Sink into the sofa

Things are moving on now. The two seater sofa has now been made up and with a squeeze will seat four, and the water tank has now at last been fitted.

In the galley on the starboard side, the tap and splashback has been fitted, and plug sockets and butler sink drainer installed. Also the integrated fridge has been fitted.

There is a corner cupboard fitted but this does not open fully, so we will have to redesign this to be a complete slide out unit with shelf behind it.
On the port side of the galley there has been a change to the width of the unit top. This has been altered to allow for a 500mm four burner gas hob to be fitted, and the cooker will fit under this. The drawers have been fitted, but all the units are still waiting for the doors.

In the Dayroom the corner cabinet has been started by Chris and should look great when finished. Behind this, will fit the perspex and fly screens for the side doors.

In the bedroom we were a bit disappointed to lose some of the space above the wardrobe as this had to be taken up by wiring, but it looks fantastic now the chest of drawers are in place. We're just fanatical about every nook and cranny!

The headboard has now been made and will be attached to the engine room bulkhead. As Julia is demonstrating, the height of this will be determined by the height of the memory foam mattress when made.

As for the exterior, the basecoat has now been applied to the starboard side and the water intake cap fitted in the gas locker.

Also some good and bad news about the signwriting and Roses and Castles for the engine room. As you may or may not know we have been trying to get hold of Andy Russell who is one of the best traditional signwriters in the country. But Andy has been doing a bit of Thai Boxing and fractured his skull. He is now on the mend, and has managed to book us a cancellation slot for the middle of September. This is very lucky, as he is booked up till 2010. Get well soon Andy.

Derwent6 Walkthrough

Here is the latest video of a walkthrough of Derwent6...

Hold on tight!

Bed and Breakfast

Things are really starting to move on now!

The Galley and the bed base has been fitted, the roof has been painted, but as you can see the water tank is still not fitted. We went up to confirm appliances and radiators, which will be ordered shortly.

The Butler sink has been fitted with the wooden worktops, and the cupboard you are looking at slides across to meet the other side to create another work surface.

The fridge will fit along side the sink and on the other side a draw and cupboard. We still have to finalise the taps and drainer, so another job next week.

The other advancement is the bedroom, which now has the base fitted with it's sliding mechanism to allow it to pull out to a five foot bed.

You can see that the leg pulls out with the frame. The mattress will be made out of layers of memory foam which will fold down under the gunnel. There are two drawers with space behind for long term storage.

The overhead lockers are now starting to look the part,with space for socks, pants and T shirts etc.

The Roof has now had it's first coat of paint, so you can get some idea for the colour.

The side doors have now been made up for painting, so we need to find a painter to do the Roses and Castles.

We have also got to find another gas hob, as the one we first picked is to big and does not have a flame device on all four burners. (just when you think you've got it sorted)

Anchor's Away

We have just picked up the 20kg Anchor for Derwent6. We have gone for a folding type which is very light and can be stowed away very easily. It comes in a small yellow bag and takes about 30 seconds to assemble.

We were very lucky with the price as they let us have it for last years price's and as we collected it there were no delivery charge's. This anchor can be used with weighted rope, so a chain does'nt have to be used. They also threw in a key saver floating key fob, Good service don't you think!

As for Derwent6 and Fernwood, we are up to the boat next week to see the progress, and we can't wait!!!!!

That's all Folks!!

It's been a busy week, with our music tour for the year, but it has now come to a end. So not much time to see the progression of Derwent6.

We went to see Bon Jovi at Twickenham (which was the best of the Seven shows that we have seen this year) and got right on the barrier again.

And on Sunday (for a change) we saw a group called Show of Hands who are a Folk group who perform at a lot of the festivals around the canals. They were performing in Sevenoaks, a town local to us in Kent and were brilliant !!!!!

Afterwards we got to meet up with Steve Knightley and Miranda Sykes from "Show of Hands"

Thanks for a great night guys!

"The tank don't fit" but the engine does.

Progress is going in the right direction with Derwent6, but not without a few problems.

One of them being that the tank was measured to go under the cratch floor and when arrived appeared ok, but when it was time for it to be fitted, found out that it didn't fit through the bow doors. Lucky it fitted through the stern doors. Here it is now in the saloon waiting to be fitted.

