Belated Greetings fellow farers on the waterways of life. Some words to live by for landlubbers and old seadogs alike:
a little knowledge is a dangerous thing
buy a boat, work till you die
the first has universal application; the second is a warning to those thinking of dipping their toe in the water, so to speak, and the hard-won wisdom of the fully immersed. It's a dutch phrase roughly translated, and it speaks for itself. But to elaborate. Boat owners can go a couple of routes. They can happily use their boat without much of a care, slapping on quick fixes whenever necessary, or they can maintain properly and regularly. With a house, it can be a combo, but with a boat there's no middle ground. They're unforgiving bastards. You maintain professionally and assiduously, they should see out your lifetime. You don't, and they'll eventually let you down, badly.
The dutch seem to have quite an upmarket boat culture, so in our yard we'd see guys and gals who were hyper-efficient, stripping ageing paintwork off, epoxying, priming and painting, getting interiors upgraded and welding done, all on a tight schedule, in and out in a couple of weeks.
Forgotten piss bucket
By contrast, our fluctuating ragtag band -rellies visiting and sloping off as soon as decently possible- an ever-growing array of useful stuff and detritus mushrooming on all sides of the boat -tools, offcuts, knackered paintbrushes, gloves and buckets, clothes turned to rags, lost underwear, toys broken and new, a pissbucket someone 'forgot' to empty- cantankerous, jolly, sweaty, public family life compromising the integrity of the workshop, by turns feverish and glazed-eyed, hopeful of progress and despairing -this stretched into a couple of months.
In the end, only the probable bullshit of the marina owners, that they were waiting to lift us into the water before they could take their holiday, focussed us enough to go without sleep for a few days and get her waterborne.
Little fishies
As for the little knowledge? Well if we'd known we knew fuck all, maybe we wouldnt have gotten an old boat in the first place, or maybe we'd have done more research. But thinking we knew more than we did, and going off to a non-native-english speaking place -however excellent the english of many people in holland is- a recipe for diusaster, or at least for delays, redundancies, redoings, wrongdoings and corrections. So for example, because we didnt know what we were doing we had to get the welder back three times, and could have used him a fourth too. And the rails that myself and joe rigged up for him to weld, while a good job for amateurs in a hurry -left it till the last bloody second o' course- are still... 'idiosyncratic', shall we say. Joe also took on a hatch which was a world of pain -no joiner he, as he'd be the first to admit. There was probably a simpler solution, but a little knowledge... in the fullness of time it'll be the absolute biz, but even now it still needs finishing.
And of course, since he was preoccupied up top, the hull was left to me. Jaysus. Really frickin basic, fundamental stuff about a boat -painting the hull for chrissakes- and i'm learning as i go. Won't go into the ins and outs, suffice it to say that our waterline is among the most recognisable in europe, including a couple of little painted on fishies to camoflage the cack job.
Plus, more seriously, at the last second i got into a tizzy about the pipes that drain the deck and go down to the underside of the boat. One of them had needed a weld, and they're sealed at the top for some reason, so i decided they all needed sealing underneath. Thats done and then theres an awful moment with the mechanic we got in at the last minute, when he asks whether i've sealed up the fresh water intake pipe to the engine. This is what keeps the engine cool enough to work, its absolutely vital. Mother of our good sweet lord, we're in the water and for a few horrible minutes i think i've rendered the boat completely unusable without another lift back out, with all the expense and humiliation involved. Getting under way with that pipe sealed would be like driving a car without wheels. Oh the stories they'd regale each other with for years in the taverns around roermond, about the utter plonker -i believe the dutch word is ploenkeer- the plonker amongst plonkers, the plonkiest plonker of them all, the very acme of plonkers, who sealed up his bleeding fresh water intake. Oh the craic, the laughs, the jollity.
None of this is even to speak of the tortuous labour dawn put in inside the boat. Myself and joe had rejigged the already serviceable saloon, and it turned out very unsatisfactorily. So dawn had to put in sterling, soul-crushing work rectifying the situation, which she's still not happy with.
