As I mentioned in the first blog post I ever made on here (here), I have owned a couple of “project boats” in my time. These seem to be boats that are perpetually in a state of “one day, soon, I hope” as they are passed around from dreamer to dreamer, usually via ebay. Indeed, these boats serve well as an analogy for the recent banking crisis; dead assets being sold from one gullible person to the next until finally some unlucky soul is the owner at the particular point in time where this polygamous dream shatters and departs their grip.

I’ve had two of these real-life financially contorting dreams, and I’m determined to not have another. I have, by now, gained enough experience to realise when something is a non starter, or at least I thought so. I’m beginning to have some doubts over Vreli.

When I bought her she was complete with the exception of the engine. All I had to do was source a cheap Yanmar gm10, and away we went. Sadly it’s never that simple, is it, because I don’t want to just sail around the local lake, I want to really push this lovely long keel hull, and myself to whatever limits I find. Not only that, but this is my residence. It’s all very well to  pretend you can live on your dream minimalist boat, but I’ve done it for the last two years and I’m telling you it’s just not sustainable to spend the rest of my twenties camping on the water. I want something more like a home, if only slightly.

An oven, oh how I’d love an oven. I miss roasted food, and pizza. Baked potatoes… with cheese! A cool box would be nice. Not even a fridge, just a small cool box for a  pint of milk and some baked spud glorifying cheese. Running water too, hot if I can stretch to it. I know how, and I have room. It’s ok to judge me for this, you can sit in your armchair after a weekend sailing on your fast cruiser and tell me I don’t need it, but imagine for a moment living entirely without these things. It is possible as I’ve demonstrated, but nice? No,  not forever. To be able to heat the boat without relying on shore power would be marvellous too. It would open up a whole world of destinations, and an extended cruising season.

On the foundation of these ideas, I set about redesigning the boat. The first important decision was the sea berths. Vreli had two quarter berths, one to Port and Starboard, and although it would be nice to have the option of either depending on the tack we were on, I couldn’t waste all that space for such a petty luxury. One of them had to go, and it turned out to be the Port side. I didn’t think it through beyond a mental check that I was still sane, I started ripping it all out. Feet first, that’s the way to do these things. As my friend at the marina says, “you’ll get nothing done by standing and looking at it.”

I’m glad I did start pulling bits apart, because I found a few problems. Namely, this boat appears to have been home finished, and it wasn’t done to the standard that I’m prepared to entrust my life too. I somewhat enthusiastically decided that I must replace ALL of the interior, and so I began to demolish more interior.

I have hacked, beaten, unscrewed, and snapped the interior joinery which now lays on the boatyard’s  scrap wood pile. A lot of it was poorly fitted and causing a good deal of wear to the inside of the GRP hull, and other bits seemed to be bonded with Hubba Bubba. My decision to replace the guts of the boat is sound, of that I’m sure, but I’m left with a numbing worry that the effort and expense required to complete this task may not be worth it. For now, the vee berth is still intact (I need somewhere to sleep), but everything aft of the main bulkhead is either unserviceable, or simply no longer there.

The first job is to build the port side, aft of the main bulkhead (under the mast). This consists of a seat, a chart table, and a space for a heater. Ignoring the cost of the marine ply (and I am using marine ply, not WBP), this is going to consist of (rough figures) £600 for a Sigmar 100 heater, £70 for a plinth fan heater, £210 for the 210ah battery under the chart table seat, and then a bit on top for finishing materials (paint, insulation, heat proofing etc). That’s one corner of the boat. On the other side, there’s the smev sink (£200), the Origo 6000 oven (£900), the starter battery, and plenty of other bits.

Forward of this lot is the vee berth, and while there’s no great expense there, it still needs rebuilding from bare hull. During all this I’m supposed to be staying on the boat, but after a bout of angle grinding in preparation to bond the bulkheads at the weekend, I’ve had to retreat citing dust storms on board.

Then there’s the starboard quarter berth, that needs replacing to in order to complete the woodwork since it is also causing abrasion to the hull. Then the electrics, I’ve got to wire the entire boat from scratch. Oh, and the engine. That’s going to cost between £1,000, and £3,000… and the calorifier, the water pump, the water tank, the instruments. I really may as well be built the boat from a bare hull. Indeed, I am, I’ve just got to make it bare first.

Once I’ve completed all that, I’m still only half way. The exterior needs tidying up, painting, some filling, new deck gear, sails, roller reefing, standing rigging, running rigging… the list again goes on, and I’m not sure if this will include spares yet. The boom at least is badly corroded in places. Good enough for day sailing, but not for where I’m going.

So I’m wondering, if I had a choice, and I don’t because I’m homeless without it, would this be the dream shattering moment of the fabled project boat, or maybe this is the fork in the road, the moment that defines the dreamers and the doers.

Thankfully, I suppose, I can’t give up. Mentally I think I’m just going to have to forget the finished project for now; it’s simply too far away to bear thinking about. Instead I’ll just concentrate on one job at a time. If I break the tasks down far enough then nothing will take more than a day to complete. I can deal with that sort of progress, because the alternative is getting a proper job, renting a house, and returning to the tedium from whence I came.

I think the biggest hurdle is getting past the ‘dirty’ jobs. The jobs that make living on here absolutely disgusting. The angle grinding of fibreglass and paint, the sawing of wood, the laying up of fresh GRP. The dust, the fumes, the general squalor in which I live. Once that’s gone, I’ll be much happier.

• Previous Entry: Bulkheads
• Next Entry: Back at it again