A window on the world

Another fine day up in the air in Leeuwarden so we reckoned there will be enough time to remove the pipe and valve where the old holding tank used to be pumped over board. This is the last reminder of our first bathroom, this and the twenty rivets we had to weld up where water had leaked out into the bilges over the years.

Your love keeps lifting me

Once again we're up in the air at Welgelegen, Leeuwarden. We've been lucky with the weather so far so today the second coat will go on. This one will be black.
The prop is in Kampen where it is being adjusted to suit the power and torque of our new Deutz. More speed!
Good news too is that the European Certificate for ships over 20 metres is on it's way in provisional form, and that the things we have to do for the definite version are all fairly small and easily done.
Op Hoop van Zegen is nearly ready for the next 100 years.

Running in, please pass

At a sedately, but very quiet, eight kilometres an hour we make our way along the Van Starkenborg kanaal towards Leeuwarden and the Welgelegen wharf.
The white Deutz purrs (in Chinese) in the shiny engine room at 1250 rpm.

You in your small corner

Our 3000 VA generator now has it's own little home beneath the stern deck.
Once we have made matching pine doors it can spend most of it's life tucked away where nobody can see it.
Thanks to the brains and hands of Erik at EPGtechniek it pulls out on rails for easy servicing.

Trial run

Jeroen steps ashore, confidant that all that he has done in our engine room is doing what it should be doing.
We continue on towards the Reitdiep, looking forward to a well earned quiet night out of town after more than three months hard work.

White Deutz running

Today we finally hooked the last things up to the new Chinese Deutz in our engine room and Claudia pressed the start button.
This was the result.

Proud of what you've done

The roofing guys from Metus really did their best to help us sort out the roof aboard Gina.
It was an unusual job for all of us; we've never encountered a 'real' roof on a barge before, they spend most of their days up a ladder on a roof that doesn't move.
Great to work with people who take pride in what they do.

Constant velocity

To allow the new engine to wobble on it's rubber feet we now have a big constant velocity axle behind the gearbox.
If the gearbox and propellor shaft were to be lined up perfectly this joint would not grease itself and wouldn't last long. The answer is to drop the engine down out of line.
This feels strange, having spent so much time getting things right, but we now have a four degree wiggle in our drive train.