The grumblers
By the end the folks who run the marina were public enemy number one with us. They'd always been a bit abrupt, but over time got almost hostile. Cant say i blame them, what with the unending chaos, plus my habit of not returning tools they'd lent us for fear i'd need them again. But the problem was on their side as well, as they're not hugely warm or communicative, so things probably festered for them. When they were overcharging for the services of the mechanic -and making stuff up to justify it- and dawn was pleasantly querying it, it was implied we didnt want to pay our bill, which is unacceptable in anyone's language. Guy could barely bring himself to shake my hand at the end, very sad way for it to close.
At least it wasnt just us, only probably more so with us than with anyone else. The mechanic calls the boss 'this grumbling man' and other people working on boats there habitually field complaints from him. Dont want to be too down on him and her, myself and joe had a nice evening in their home and he lent us a lot of tools. Just think the pair of them fester instead of communicating.
marlene
Good stuff? Just before we left we had a dinner partay on the half-finished deck with a lovely ensemble of people, a cool woman called gita who dawn struck up a relationship with, her daughter lena and her friend jost. Beautiful still night, the first real use of the new hatch, great food, nice eclectic bunch, me wisecracking, dawn and gita bonding, mam getting into unfamiliar company, fionn mischievous, lena cynical in a cute way, jost quiet but quick to laugh.
Also a super-efficient german guy, marco, working on the boat next to us, incredibly helpful. Also, marlene, who cannot go unmentioned. Met her a few months ago on our last trip over. Myself, dawn, cherri and joe are in the town's gay bar -v kitch, good 80s disco with disco ball, cellar vibe, so i like it- i'm outside and i meet her. Correction, she accosts me, invites herself in to join us. By the end of the night i've had a massage, got the lifestory including recent divorce etc. Anyway, this trip, a few weeks ago i spot her and she pretends to remember me. Since then we've fed or been fed by her a couple of times. In her fifties, child of the sixties probably a bit lost in a more yuppie holland, half bag lady, half artist, half businesswoman. Ok english but not great, so a couple of stock phrases take up the slack for her very often. 'TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT' being the most memorable. Hilarious set piece with mary. Dinner has been served and mary's making nice with marlene, who outs with, 'YOU TALK TOO MUCH, EAT!!' Least thats what i heard, but controversy is rife. Fionn maintains she said 'i' talk too much, the charitable little bugger. I think she was telling mary she didnt have to keep her entertained, and to enjoy her dinner. Mary's interpretation is less charitable, but at any rate she'll probably dine out on it.
My charity ran out as a result of another... incident. We're in her place having nibbles and there's some music on. She starts doing what can only be described as 'performance art', a gyratory, earth mother poor man's tour de force, the kind of thing that one nods sagely at if the performer is getting paid to do it, but which is unforgiveable in a social setting where it really isn't necessary. She focused on poor old joe like a laser during the performance, eventually practically lapdancing the guy. He encouraged her by default because he basically didnt know what to do with it, shake her off. Take a leaf out of my book dude. When it was my turn i did a alternating-wing chicken dance, insisting loudly that she join me. Which, god love her, she briefly did. But it did the trick very quickly by jove.
Sadly she needed a bit more from us than we were prepared to give, would have liked to hang with us much more. Sad story, apparently her son had just gotten married and hadnt invited her. Plus the divorce. And in the rush we didnt say goodbye...
so thats roermond. We've now gotten out of dodge. Bulleted it down the julian canal to maastricht (these things are relative, we're talking about 8 miles an hour), from where mam and fionn could get a train to charleroi for the flight home. The canal is mainly for heavy industrial traffic, so mams last night was spent in the charming environs of an industrial harbour with cranes on the go. Best we could do in the circs.
Loads of regrets. Most of those who came had a pretty boring time while we continued to work and they had to hang in a small town. And even dawn and myself, who should now get the enjoyable bit, still have a lot of work to do. Funny thing is that although the nou en is sounder than she's been in years, because of all the heavy work on the deck and the attendant scarring, she probably looks worse than she ever has. So theres a job of work, and we cant do it in marinas, so we'll have to do it on the move, while out on the water. Plus, after all that, with the shit job i did on the hull, ideally we'll have to haul her out again in no more than a couple of years to finish her off properly.
