Stop Press!! Thomas H is up for sale!

Stop Press!!

Thomas H is up for sale!

To see the listing, go to:

http://www.premierhouseboats.co.uk/#!thomas-h/c1q87

The end of an era! A final walk-through of Thomas H before we move out.

With just a couple of days left until we hand Thomas over to her new owners we have now moved most of our belongings out and are trying not to think about it too much. A mourning period will begin after the weekend.

The Trip To Kent; taking Thomas to dry dock in Faversham.

A very rough cut of our 3 day trip to from Chertsey on the Thames, around the coast, to Faversham on the Swale.  

For the full story of our trip, see the earlier post on this blog.

Another boat trip on the Thames.

A quick trip down river past Chertsey bridge.

New flooring for the kitchen

Simon's put a new floor in the kitchen and main living area.  He's a good man!    He was given all these weathered scaffolding boards which had been left unwanted and uncared for under a massive bramble.    They were completely green with algae when found and he's sanded them all back and fitted them on the boat.   It was a lot of work, but he's justifiably proud of himself right now.    Beer o'clock then.

The Marina is frozen over, again.

Simon took these shots today so I thought I'd post them.  The water's been frozen for a while, but it's getting thicker and getting a good layer of snow on it now.   Pretty though.

RIP Mike

We have only just heard and are very sad that Mike Gough was found dead in Faversham Creek just a week after we left dry dock.  By all accounts, Mike seems to have died from a fall from the dock in the early hours of the morning. When we arrived at Faversham in September, Mike was the first person to greet us as we moored up next to Henry, the Thames Sailing Barge on which he lived.  Mike was very welcoming and we will always remember him with fondness.  He was only 55 and it's a terrible waste. Rest in peace Mike.  You were kind and eccentric and memorable.

The trip back from dry dock; Home again, home again clickety click!

We're back home in Surrey and, much as we've loved our stay in Faversham, it's so good to be back. We finally floated out of the dry dock and said our goodbyes to new friends and old... as well as maybe to the Faversham dock that we've come to know so well as it looks like the Standard Quay may be closing for good in the near future leaving many people without work and traditional boat owners without a great resource of talented crafts people. To see more about this tragic loss of infrastructure and heritage, see Richard Fleury's film "The Quay" http://vimeo.com/43394451

The wonderful Colin Frake oversees our relaunch.  

Overnight mooring at the mouth of the Thames.

On our way home, we stopped for a couple of days to see some other boaty friends, Steve and Lorna, who live aboard their beautiful barge in an amazing floating community that we've taken to calling "Water-World", just down river from Tower Bridge.  

They have gorgeous garden barges, community events, all mod cons and even have their own little outdoor cinema set-up.

I took this photo of Tower Bridge from the wheel-house when we were moored up.  

Cool huh!

The only down side of water-world is that, when you're moored on the outside of the pack, every passing ship sounds like a turbine right by your head and every stupidly skippered pleasure boat speeding past creates a huge rocking motion.  

It's charms however easily out weigh these minor drawbacks, and seeing seals outside the port holes in the morning makes everything better.

Refloating Thomas - the work is finished, hurray!

We're all done, Thomas looks all shiney and new and we're ready to go. The tide is coming in, the valves are open and the dry dock is starting to fill up. We'll be afloat again by 2pm. Can't wait, it's felt so strange for Thomas not to be in the water.

No time to post all the photos or cation them so I'll just put up a selection. Ooo, it's all so exciting (how pathetic am I?!).

The work begins in dry dock but starts well with a glowing report from the surveyor.

The fabulous Chris Holmes has just left us with a glowing survey report for Thomas. Hurrah!


On the whole it seems that the tales were true and she's been really well doubled, with 10mm steel. The anodes were in really good nick and there's just very little damage so we're so happy.

There are a couple of bits to do, but really nothing too unexpected. It's our first time in dry dock, so all those scare stories people like to tell were repeating themselves in our heads but, as ever, Thomas has held herself high.
Simon spent most of the previous day pressure washing the hull down. He and Richard had already had the horrible job of scraping off the weed and mussels that were stuck on (luckily, the slat water had persuaded most of the mussels to fall off on their own).
Your caption here....

Think we might just head off to the pub now to celebrate.
But soon enough it was time to get back to work, so while Simon got to work with the angle grinder cleaning back along the waterline, I set to with the big power washer on the underneath of the boat.

I've never felt more glamerous.

On the plus side, Simon wasn't much better himself.

While Simon fixed a weld on the whisker, I started with the Bitumen, which seems like a much better job once you've done the pressure washing. Suddenly she started to look all shiney and new(ish). Linden is currently burning off some spots on the underside with the OA where they're going to put a plate (it's a spot unbetween two plates that has some pits so it's safer to plate it). Then we're pretty much there. I feel like I know every inch of Thomas inside and out now. It's enough to make a girl proud.
Really should add that Colin Frakes at standard wharf has been a star, as have Linden and Mac. The dry dock is really easy to use, once I calmed my vertigo down anyway, so we're really happy right now (although we're still not sleeping too well, perhaps it's a Feng Shui connection to the water type thing...?). Back to the Bitumen. Will keep posting when I'm clean enough to use the laptop, in the hope that people are interested in our labours...