Floating High on Tuborg

I'm currently working on a ship which is in a floating drydock in Denmark.

I don't ever remember seeing one of these floating drydocks on the inland waterways, presumably because they need quite a lot of water depth.

In essence, you float the ship above a larger "U" shaped compartmentalised vessel, called a floating drydock, which has already had its compartments flooded with water and partially sunk.

The floating drydock then has all the water pumped out of its ballast tanks, so it starts to become buoyant and rises.

The lifting action then raises the ship out of the water, literally, high and dry, so that it may be worked upon.

The advantage of floating drydocks is that they can be moved to where they are needed and don't need large amounts of earth to be dug out, so are advantageous if land is scarce.

 The ship is largely reliant on shore power and umbilicals for fresh water and waste.

As the engine and generators are raw water cooled, it's not possible to generate all our own power, although we can run the smallest auxiliary generator by using sea water cycled through the fire hose.

 As I've said before, life occurs in cycles and often has repetition and subtle links to it's past.

It doesn't seem that long ago, that we were cruising the Nene and passed the Carlsberg brewery at Northampton.

Today, Tuborg, who are part of the Carlsberg group,  officially release their Julebryg or Tuborg Christmas Brew.

Its supposed to be released on the first Friday in November, but in actual fact, it was released this year on Friday 30th October.

This is known as J-day and is usually the source of much rejoicing in Denmark.

Normally, as part of the promotion, the first "pint" is usually free in most hostelries.

The beer is only available for 6 weeks each year and is a strong Pilsner (5.6%).

For the beer aficionados out there, Tuborg Julebryg is a bottom-fermented, wiener beer brewed on lager, münchener and caramel malt with English liquorice.

The beer is dark-golden with a fresh aroma of caramel, grain, liquorice and blackcurrant.

There, I'm glad I got that out of my system.

 

 

Show Me Your Leaves, Dearie !

Just a reminder that if you find that the wash behind your boat is a different pattern on the water to usual or is making a strange noise, it could be leaves.

At this time of year, the leaves fall off the trees (so that's why the US call it "the fall" ??) and land in the canal (can I say that ?).

The leaves then start to sink and often get wrapped around the leading edges of your propeller as you're cruising, spoiling its hydrodynamics.

This causes a loss of efficiency.

Its worth just putting the gearbox into neutral every now and again whilst travelling and giving the engine a burst in astern, to blow the leaves off.

Obviously, make sure you do this on a straight stretch when no other boats are around.

Its also quite refreshing to see the leaves come to the surface with the reverse thrust, confirming your diagnosis...

The pattern of the wash is generally very telling. Not quite like tea leaves in the bottom of a teacup, but it can indicate things fouling your propeller.

Large objects like mattresses, fleeces, whole tyres, etc have a way of announcing their own arrival - usually by killing your engine as you are approaching a lock entrance with a fair amount of way on.

However, smaller objects like carrier bags, leaves, fishing line, can just affect performance and this is often where wake watching comes in.

Get used to your normal wake pattern for different speeds, so you recognise anything abnormal.

I find the wake has a habit of not flowing directly behind - it goes sideways slightly, which is usually a sign of fouled prop blades, which plays with the thrust.

Something to think about as you are chugging along.

Piracy and Death in Dubrovnik

I have just returned from working in the fortified city of Dubrovnik in Croatia.

It is believed that the trading republic sprang from the remains of the roman city of Epidaurum, in the 7th century.

Although now very much a part of Croatia, the ex-Yugoslavia, Dubrovnik has an air of independence about it.  

Originally known as Ragusa, it became a independent trading centre, heavily dependent on ships. 

At one point, it had 4000 sailors living there and laws were passed to stop them sailing away on foreign ships.

Today, Dubrovnik is a tourist haven and a centre for visiting cruise ships.

The ships anchor off and the passengers come ashore in launches, as can be seen here, just in front of the fortress of St.John.

I first went to Southern Croatia in the mid 1990's and the famous and much photographed walls of the city were pock-marked from bullets and shrapnel from the war with Bosnia.

Now, the damage is repaired, the sun shines and the tourists come again in floods.

Dubrovnik is watched over by its patron saint, St.Vlaho, who is to Dubrovnik, what St.Mark is to Venice.

