Boats and Facilities

This week the volunteers again split into two groups; some working on boat restoration - now possible as we have basic facilities in place, and those continuing to work on facility improvements. A lot of the boats previously left in the main storage area have now been relocated to a side area.

Small boats in storage

Discussing a boat

Strong start to the New Year

There was a good turn out of volunteers for the second meet of the new year, the improved facilities helping to attract more help. Some work was restarted on the two small boats currently in restoration while other volunteers continued to strip out old factory fittings in preparation for the installation of the new boat door and for additional storage space.

A good turnout of volunteers

A technical discussion...

A non-technical discussion

Happy New Year

It was rather windy outside but inside our new facility working conditions were very good. Work hanging old banners has been completed

Most of the small boats previously moved into the new facility have now been relocated either to a more permanent storage position or into a position where they can be worked on.

Boats still being worked on

By moving the smaller boats around we have freed up space for larger boats which we will be able to move in when the new boat door is fitted.

Freed up space

While some volunteers worked on cleaning out what the birds had left inside the hide boat 

The Hide boat

other discussed what needed doing on other boats.

Wind-down before Christmas

A couple of us took the opportunity of an empty building to test all the fire call points in our area of responsibility. These all tested satisfactorily and the fire log book has been updated.

We also continued work on hanging some old banners on the walls to brighten the place up a bit and remind us of past achievements.

Further work was done on the old stainless shelving cabinet that we want to repurpose for the storage of small consumables such as sand paper, abrasive disks, paint brushes etc. Having cut off the old doors it was now necessary to file off all remaining sharp edges around the cut points.

Snowed in

 It snowed and froze over night so no boat work today.

More boat moving

With a break in the snow, albeit still very cold, we moved several more of the smaller boats and a number of pallets of marine artefacts from Ness to the Old Herring Factory. Again a lorry with a crane was used as this could lift all the heavy items. We haven't yet decided on how best to arrange the boats for storage, so it is simply a case of off-loading them and leaving them in the middle of the available space for the time being.

Linda ready for up lifting

Preping Linda for the lift

Labradorite rock (ballast) being up lifted

Saga ready for moving

Waterlily, Linda & Saga off loaded

Boat moving

A number of OHBS's smaller boats were today moved from their temporary storage location to the Old Herring Factory in Stromness. The move was performed using a HIAB lorry with a hydraulic crane. Plan A of driving the lorry into the temporary shed didn't work out because the roof was too low. Plan B loading through a side door worked out fine. Off loading was relatively easy as we could make use of an old loading/unloading bay door and simply pull the boats off the back of the lorry into the shed.

Plan A  didn't work

Plan B worked

Unloaded boats in their new home