Preparing a barge for a North Sea voyage...
 
It soon became apparent that the difficulties of buying a barge abroad paled in comparison to the difficulties of ‘fixing up’ a barge abroad. The long sales process had left us drained, but in reality, the real challenges were about to begin.
 
It was clear that Fenrir had not sailed in years. The wheelhouse was a wreck, the boat lacked all the normal ‘boaty’ things you might have expected, and most important of all... no-one knew if the 50 year old Brons engine would run.
 
It was certainly the latter that absorbed much of our efforts. No-one knew anything about the engine. We struggled to decipher the one piece of paper we had... an A4 ‘starting procedure’ written entirely in Dutch.  Seasoned engineers would look at the engine with a curious mix of admiration and fear... and would then back away without touching it. But the engine was really just one of many issues that needed resolving if we were ever to get the boat over to the UK. We drew up a list...
 
- The engine needed to be brought back to life
- There was no throttle system in the wheelhouse.
- The air tanks would need to be tested, and taken up to 20 bar (in order to start the engine)
- A backup air system would be needed, should we run into troubles on the crossing
- The generator would need repairing or replacing, particularly as the exhaust appeared to have a leak
- There were no battery banks or any other 12v or 24v supply
- There were no NAV lights, or radio equipment
- The solitary fuel tank on board was only 200 litres, and we suspected would be a little dirty inside. And of course, it was empty, so we needed fuel.
- We had no anchor of note, no chain or even a windlass/winch
- We had no toilet system, as the pipe on the existing ‘drop’ loo had been over-plated
- We weren’t sure what state the water system was in, or how it worked
- There were no fenders on board.  
- We would need to find a very brave skipper and crew
- And finally, of course, as everyone would be keen to tell us... we needed lots of rope!
 
There were of course various other small practicalities... naturally, the owner had cleared the boat prior to the sale, so there was no furniture! We had no tools in Holland, or even basic practical things like screws and nails. And the barge was currently taking up valuable space in a very expensive boat yard, which was now charging us a pretty packet every week. Any work on the boat would have to be done by someone else without us being there to supervise, or instead, require us to travel to Holland, with everything we needed to do the work ourselves.
 
The natural place to look for help was the boat yard itself, but no-one there spoke English. In fact, very few people there spoke Dutch either. Most of the workers were Polish, who were always helpful, but communication was tricky. All previous contact had been through the broker or the seller, so despite the fact that the barge had been there for 5 months (much to their anguish), we felt that we were having to build up an understanding with them from scratch.
 
The brokers, to their credit, didn’t walk away completely. They recommended an engineer to us who spoke a little english, and we drove out to his workshop (a barge of course). But when we gave him our list of requirements, his resulting quote was shocking. An £8,000 bill is not what you need having just paid for a barge!
 
Meanwhile, we were exploring skippers. A few were ‘recommended’ and conversations began. But it was clear, they were expecting a working barge, not something that was no longer geared up for boating. While there was some talk of being able to tug the barge over, by effectively rafting her to other barges as a ‘flotilla’, it never felt like a workable solution.
 
I began to despair. When looking for a barge, I hadn’t focussed on issues like ‘engines’ and ‘fuel tanks’. I had been too focussed on the size, shape and layout. But without these systems, the barge was marooned in Holland. We needed a contact in Holland who could handle a range of different tasks, and would tackle it with real enthusiasm.
 
To this day, I don’t remember how we came across ‘Vince’ and his ‘Service Van’ but I am very grateful we did. Vince’s passion was old American Cars, and owning one myself, it was an instant connection. Nothing fazed Vince, and he turned up and threw himself at the engine issue. Vince spent some time familiarising himself with all the strange pipes, valves and objects hanging off the engine. But, assuming the engine could run, the real clincher would be generating enough air pressure to get the engine started.
 
Well, Vince solved this ingeniously... locating some ‘diving tanks’ which were the only available things capable of generating 20 bar. Hooking these up to the air system, and armed with our ‘starting procedure’, he succeeded! To prove the point, Vince emailed us a video of the engine running, taken on his mobile phone.
 
I must confess at this point, we realised that Vince was the only person in the whole of Holland who was able to help us, and actually cared. Thereafter, we were in regular contact, and the ‘jobs’ flew thick and fast. First, Vince tackled the generator, mending the exhaust and replacing the starter motor. Then he built and fitted a new fuel tank alongside the existing one. Glass was fitted into some of the engine room port holes, which were cracked, representing a potential hazard for the crossing.
 
Soon, we had Vince buying fuel, rope, fenders... in short, anything we needed for the crossing. Vince visited boat yards looking at windlasses, but sadly, nothing was quite suitable. And when the weather got cold, he even drove down to the boat yard and drained the engine of cooling water so it wouldn’t freeze. We couldn’t have asked any more, nor could Vince have given it.
 
Of course, this wasn’t without a cost. We’d spent around £4,000, not including mooring fees to the boatyard.
 
Vince made all of this possible and we are forever grateful. But we were not slacking ourselves during this time. In all, I’d made 8 trips out to the barge, and in particular, we had two long stays in Holland in order to work on the boat during this time, meeting with Vince, and tackling all manner of jobs. Scotty had conceived the bright idea of getting the over-night ferry to Holland, meaning we could bring a car laden with stuff and get to the boat yard, refreshed, and in a fraction of the time.  In this way, we ‘ferried’ (boom boom) equipment, tools, supplies, furniture and even generators, an 80Kg anchor and several mattresses! God bless the Ford Mondeo that made these trips with its rear bumper scraping along the ground, laden beyond its means.
 
On every visit, we would spend days working on the boat, trying to bring everything up to scratch. On one of the trips, we had pre-booked in for two nights at a local hotel. But at the end of each day, we would say ‘we still have more to do’. So each night, we would return to the hotel and book another day. Not at the reception... that would have cost a few hundred pounds a go, but instead, at the internet connection opposite the reception desk, where Expedia cut the cost to just £45. It was quite comical, walking into the hotel, booking a room on their PC, and then walking across to the reception to check in. On one trip, we did this four times before finally deciding it was time to return home.
 
Finally, many thousands of pounds later, and a whole lot of hard work, we felt that the boat was ready. We had failed to find a windlass, but everything else was in place and fully operational... we hoped! It just remained to pick a skipper... and we had narrowed our selection down to two highly capable individuals. In the end, we went with Stefan Fritz of AC Marine. He was ‘direct’, experienced and knew his way around engines and all the various systems we would need to rely on. We felt he would succeed even if things got tricky, which of course... ended up being the case...
 
And so... on to the journey!
Autumn 2005- Spring 2006
Vince - without whom, our boat would still be in Holland!