Getting there....

More progress to report from today's visit to Beacon - the front stable doors are now lined and our glass fitted - although not a good photo of the glass - it needs daylight to fully appreciate the lovely job that Bonnie has done.

The over-bed cupboards have been fitted, and very good they look too, with plenty of room to stow even more of our junk out of sight!


The porthole liners are in place, and Neil has made me an extra little step to get out into the front well - with my dodgy knees the one step was a little too high, and I was struggling to heave myself onto it. Nobody else likes it, so Neil has made it removable. After being on the boat for a while, I hope that I will become fitter so it can be removed if I don't need it anymore.

The bathroom vanity unit and the splash-back have been tiled, and the basin fitted.

The photo above shows the stove and hearth almost ready for tiling. We have had a little bit of a disappointment when it comes to the hearth for the Bubble diesel stove due to changes in the RCD, and also in the installation instructions. We had originally planned to have it on a raised hearth (as are most narrowboat hearths) - the edge of which would have come to where the doorway starts and been the same width all the way around. Unfortunately, the regs now say that there must be 300mm clearance between the front of the stove and any combustible material, which of course means the flooring (oak boards) and the oak trim on the edge of the hearth would also have fallen inside the 300mm. So the only way to get around this is to have the stove sitting at floor level (with fireproof boards underneath) and have the tiles extend into the doorway. We have chosen to have black slate tiles on the floor, and have chosen burgundy tiles for behind the stove. The tiles will be flush with the floorboards so there won't be anything to trip over. Beacon's last boat, Merryweather, had to have the same, but we all thought it was just because they had a much larger stove than ours, and it is multi-fuel - but this was not the case. Beacon use an external surveyor oversee the work for the RCD so it has to comply to the proper regulations. They don't believe that fitters should be allowed to self-certify the RCD as it makes a mockery of the regulations and can lead to problems further down the line, and it also means that some unscrupulous fitters can get away with anything! Still, it looks fine on Merryweather, so I'm sure it will look fine on Windsong.

The inside of the side-hatch doors have now been lined, and the inner window frames have been made and hung - just waiting to be glazed now.

The Houdinis are now all finished - above is the hatch without the insect screen pulled over, and below is with the insect screen. I'm going to see if I can make some 'bungs' for them out of old cushions to stop the condensation dripping on the floor in the winter - will let you know how successful they are (or not!!)

The photos below are of one of the side-hatches and a porthole from the outside of the boat, and of the cratch, complete with it's rolled up cover. We did unroll it to see what it looked like, but had rolled it up again before we remembered to take a photo!



Launch is now looking like the end of the first week or the beginning of the second week of June, so we've still got a few more weeks to wait. I have to admit that the waiting is getting very hard now - we just want to be on board and away. However, they are working as hard as they can at Beacon to get things finished so we will just have to be patient. A couple of months late is nothing in 'boaty' terms, (Ali is horrified as it's the first time they have been late with a boat!) but they have been a man down for most of the fit-out, so we think they've done ok.