MV Silvertree is a wide-beam canal barge and she is my home.The boat is 67 feet long by 10 feet wide and weighs in around 35 tons.
Silvertree was launched as a "Sailaway" three years ago, and was only 57 feet long at that time. She was bought from a company that does not deserve a mention here (nuff said).
A sailaway is a part built boat, so we chose a hull, insulation, wood lining and an engine, oh! and an oil-fired central heating system was included in the price.
Although that description may seem to be a complete boat, it certainly isn't a home. I needed to fill this empty hull with all the stuff that folks that live in a house take for granted. Interior walls and doors, hot n cold running water, a galley, bathroom, lights, two separate electrical systems, the list is as long as a politicians promises.
A good couple of coats of dark blue paint to protect the hull and then I began to plan the interior. The stern deck is quite large, 10 feet by 10 feet, so it is really my back yard. The galley (kitchen) is down inside from there. It just seemed natural to go from the back yard into the kitchen...I'm a back door sort of person anyway..
A kitchen needs lights, electrical switches, hot n cold running water (preferably in pipes) a sink a worktop, a cooker and cupboards and drawers. As well as a Welsh dresser type plate rack with hooks for mugs.
Also a fridge and a washing machine. No freezer or dishwasher or electric kettle, they all use far too much electricity and or water. A kitchen also needs walls, so I built a wall across the width of the boat with a space for a corridor to one side.
A belfast sink and a hand made, 2 inch thick beech worktop with panelled cupboards underneath was the start of a practical, but small galley. Above the sink and worktop a series of welsh dresser shelves and a plate rack for ready-use stuff. Once this was ready, hot and cold water to a gold mixer tap, I wanted brass, but couldn't find a decent one. Doesn't that just show you that bling is endemic.
Water on tap, so to speak, it was juust a matter of cussing and straining to hoik a washing machine aboard and plumb it in. Drilling holes for the waste pipes through the hull, just above the water, line was an act of supreme courage, or stupidity, take your choice.
Finally a 12 volt fridge with a couple of gigantic deep-cycle batteries to run it was built in above the washing machine. I hate floor level fridges don't you.
Just as soon as I do the dishes, I shall post a photo of my galley, with the usual curry bubbling away. I have a number of changes that need doing. It seems to me that the best way to design the living quarters on a boat is to live aboard. More about this later.....
The saloon is the largest room on the boat, about 16 feet by 10 feet. The first thing I did here was build a bulkhead (wall) across the width of the boat, once again, leaving a space for access forward. Panelled beech makes this a pleasant feature. Book cases are fitted along both sides of this space and also on the rear wall backing onto the galley. I love books and a home without them is unthinkable. A small ship's piano fitted perfectly beneath the after bookcases with a comfy Ercol armchair for me in the corner.
On the port(left)side forward in this space I have put a large, glass fronted, cast iron multi-fuel fire. I feel the same way about a fire as I do about books. Home is a warm flicker of firelight on rows of much thumbed favourite books. Electrical points, a flat screen tv and dvd player as well as a stereo system complete this particular part of the boat..I found an old oak beareau, a Persian rug and a small sofa to fit in amomg the books and hey presto, somewhere to lurk. The colours are a mix of deep red and gold with mellow woodwork.
Woke up this morning and found that the starter battery is dead. Ho hum! dream the dream and live the nightmare. This means that I cannot charge the deep cycle batteries and so my electrical supply will dwindle until the fridge cools down and the beer warms up, the water won't run and lighting will have to be candlepower. But who cares, I have my books and transistor radio as well as ample logs for the fires.
Right, I got a little sidetracked yesterday, I went to buy a battery and came home with a 16 foot launch. Couldn't resist it.
Well, I bought a battery and fitted it, but the engine still wouldn't start... A sad phonecall to my pal Nat who lives on narrowboat Maronidas soon got that sorted...She was awarded with dinner before a lift back to her boat. A really true friend is someone who just comes a running when you need help. The waterways are full of such folk.
Well, Norkie bought a boat for his home...problem was it has a hole in the hull and was in a car repair yard down in Melksham 20 miles away. Yesterday we borrowed a boat trailer that would have moved Titanic and set off to tow the thing. After a great deal of grunting and yelling we got it onto the trailer and moved it to the canal. Darn thing was vast, bigger than my landrover discovery..A few days in the sun with some fibreglass filler will put it to rights then we can launch it.
My new launch is beautiful, shabby and mistreated with scabby paint and rotten bits of mahogany here and there, but the hull is sound and she is soooo curvacious. I rowed a few miles from where I acquired it to Silvertree and it is watertight a roomy.
Back to Silvertree then... Once the saloon was habitable, a bathroom seemed the next bit, although I'd bunged a sink n shower into it when I did the galley.
Two walls to enclose the space and a cork floor was the first bit. Next a shower, with a gold shower head..again, couldn't find brass...to replace the Heath Robinson arrangement already in there. I made a circular shower curtain rail out of copper plumbing pipe as they are ridiculously expensive to buy and I don't like to encourage genteel greed. My water system is such high pressure that the shower works really well, the shower base is a small bathtub that has an electric bilge pump fitted so it empties automatically. The walls are marble tiles and lots of mirrors to steal light and give an illusion of space.
A porta potti suffices for a loo.
The bedrooms presented a problem, despite being a wide beam boat there wasn't enough room for three bedrooms. The answer was...a stretch.
A stretch isn't what it sounds, the boat would get thinner if you stretched it..at least that's what my son thought. So we went down to see the nice people down at Devizes Marina and they offered to cut the boat in half and weld a new bit in...That's a stretch.
While this was being planned we attended a church service for two men who had drowned in the canal whilst working along the towpath