Oups I did it again!
Not at the registry office, but with similar consequences. Nevertheless a ship is always a kind of female.
What is happening right now is a tough change. Taking on responsibility for our new home seemed to be mentally uncomplicated to me and quick to implement. Actually, it is.
However, the intensity of the learning and practical application tasks is higher than expected and much more intense than I had assumed. Taking a closer look, of course, there were many more projects to be implemented than we expected at first. But the meshing of the various craft activities was then surprising and unexpected. Steel either requires rust treatment and then rust protection renewal or cutting out the rusty spots and re-welding and then rust prevention again. That sounded straightforward to me, the devil is in the details as anywhere else.
How best to cope with rust without losing too much material and preventing further rusting? How best to cut and weld the steel in impossible physical positions and confined spaces? The Internet and Youtube are really a source of infinite knowledge and also a lot of wisdom that should not be copied one to one. But it is well known that doing is more than studying and, after a few smaller projects, venturing into bigger and bigger ones is the current secret. Actually, the main thing is to lose the fear of being able to repair something for worse. The truth is, things don’t react so drastically to mistakes and stupid beginners. For example I have made my first steps during welding over the shaft of our rudder blade and as a first task a round shaft with up to 6 mm steel reinforced by applying new material. And after a bit of messing around and a lot of grinding away, the weld seams are getting better and better, and now the shaft has been completely renewed, and the stuffing box fits wonderfully with minimal play and can be replaced again soon. And I’m doing it for the first time. Well, the sea will be the final leak test, when our beauty will be lifted into water. But I take this more and more loosely.
Another chapter is the many installations of gas, water and „shit“. Yes, I’ve unscrewed and cleaned a siphon from a sink. But removing a 70 liter boiler in the machine room and bringing it out and shutting down a water tank completely, integrating a new water desalination system into the system and therefore piping some new things, I haven’t done yet. In the end, here too, the only thing that helps is to pinch, unscrew, cut, sweat, scold cables and curse if something doesn’t work. Actually this is very important, without complaining, the understanding about the nonsense that you just did appears much later. Removing is an exciting process, but implementing is the supreme discipline. Then you have a solution and the next night you dream about various others and waking up with the head full of new ideas I went on a search and looked for help and material in the various craft shops around the area – with a language barrier. The experience with pipes and connections was exciting. They are measured in inches and this does not mean that 1 inch is equal to 25 mm, as the conversion in Google promises. It’s about the inside and outside diameter and actually inches and 1/2 inches and so on are just more historical remains of a label. So again research on the internet and look for tables that explain to me how everything is connected. And then go and look out for a reduction in Greece from a 1 1/2 inch access pipe to a 1/2 inch hose connection! This is quite a bit of preparation for an unskilled, but curious “home” worker. In the meantime, I have everything in place and some of it has already been reinstalled.
Meanwhile a “Hoppala” demands an electrical masterpiece, because the cabling and the power connections, including the fuse concept, in a 230 V AC, 24 V DC and 12 V DC network, as we have it on board, do some documented riddles. And so the saying comes true: everything on board takes three times longer than exspected. The conversion of the navigation instruments is still pending, but I still have the least spundus. There is simply an unbelievable amount of cable clutter to be organized, reused and, if not used, also reasonably dismantled. And of course everything needs to be labeled properly.
So it is not surprising that due to a lot of physical work, sweat and one-time meal during the day, I quickly experience enormous physical changes that help me more and more to be able to do my tasks more physically. It is currently a constant examination of old patterns, believed inadequacies in knowledge, ability or just physical feasibility. And the most important lesson so far is that there is nothing we cannot do as long as we have the courage to start. Everything results from the courage to start, even if it sometimes takes a while to get the courage, e.g. to cut a hole in the hull after everything is finally tight, just to attach a depth and speed sensor. And even if I have read 17 times how the sealing of the throughhullfitting works. Until it was done for the first time, there remains an incredibly nervous stomach that only turns into a comfortingly warm and satisfied feeling when it is done and everything is in place, and then it was not that bad.
I said YES, and life gives me an incredible number of opportunities to balance myself and my inner self, to experience fears, wrong self-assessments and vanities. And in the material world our beautiful ship is slowly but surely being brought back to its due splendor.