New paint and nearly finished!

As the weather over the last 2 weeks improved, the showers and wind have calmed down and this has allowed us to finish removing the coach lines and the names off the sides.

The next step was to flat the top, sides and roof with a sander,  then we wet flatted the top and sides with 400 grit wet and dry paper using soapy water and dried the surfaces. The sides were then wiped clean with spirit to make sure they were clean before being sprayed at different times in between showers.

The roof was last and finished with rollers, used to apply a none slip paint in mid grey. All the walk on flat areas have had a repaint with none slip paint and the Bow and Stern have also had a repaint using a roller, finally the engine room and bilge have also been painted in mid grey.

We're very grateful to Border Automotive (Hereford branch) who supplied the paint used on Wyeinvader Two for all their help and assistance.

Wyeinvader Two should be back in the water by the 1st of June.

 

Rust!

When WyeInvader Two was purchased 3 years ago, I did a quick colour change from red and yellow to dark blue and this was carried out in Sharpness on the dockside over a 3 day period, at the time I did find half the windows had rust stains round the frames so when WyeInvader Two was lifted out for the Winter 2016-17, this was one of the items that were listed as jobs to be sorted.

 

With all of the other jobs finished we made a start on the window frames on Thursday 4 May. Over the weekend the windows were removed, the wooden frames on the inside were also lifted out to give access to the inside part of the window frame to assist in their removal along with all the screws. 3 of the windows almost fell out the rest had to be cut out as they had been fixed in with mastic.

With the frames removed the insides of the windows were masked to keep dust to a minimum. All the rust was ground out and filled with body filler then primed with a black primer to assist with repainting the sides later when the weather gets a little warmer.

 

It’s always interesting to see what else is going on at Sharpness dock when we’re there, this weekend WyeInvader’s next door neighbour for the winter “Marjory” was lifted back in after a service and the famous MV Balmoral from Bristol was in dry dock.

 

 

  

The work goes on

We are  now almost at the end of March, Summer is just round the corner and we still had a list of jobs to do in between the rain and high winds. This Saturday we got 3 of them out of the way.

First, we replaced the fuel filter, then the fuel water separator and fuel tank was drained of a small amount of water, better safe than sorry!



Then the engine oil was replaced and oil filter changed, we used a pump to empty the contents of the engine sump. The engine was started and run for a few minutes then the oil level checked with the dipstick before a final top up.



The gas heater was serviced a few weeks ago and I took the opportunity to replace the 4 flexible gas pipes from the bottles to the metal pipes in the gas locker.

 



With Wye Invader Two currently out of the water at Sharpness Dock, working on her most weekends we get to see some interesting vessels arrive for maintenance.  This weekend "Pelican of London" a sail training ship and former Arctic trawler, originally built in 1948 was in at Sharpness, for more info see https://www.facebook.com/adventureundersail/ 

Sharpness Dock - Out/In with Wye Invader Two

Messing About on The Severn - Sharpness Dock

Over the last 3 years, Wye Invader Two as been out on the River Severn around 4 times a year from Sharpness to Tintern via Chepstow, or to Portishead and then on to Bristol. Most of the times we have chosen Spring Tides, simply because we’ve needed the extra tide height to enable us to get up the River Wye to Tintern and Brockweir.



On more than one occasion we set out an hour before high water, on other occasions we left 2 hours before to see if we could get as far as Tintern on one tide.

What we’ve noticed was, if you left half an hour before high water on a Spring Tide and you poked your bow into the oncoming tide, it was not possible to make headway but if you left one and half hours before you could get out and well on the way towards the second Berkeley power station.

Having spoke to some people who live locally, the feeling was that the tide on a Spring Tide increases in the last 40 minutes or so, I decided to speak to the Local Harbour Authority about the matter.

6th October 2016 - The day we went out from Sharpness Dock

17th October 2016

The Gloucester Harbour Trustees are the Harbour Authority for this part of the River Severn and I spoke to Mike Johnson who is the Manager and Harbour Master, he confirmed that this was the situation and he was happy to forward 2 tidal curves, one for a Neap Tide and one for a Spring Tide, the curve for the Spring Tide shows this increase of water volume very clearly, the Neap curve showed no increase, so food for thought the next time you venture out on the River Severn!

Look out on our website wyeinvader.uk for our new video - A short trip out and in of Sharpness Dock - coming soon.  NOW LIVE ONLINE!

Gas system serviced

Just a small item but essential to get serviced properly for safety, Wye Invader Two has now had a full gas system service. A local engineer from Sharpness carried out a full gas service of Wye Invader Two's Alde system yesterday including the hob, oven, grill and burner, another winter service item off the list.

REGGEDIJK - General Cargo Ship

A large visitor in for repair at Sharpness Dry Dock last weekend, General Cargo Ship REGGEDIJK, built  in 2010 and registered in the Netherlands with a gross tonnage of 2984 t and a deadweight of 4890 t. With repairs completed she was soon on her way again.