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

Barney is back

The daily visual safety check of Barney, one of our shop vacuum cleaners, showed that the mains cable strain relief fitting had been pulled out of its mounting. Simply putting the strain relief fitting back into the mounting was not going to prevent the same problem occurring again so a more robust solution was implemented.

Nothing to do with boats

Strong winds prevented the movement of some of the smaller boats to the Old Herring Factory so instead work concentrated on domestic improvements.

Cover fitted for outside lock

New lock barrel fitted to store

Light switches labelled

Repairs to door handle

Hand towel dispenser fitted

Still more prep work at the new location

We continued work on getting the new storage location ready to receive boats and also be ready to allow restoration activities to recommence. Old storage room locks which have not been used for years and had rusted up have been replaced so we now have secure storage for the more valuable tools. Holes in the outside wall were patched and our new hazardous materials cupboard was moved to a usable location.

Secure equipment store

Hole patching

Hazardous materials cupboard