If smell-o-vision was real you would be holding your nose - part 4

Now where was I? Oh yeah da year... 2004 da place .. MV Atlantis! We now moved into da second half of da year. The back deck has been cleared of all da steel that was cut off and taken away by da scrap man wot name is Michael. He took da metal to da scrapyard and it weighed in at 11 tons! The money he got for da scrap paid for da use of his crane.

Dad did buy a small hiab (also known as a knuckle boom crane to you machinery types) so he could use it to lift the new steel we needed for da back structure later on.

He also bought weird green boxy fing which happarently is a hydraulic power pack! But of course, we all knew that ;)). It is for many years later when he will be usin it for the crane,  thrusters and stuff like dat.

Now dus you remember back to da bloggy wot did be tellin you bout da stinky bedroom!? Well, mum and dad decide to have another go at it. They bin sleepin in da wheelhouse on a matress on da floor and fort it might be worth trying to get a bedroom fixed up!

It was July 2004 and Mum say dat wakin up in da wheelhouse in da mornin was like bein in a greenhouse! It was so hot they had to sleep wiv all da windows open and no clothesies on! Of course, my suggestion would have been some sort of fan and maybe some curtains!

Da first fing they had to do was to strip da bedroom back to its bare steel walls. So, lots of smashin and hammerin den dragging all da wood up the stairs. Dad did all the demolishin work and then mum would take the wood to the back of the boat and cut it up with a fing wot cuts up wood the name of which I forget! I check dat and let you know in a bit.

Getting the stuff up the stairs was quite difficult as you can see the stairs aren't proper stairs like wot you has in house! Note mum's amusing use of bath bomb to try to cover da smell of 35 years of rotten damp wood!

Ok dad did confirm that fing wot i mentioned earlier is called a jigsaw but is not like da puzzle is fing wot go chop chop chop really fast! Anyway, they manage to complete the strip-out of the room in about two weeks. Here's a photo of how it looked after the strip-out:

By da time August came around, da weather was cheerin up a bit so dad tell mum she can do some paintin. Although the bulwarks (dat is the sides to you landlubbers) were gonna be cut off dad wasn't sure when that would be, so he fink dat it be good to have a bit of paint on dem to protect em for a bit longer. It was nice sunny weather and mum had booked 3 weeks off work so they decide she could paint while he was working on da bow bedroom. 

First of all she had to chip all da rust off with chippin hammer (dis give you big biceps and make your arms tingle).Den she use da grinder to smooth off all da chipping (dis make you arms tingle too). Den she clean off all da grindings and paint da first coat of paint wot is called vactan (dis be wot we in da trade calls a rust inhibitor ;)). Den was undercoat, den was top coat in green . Dis photo show you some of the stages:

But wait ma friends guess what? It is the 12 September 2004 and you are all excited to hear dem words what does finally fall from ma lipsies! They are this: I WAS BORN!!!! Oh yes, I have come from ma mummy tummy and am a ickle puppy wot is snugglin up close to ma mummy wif my brofurs and sisfurs.

Of course mum and dad don't even know i has been born yet. Dey not meet me until after Christmas when I had to go and live on da boat behind them wot was called Jorja! I will tell you about dat next time!

Is nearly October and fings are startin to cool down a bit weather-wise. So they finks, what better time to start work on the worst part of da boat - the fishhold. Mum has managed to avoid goin into da fishhold for over a year but dad decide they are gonna clear it out by Christmas!

I wishes dis was smell-o-vision! 30 years of old stinky oil, dead scallops and heaven knows what else had permeated into da fishhold and it was a terrible place to go even for a minute! Dad decide to stop work on the bow bedroom and work on the fishhold instead to eventually turn it into two bedrooms, one with en-suite shower.

So they start stripping, clearing, hoisting and moving all da orrible fings out of da fishhold. Again, with a ladder that mum seemed to spend her life climbing up and down! Of course, to make matters even worse, the hold was lined out with the thing she hate more dan anyfink in da world - you know what is that? Is polystyrene! Here is the ladder:
















and here is da hatch at da top of dat ladder. Look at all dat polystrene! Mum had to bag all dat up and touch it. Very hard for a polystyrophobic (i made dat up) but she did it. You would not believe da smell of that stuff either! It had years of dead fish and oil soaked up into it! This photo shows only one lot - there was about five times dat much which their friend Jim (with da one leg) took away and disposed of.

Once the hold was stripped they got the walls back to bare steel. They realise there had been a bad fire in the hold at some point. You can see this in da photo here:

Before the hold could be blasted and painted, dad spent two weeks up to his waist in oil and dead scallops in da bilge cleanin dem out. He would fill up buckets wiv da muck and can you guess? Mum had to carry dem up da ladder and pour dem into big container (what is called an IBC). Every evenin mum had to scrub dad down wiv scourer and dettol. Dat's love dat is! This photo shows da bilge. There are 10 separate compartments which dad had to climb down into and clear out!

Once the hold was all cleared out, dad used our new shotblaster to clear away all da rust from da walls, he sprayed da walls with vactan, den primer. Dis was da result and best of all - no more smell!

They had managed to complete da fishhold back to bare walls in record time and decided to have a break over Christmas, mainly because dad's skin needed to recover from spending weeks in da bilges and mum had to rest her newly acquired rugby player legs from all dat ladder climbin!

So they downed-tools and took some rest over Christmas. It would be only a few weeks after Christmas and they would meet me for the first time not knowing that I would one day become their beloved doggie!! Best known to you as Lexie Dogstoyevsky!

Well, that is another chapter completed! And as Arnie says I'll be back!