The floor has been laid and made to look like a old floor to give the boat some character, which is difficult to build into a new build. Hopefully this will give the boat that warm and cosy feeling.

The reason for going up this time was to pick the tiles to go around the wood burner in the saloon. We laid them all out on the workshop floor and picked out some to go on the outside edge but to be honest we were happy with all of them.

The overhead cupboards in the bedroom have been started and the roof butted timbers fitted.

The galley units are now being installed, so we are now getting a feel of the size of drawers and cupboards in this area. The bed was being erected out in the workshop as was the dayroom furniture.

The engine has now been placed in position (dry fit) and the centaflex coupling fitted. This engine is a kabota which has been tried and tested for many years normally on building site machinery, but this one has be marinated by Beta and will be the heart of Derwent6. Attached to the engine is a 5kv Generator which will give the 230 volt power to all the appliances.

The laminate for the bathroom had just turned up so did the butler sink.

As we left the roof was being painted, and a proto type of the portholes had been supplied to check for size and hole drilling locations.

Live while we're alive, Sleep when we're Dead

Sorry we haven't updated for a while, but again it's been manic.

We're back on tour with Bon Jovi and have seen them at Southampton, Coventry and Bristol, with Twickenham still to go. (Yes we are a bit Jovied out)

But what a Fab show with all the hits being played and the Stadium singing along.

We took Hannah to Southampton, met up with our friends (Joy & Steve) at Coventry

and got right on the barrier at Bristol as you can see from the red arrow in the screen behind Jon.
Bon Jovi have done 90 gigs this tour and have seen a million faces and rocked them all..........

The seating, which paint, and the wardrobe

Well things are now moving on... as we walked in the seating was being made up by Stuart for the dayroom, so we had to decide which freezer was going in, so the design of the bed configuration could be sorted out. We were then taken by Julia to the upholsterers workshop to pick the fabric (which we were having trouble with)
And came up with this, which ticked all the boxes to give us that rich, warm, comfy feeling we want from the dayroom. We were both quite excited about it.....

On our last visit to Fernwood, we had to make a decision on the paint and Ken had very kindly done some sprayouts for us. (a lot of spray gun cleaning)

So as the colours are very traditional, it was not too hard making up our minds. This is how these colours will be used.
When you go through the boat now you start to get a feeling that it will be a home, and although one of our team was away on holiday, Chris and Stuart had been working hard on the panelwork and the bedroom in particular.

The wardrobe had been put into place and we could see how much space we had in there (not a lot, but more than expected)
This will have a by-folding door which will open up onto the chest of drawers, and it will also give us access to the shower pump. We were suprised to see some extra storage above the wardrobe as well.

We now have been given the task of how the side and stern doors need to look (ie either traditional blocks added to them or inserts). We also need to find a painter for the right style of signwriting for the exterior side panels, roses and castles and the engine room decoration. Ummm ......................

What a feeling the've started on the ceiling

We went up to Fernwood last week and more floor boards had been laid and the roof woodwork had been installed. Once again we checked the head height and were happy with the clearance.

The dayroom and the bedroom has now been panelled out, but this will all come out again at a later date. Also the saloon has been worked on.

We got a call saying we needed another mushroom vent in the roof at the galley which means we will be now having ten (that's a hell of a lot of brass cleaning) but we got it's location sorted in the end.
We are now trying to sort out the paint colours, which are done in hard two pack enamel paints. Looking at colour charts is not the easiest thing to do and we need to make sure it is right, so we will be checking this out with Ken the next time we go up. We know the colours, but it's just getting the shade right.

The 180 gallon water tank turned up as well, this had to be specially made to fit into the bow and under the cratch deck, which had been specially lowered to allow for this bigger tank.

As for us we have now been with Alison's parents for a week and are learning how to share the shower. But we must say we love the tea in bed and the good English breakfast in the morning..... could get used to this !!!!

Move on out!

At 2.00pm on the the 2nd June, we moved out of our house that we thought we would live in for the rest of our lives.

How wrong we were! It was a very emotional day as we have very happy memories of living there, incuding the great leaving party we had last Saturday!!! We are now living with our parents and trying to stay with friends and family when we can for the next three months.
Everyone has been fantastic and we have had so much support from all our friends and family (thanks everyone, you know who you are)

Its the end of a era, but the start of a new beginning.