As the man said
a little knowledge is a dangerous thing
buy a boat, work till you die...
a little knowledge is a dangerous thing
buy a boat, work till you die
the first has universal application; the second is a warning to those thinking of dipping their toe in the water, so to speak, and the hard-won wisdom of the fully immersed. It's a dutch phrase roughly translated, and it speaks for itself. But to elaborate. Boat owners can go a couple of routes. They can happily use their boat without much of a care, slapping on quick fixes whenever necessary, or they can maintain properly and regularly. With a house, it can be a combo, but with a boat there's no middle ground. They're unforgiving bastards. You maintain professionally and assiduously, they should see out your lifetime. You don't, and they'll eventually let you down, badly.
The dutch seem to have quite an upmarket boat culture, so in our yard we'd see guys and gals who were hyper-efficient, stripping ageing paintwork off, epoxying, priming and painting, getting interiors upgraded and welding done, all on a tight schedule, in and out in a couple of weeks.
Forgotten piss bucket
By contrast, our fluctuating ragtag band -rellies visiting and sloping off as soon as decently possible- an ever-growing array of useful stuff and detritus mushrooming on all sides of the boat -tools, offcuts, knackered paintbrushes, gloves and buckets, clothes turned to rags, lost underwear, toys broken and new, a pissbucket someone 'forgot' to empty- cantankerous, jolly, sweaty, public family life compromising the integrity of the workshop, by turns feverish and glazed-eyed, hopeful of progress and despairing -this stretched into a couple of months.
In the end, only the probable bullshit of the marina owners, that they were waiting to lift us into the water before they could take their holiday, focussed us enough to go without sleep for a few days and get her waterborne.
Little fishies
As for the little knowledge? Well if we'd known we knew fuck all, maybe we wouldnt have gotten an old boat in the first place, or maybe we'd have done more research. But thinking we knew more than we did, and going off to a non-native-english speaking place -however excellent the english of many people in holland is- a recipe for diusaster, or at least for delays, redundancies, redoings, wrongdoings and corrections. So for example, because we didnt know what we were doing we had to get the welder back three times, and could have used him a fourth too. And the rails that myself and joe rigged up for him to weld, while a good job for amateurs in a hurry -left it till the last bloody second o' course- are still... 'idiosyncratic', shall we say. Joe also took on a hatch which was a world of pain -no joiner he, as he'd be the first to admit. There was probably a simpler solution, but a little knowledge... in the fullness of time it'll be the absolute biz, but even now it still needs finishing.
And of course, since he was preoccupied up top, the hull was left to me. Jaysus. Really frickin basic, fundamental stuff about a boat -painting the hull for chrissakes- and i'm learning as i go. Won't go into the ins and outs, suffice it to say that our waterline is among the most recognisable in europe, including a couple of little painted on fishies to camoflage the cack job.
Plus, more seriously, at the last second i got into a tizzy about the pipes that drain the deck and go down to the underside of the boat. One of them had needed a weld, and they're sealed at the top for some reason, so i decided they all needed sealing underneath. Thats done and then theres an awful moment with the mechanic we got in at the last minute, when he asks whether i've sealed up the fresh water intake pipe to the engine. This is what keeps the engine cool enough to work, its absolutely vital. Mother of our good sweet lord, we're in the water and for a few horrible minutes i think i've rendered the boat completely unusable without another lift back out, with all the expense and humiliation involved. Getting under way with that pipe sealed would be like driving a car without wheels. Oh the stories they'd regale each other with for years in the taverns around roermond, about the utter plonker -i believe the dutch word is ploenkeer- the plonker amongst plonkers, the plonkiest plonker of them all, the very acme of plonkers, who sealed up his bleeding fresh water intake. Oh the craic, the laughs, the jollity.
None of this is even to speak of the tortuous labour dawn put in inside the boat. Myself and joe had rejigged the already serviceable saloon, and it turned out very unsatisfactorily. So dawn had to put in sterling, soul-crushing work rectifying the situation, which she's still not happy with.
