The first stage of our "big push" with the boat's renovation is the deck. It has been left in the same condition for approximately a year and in a sense has remained unchanged since Dad's passing. Things have literally frozen in time - a couple of toolkits have rusted under the elements and various lengths of wood are going green. We are never short of wood here, as not only is Glad Tidings a wooden boat, it is festooned with chunks of it of all sizes. These are used for everything from propping open hatches to propping up a wonky section of the floor below deck.
Here are a couple of views from the quayside:
Note the clear expanse of coach roof after many months of being buried under a mass of ladders, oars, sailcloth, bags of cat litter (we have two felines aboard) and various decidedly-orange implements and bits of machinery that used to be some sort of metal. I intend
to post pictures of some of these on the blog sometime as I really have no idea what they are.
At the bottom of the picture, you will see stones and pebbles. This is the ballast of Glad Tidings, taken from the Arbroath shoreline and intended for use under the floor to weight the craft so it doesn't wobble about the place. It's outside because we needed it out the way to investigate where the leak (or leaks) might be.
It comes in very handy as a rudimentary balancing kit, as from this shot you can see we are currently moored against a wall. As we are floating over mud and don't have a flat bottom (unlike all those smug-looking Dutch barges that surround us!) when the tide goes out we are sometimes prone to "heeling over" the wrong way. The aim is to settle against the wall, with a bit of leaning to the right, where our fenders cushion the descent.
However, if there is a dreaded northerly breeze (even just a puff of air - a boat weighing 20 tons can be as light as feather to move when afloat) we can be blown away from the wall and this can get quite precarious. If we're not careful we could go over the other way, which has been known, whereupon it's a case of clearing the shelves and preparing to spend 8 hours at a 90 degree angle. The green box on the grass is full of ballast, and this is used to hold the line in place so we don't drift out.
You may just have observed the amount of clutter on deck - coal for the stove, a Black & Decker workmate circa 1976 that no longer folds down and a giant TV aerial that was donated to us and which would probably pull us over if we tried to install it. This is all material that is subject to 'put and take', as we sort everything out and compile the lot into what to preserve and what to chuck.
The coach roof has a canvas top painted blue. As soon as we removed the ephemera, we understood exactly why it was there. The picture was taken on a beautiful sunny day - as the heavens opened we began to leak mightily. Though the deck is fibreglassed to keep out rain, we regularly get drips in the most unexpected areas. Bizarrely they can migrate, so you'll get a metric ton of water through one plank, only for it to be bone dry during the next shower. Then you go to bed and find it's all gone in there. The water can also get in through bolts in the deck, so not only do you get wet, but there's a delightfully brown and metallic quality to what comes in.
Here is a picture of Mum's sleeping berth at present, with enough takeaway cartons to fill a van. It looks like the bedroom of a conspiracy theorist trying to block out satellite signals!
Below is the side deck, with the stanchions that are in sore need of painting.
The red square to the right is the foot of one of a pair of boat "legs" my Dad made, that can be attached to either side enabling the vessel to stand up when the tide goes down.
In addition to the deck clearance, painting and varnishing of the masts, we are also going to buy a big bag of sawdust and a rather large knife. This is going to form part of a highly delicate operation, the details of which are best left to a future instalment...
Welcome to this blog, which is based around 'Glad Tidings', the Victorian fishing boat we live on, which is moored near Sittingbourne in Kent. Over the coming months I will give you an insight into what it is like dwelling aboard such a vessel, as well as talking about its history and our efforts to restore her so she can go on for another hundred or so years...
Dating back to 1897, she is a "Fifie" built in Arbroath, Scotland, and is on the National Historic Ships Register. We have owned her for 12 years, and lived on her for 7, and the repairs and general preservation work involved have been varied to say the least! This is a boat made out of wood that requires regular maintenance, be it stuffing hemp between its planks, replacing those planks, painting its hull or simply keeping the water out (there has been a lot of that lately, as the blog will reveal).
The majority of the work was done by my Dad, who sadly died a year and a half ago. This left me (Steve, a comedian) and my Mum Wendy (an academic) to try and cope with the upkeep. Dad passed away in the middle of a bad situation - the boat was taking on a lot of water, for reasons we are to this day trying to ascertain. Our working theory is that a seam in the bottom of the boat - which is buried in the Kent mud and somewhat inaccessible - has lost its filling and a mighty leak has been created. We insert hemp and a tar-like substance called "black pudding" between the planking, but without constant attention and an eagle eye this can give way. Dad was keen to use traditional methods to ensure 'Glad Tidings' remained as close to as it was when it was launched in Arbroath. On the whole, he did this successfully, though the deck had to be given a layer of fibreglass as it was too much work to keep the rain and elements away.
After his death the helpers became the gaffers. Not only were we caring for Dad in his final days we were literally trying to stop the boat sinking, and ever since have been managing the scenario with very little cash. As we became more familiar with Dad's world we came to understand that wooden boats tend to eat money rather than store it. We have a variety of pumps that get the water out of the bilge (under the floor) as fast as it can come in and currently only need one pump for this purpose. However, any passing craft seeing the various tubes protruding from the hull get the impression the boat is relieving itself into the creek...
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Me and Mum have been living like this for nearly two years. How has this happened? It's a question we ask ourselves quite frequently. The logistics of trying to look after the boat whilst living day-to-day lives have often overwhelmed us. The location we are in is quite remote, so relying on the odd country bus means even a shopping trip can take up most of the day. Depression has also played its part - there has been no let up, and sometimes it feels like we haven't had the proper time to grieve. This is good in a way as we have always had something to occupy our minds, but the negatives are many and obvious.
We also live by the tides, so for example later I will be switching the pump on just after the water comes in at midnight and will monitor it till around 4am. It doesn't always require this sort of "night watch". We have been lucky for much of this year as the mud silted up the hull, but the recent hot weather has made the wood shrink and more of the wet stuff is coming in. People are frightened by the idea of boats taking on water, but every vessel takes on some which is then expelled, just not the way we do it!
After some time stuck in this self-imposed, slightly mad rut, we are getting our heads together and beginning to work on the deck and hull again, though of course there is a lot to do. Our objective is to raise funds for the boat to be lifted out onto land by crane so we can get at the bottom and fill the problem seam and this is part of the reason I have started this blog, to draw attention to a key part of Scotland's maritime fishing heritage and make people aware that 'Glad Tidings' still exists.
Thank you for your company and the first update will follow soon!
