LED lights.