A Jadrolinija ferry at Dubrovnik port on the Lapad peninsula, seen here under attack from a pirate vessel.

Still fishing in the same way as they have for centuries.

This is the mysterious island of Lokrum, just offshore of Dubrovnik.

The locals say that if you spend the night on the island, you will be cursed and die - nice..

 

Looming Large

Since I mentioned in passing, the other day, that some of my "large ship" work was drying up as a result of the global downturn in trade, I have had several people ask me about making wiring looms for their new boats.

For those of you that haven't come across this concept, its a spin-off from the wiring looms that are now standard in cars and production boats.

Like cars, production motor cruisers such as Princess, Sunseeker etc are not wired one wire at a time, as this would be too time consuming and therefore expensive.

The cabling for these type of boats is made to pattern and length, so that the boatbuilder can just clip one loom into place and connect-up all the loose ends.

Visually, a wiring loom resembles a fish bone, with a main spine and various offshoots coming off.

This practise has now caught on in the narrow-boating world.

Its very useful for people fitting out their own hulls or sailaways, as it saves a lot of fitting-out time, time wasted sourcing small quantities of materials and specification guesswork.

The cables can be made to order as a bespoke loom and delivered to the boat in one or more pieces, subject to complexity.

It means that the person doing the fitting out can spend less time working in a cramped hull (which is no fun in winter) or more time doing some other form of fitting out, like the plumbing or tiling the shower.

Normally, I either start off by visiting the boat to discuss the layout with the owner and make a pattern, or if the boats physically too far away, the owner can complete a diagram by adding dimensions and a few other necessary details.

I can then make the loom in my workshop at home (not on our boat - not enough room !! ).

The loom is made up of correctly dimensioned cables for the current it will need to carry and is supplied as a finished product with marked cables within the loom, a wiring diagram and a list of the conductors used and their specification.
Looms are cable tied and heat-shrink sleeve wrapped for strength.

When the loom gets to the boat, the spine has to be fitted into place (usually alone the centre of the deckhead or under the gunwhale) and the dimensioned tails then fall into place to line up with the switches and light fittings. The person doing the fitting-out then has to connect the 2-wire connections on the loose tails to the light fittings and switches and the other end of the spine is connected to the outputs of the DC fuse box or distribution panel.

Its also possible to split the lighting circuit so that a failure on one circuit (e.g. blown breaker or fuse) doesn't plunge the whole boat into darkness or even one end of the boat. The loom allows lights to be interleaved, so that every second light would stay on, etc.

I can also make up heavy duty battery cables (up to 70mm2), which can be supplied to length, for new inverters, battery chargers, etc.

Clean The Screen and Fill Her Up, Please

We all need a little bit of care and attention, sometimes.

Even ships.

After our race around the Med, we are back in the U.K

As jobs go, it's not been bad. Got the work done, got some sun and managed to see a little of the places we berthed in.

This Wightlink ferry is getting a wash and brush-up.

Look at how shallow her draft is !!!

If your only experience of taking on diesel has been at the filling station or, if on a boat, at the marina or from a trading narrowboat, check this out.

The orange/red hulled ship is a bunker barge.

She exists purely to refuel other ships.

She currently has a flexible hose of about 10" diameter pumping fuel oils into our bunker tanks, to replenish what we burnt dashing around the Med.

Fuel on ships is measured in tonnes, not litres and ships can typically burn 20-60 tonnes a day. Bring back sailing ships I say.

At the same time, we have a lot of windows that are now caked with salt from the spray.

So, the windowcleaner is lowered in a permanent cage and hoses them all down - what a cleaning round, eh ?

This is the final chapter of this particular book.

So to part, a shot of a shuffleboard deck, as we shuffle off with our tools and gear (and it was a shuffle too - where did all that extra stuff come from ? ).

Back home to Willawaw and a new chapter - the start of our Autumn/Winter cruise.

Catch you soon.

 

And I Thought Stromboli was a Circus Clown

We crept through the Messina Straits under cover of darkness and cut a silent wash past a sleeping Stromboli, the island and volcano.

Welcome to a particularly volcanic part of the Meditearranean, or to be more precise, the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Stromboli last erupted last year, but tonight it appears to be dormant.

