July 2015 – Barge77m

After persuading some of my friends from UL over the Christmas Break, and during my Diving holiday to Lanzarote, three members of the Dive and Kayak club decided to join me for a work party on a Saturday at the end of February 2015. Ruairi Nealon drove out in the morning, and Simon McCormack and Ethan O’Brien came out later in the day from Limerick. The plan for the day was to get as much of the boat as clean as possible, and hopefully do some painting. After getting up early in the morning, meeting Ruairi and collecting my uncle’s Powerwasher, we were dampened by the weather, it didn’t look promising for the day. With the hopes that it would brighten up later we started power-washing the engine room, the walls, the floor, and the bilges. Trying to find the words to describe the sludge that came out of the bilges when I lifted the floor is honestly quite difficult. After a very dirty few hours work, the other lads arrived and we started painting in a limited sense. It was still misty outside, so I sent the lads to continue painting the lounge which we had started, and Ruairi painted some of the walls in the engine room, starting with the bulkhead. There was still plenty of sweeping, clearing and washing to be done before the floor would be clean enough to paint. By the end of the day, the lads had made a good amount of headway and Ruairi and I headed to the local hardware shop to buy some Plywood to fill the gaps in the side of the cage. I bought some of the thinnest ply on offer, and cut it in half on site in order to transport it home in the car. We then measured the far-from-square holes that we needed to cover, and began cutting the sheets to fit. We ran out of time before I could finish the job, but the groundwork was laid down and a few evenings later that week saw me finished filling the gaps, and ensuring that the lounge would be free from any rain that may fall when the cover was removed. The two lads had also completed a significant portion of the painting, so that left the following Saturday for me to complete the engine room, and have it ready for the engine to return, which would end up being a significant time into the future !

The lounge with Plywood in place, and exposed steel primed.

The lounge after a fresh coat of primer.

Some graffiti left by Boisterous Tricksy Students

The Engine Room before floor is painted, and after powerwashing.

Church Bay, View from 77.M, February 2015

After work slowed down coming into the christmas period, most of my spare time in Whitegate was spent clearing the engine room in order to prepare for a powerwash, and emptying the bilges in the front section, as she was taking on water. My original hopes for the front section was to empty them as close to dry as possible, clear out all of the silt, and then try to track down the source of the incoming water. This was suspected to be a number of finger or smaller holes, on the portside of the bow, as this was one of the worse sections, and it was not possible to patch before she was lifted from her original position in Carlow twelve months earlier. However, this incoming flow proved to be too much, and I eventually gave up after a number of cold nights spent bailing and getting nowhere. My attention was then turned to the engine room. The bilges needed to be cleaned, along with the walls and floors so that they could be painted, and the place would be spick and span for when the engine was ready. Again, this involved many nights in the dark, bailing out water which was slowly leaking back in again from rainwater and hidden compartments. My cousin Anna came down to help me a number of evenings, and was not only good with a paintbrush, but good moral support when priming some of the surfaces in the lounge area. These surfaces needed a good scrub and two layers of primer, as rust and dirt were not only a technical issue, but made the whole are look shabby. After a number of evenings doing such work throughout December and January, I lined up some of my mates from my Scuba Diving club for a weekends work in February 🙂