The grumblers
By the end the folks who run the marina were public enemy number one with us. They'd always been a bit abrupt, but over time got almost hostile. Cant say i blame them, what with the unending chaos, plus my habit of not returning tools they'd lent us for fear i'd need them again. But the problem was on their side as well, as they're not hugely warm or communicative, so things probably festered for them. When they were overcharging for the services of the mechanic -and making stuff up to justify it- and dawn was pleasantly querying it, it was implied we didnt want to pay our bill, which is unacceptable in anyone's language. Guy could barely bring himself to shake my hand at the end, very sad way for it to close.
At least it wasnt just us, only probably more so with us than with anyone else. The mechanic calls the boss 'this grumbling man' and other people working on boats there habitually field complaints from him. Dont want to be too down on him and her, myself and joe had a nice evening in their home and he lent us a lot of tools. Just think the pair of them fester instead of communicating.
marlene
Good stuff? Just before we left we had a dinner partay on the half-finished deck with a lovely ensemble of people, a cool woman called gita who dawn struck up a relationship with, her daughter lena and her friend jost. Beautiful still night, the first real use of the new hatch, great food, nice eclectic bunch, me wisecracking, dawn and gita bonding, mam getting into unfamiliar company, fionn mischievous, lena cynical in a cute way, jost quiet but quick to laugh.
Also a super-efficient german guy, marco, working on the boat next to us, incredibly helpful. Also, marlene, who cannot go unmentioned. Met her a few months ago on our last trip over. Myself, dawn, cherri and joe are in the town's gay bar -v kitch, good 80s disco with disco ball, cellar vibe, so i like it- i'm outside and i meet her. Correction, she accosts me, invites herself in to join us. By the end of the night i've had a massage, got the lifestory including recent divorce etc. Anyway, this trip, a few weeks ago i spot her and she pretends to remember me. Since then we've fed or been fed by her a couple of times. In her fifties, child of the sixties probably a bit lost in a more yuppie holland, half bag lady, half artist, half businesswoman. Ok english but not great, so a couple of stock phrases take up the slack for her very often. 'TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT' being the most memorable. Hilarious set piece with mary. Dinner has been served and mary's making nice with marlene, who outs with, 'YOU TALK TOO MUCH, EAT!!' Least thats what i heard, but controversy is rife. Fionn maintains she said 'i' talk too much, the charitable little bugger. I think she was telling mary she didnt have to keep her entertained, and to enjoy her dinner. Mary's interpretation is less charitable, but at any rate she'll probably dine out on it.
My charity ran out as a result of another... incident. We're in her place having nibbles and there's some music on. She starts doing what can only be described as 'performance art', a gyratory, earth mother poor man's tour de force, the kind of thing that one nods sagely at if the performer is getting paid to do it, but which is unforgiveable in a social setting where it really isn't necessary. She focused on poor old joe like a laser during the performance, eventually practically lapdancing the guy. He encouraged her by default because he basically didnt know what to do with it, shake her off. Take a leaf out of my book dude. When it was my turn i did a alternating-wing chicken dance, insisting loudly that she join me. Which, god love her, she briefly did. But it did the trick very quickly by jove.
Sadly she needed a bit more from us than we were prepared to give, would have liked to hang with us much more. Sad story, apparently her son had just gotten married and hadnt invited her. Plus the divorce. And in the rush we didnt say goodbye...
so thats roermond. We've now gotten out of dodge. Bulleted it down the julian canal to maastricht (these things are relative, we're talking about 8 miles an hour), from where mam and fionn could get a train to charleroi for the flight home. The canal is mainly for heavy industrial traffic, so mams last night was spent in the charming environs of an industrial harbour with cranes on the go. Best we could do in the circs.
Loads of regrets. Most of those who came had a pretty boring time while we continued to work and they had to hang in a small town. And even dawn and myself, who should now get the enjoyable bit, still have a lot of work to do. Funny thing is that although the nou en is sounder than she's been in years, because of all the heavy work on the deck and the attendant scarring, she probably looks worse than she ever has. So theres a job of work, and we cant do it in marinas, so we'll have to do it on the move, while out on the water. Plus, after all that, with the shit job i did on the hull, ideally we'll have to haul her out again in no more than a couple of years to finish her off properly.
As the man said
a little knowledge is a dangerous thing
buy a boat, work till you die...
Posted by Dara
1 comment:
yerrah gerrup de yard!
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