How’s the boat stuff going?

Boat

10 Aug

Written By Laura Geyer

It’s going.

When will you be in the water?

When it’s done.

When will it be done?

When it’s done./ It will never be done.

We hadn’t really set out to do a full refit on the boat, we kept talking about upgrades and priority jobs. I suppose because we were not touching the interior wood in our head that meant it wasn’t a full refit, However, now almost a year in we have found ourselves in every nook and cranny of this boat.

‘Well we might as well’ is a phrase used a lot when considering whether to tackle a project or not. In our ambition to simplify our systems as much as possible, we hung around the demolition stage a little longer than expected, removing old wiring, the gas cooking system, the entire engine, speaker system, thru hulls, the list goes on.

We are now entering the install, which comes with its own sense of overwhelm as the ruthless approach afforded in the demo phase no longer suits, precision and know-how are imperative. As a result, Adam spends his off time in the depths of youtube and boat forums researching the absolute soul out of EVERYTHING.

He even had his first boatyard advice experience the other day, one where he was the one giving it rather than receiving it! A big day for any amateur boat re-fitter.

As fans of the TV program Grand Designs we never really understood the drama that went along with building a house, ‘We almost broke up’ or ‘This has been the greatest test of my life’ or ‘I am so stressed I haven’t slept in 3 months’. After our time spent in the boatyard, I can go a little way to understanding. We have been stressed, overwhelmed, out of our depths, not always best friends, utterly at our wit's end. I describe the process to people as ‘ imagine refitting a whole house with no straight edges’.

The lived experience of this process has been trying, but also extremely rewarding, we could be merely weeks away from being back in the water, but it still feels too far away to get excited about. Spanners are thrown in the works like confetti. Simple jobs are never simple. Small jobs are always big. Big jobs are usually bigger.

But we wanted this. We chose this. We wanted to learn so that when we are out there we can fix stuff. Adam, I’d just like to take this opportunity to say how unbelievably impressed I am with your reserve, your willingness to learn and do that job right. Proud of you hubs.