So, on to the next volcano, Vesuvius. This is a bit more sleepy, but blew its top in the last 100 years and spectacularly in 79 A.D when it killed over 10,000 people in the much televised destruction of Pompeii. I know all about this because I used to watch Frankie Howard - Titter ye not.

Anyhow, the entrance to these delights is Naples.

Italy is a stylish place.

They don't do much and there was always the famous joke about the World War 2 Italian tank - it had one forward gear and three reverse gears. However, what they do, they do with incomparable style.

They shrug, they pout, they play with their sunglasses and the men can't pass a mirror, without pausing to reflect.

It always makes me smile when I fly into Italy and the police and customs at the airport always seem to be fiddling with their little white bags on their belts or brushing a stray hair off their face whilst looking in the one-way glass.

I've often wondered what the mens toilets must be like in an Italian nightclub.

I can imagine a line of men at the washbasins, applying their make-up and working hard at that manicured look.

Even their cruise terminal is chic - I kept expecting to see Sophia Loren at any moment.

You can tell I'm not envious - after all, who wants to look like a male model without even trying - I don't - bah.

Anyway, as is my habit, I digress.

Naples or Napoli now that I'm here, is a busy little port.

How's this for a mooring ?

So, when in Rome - sorry, when in Napoli, it's off to Amalfi for ice cream and more sunglasses.

The roads are very windy and narrow on the Amalfi coast and driving is a tad hairy.

Its interesting watching trucks and coaches weave along roads probably made for donkeys.

Full marks to the Italian drivers though, they get past other vehicles with a centimetre to spare.

and if they don't, so what, more shrugs and sunglasses on heads for eyeballing contests.

It's got so bad, that the government employ these little men to contraflow the traffic.

Its very clever, they come in little rectangular grow-bags (see his on the lamp post).

You pour agua minerale on the bag and hey presto, miniature traffic marshalls.

What ? you don't believe me ?

Okay, doubting thomases, here is conclusive proof, snapped by a concealed camera.

Here is the home of the Italian leprechaun, now gainfully employed on the Amalfi coast road:

Amalfi is beautiful - what can I say.

Andiamo (lets go).

Job done, we cast off the myriad of lines that secures us to Italy.

A quick surge on the bow and stern thrusters and the ship is once more, a living, moving thing of beauty. 

Next stop, home.

She glided out of Naples, past these very stylish commercial warehouses.

Just because they hold warehouse type things, why can't they look good, ciara.

Ciao baby. 

Thats what I like about Italians - appearance is everything.

 

 

Cure Thyself

Istanbul was brilliant.

It's one of my favourite places as it forms a "bridge" between Europe and the Middle East.

Stomped through by many different civilisations, it now stands as a mix of many cultures.

Irrespective of your thoughts about organised religions, you can't help but marvel at the effort that man makes in building great buildings in honour to his creator.

No visit to Istanbul would be complete without a visit to the Blue Mosque (one of only two mosques that, at the time of building, had as many minarets as the mosque in Mecca - six).

This is Hagia Sophia, built as a church, converted to a mosque and now a museum.

Nor would a visit be complete without a walk through the alleged 1200 shops of the Grand Bazaar with a little friendly haggling for some unique Turkish craftwork.

On the way down the Turkish coast, we anchored off a little fishing village for a day and took the launch ashore. We managed to get to Pergamon, which although now in Turkey, used to be a Greek city (moving borders you see).

Below is a photograph of the Asclepieion or healing temple. It was the forerunner of modern hospitals dating back over 2000 years. 

However, unlike modern hospitals, they did not let you in, if you looked terminal.

Dying patients made their success statistics look a bit sick !! -

mmm well, maybe not that different then ?

If you were unfortunate enough to die in their care, they apparently had a habit of disposing of the body when nobody was looking.

"Nurse, nurse, where is Mr.Papadopoulos - he looked very sick when I did my rounds yesterday ?"

"He checked out, Doctor - thought he had left his back door unlocked or something"

"Oh well, another success for the medical staff - at least he walked out himself"

I wonder if the medical students could see the operation from up there ? 

"Speak up, did you say gut or cut ?"

In the words of the infamous Monty Python, "and now for something completely different".

From Ancient Greece to Art Deco.

This is the ships atrium - a Latin word, not a Greek one.