Katona

There’ve been a few checklists during this project for major milestones, the first being “move back onboard” for getting the bow habitable last year. No stranger to camping, on Tuesday I did that again, airbed and sleeping bag in tow.

It still feels a bit homeless but compared to last year my goodness, the luxury: 24/7/365 mooring, no moving every fortnight; 24/7 mains power, no generator required; a 2-minute walk to a nice shower block, no bottle on the towpath or driving to a nearby gym.

Living like a king, I’ve started on the next milestone: the first night in my new bed, and I am hyped. That means building the bedroom entirely, as the mattress is one of the last items — it depends on the walls for width, and the flooring for length as it’ll sit on a cupboard at the end of the water tank.

And for the walls, wiring… I started looking into that this week, and unlike some of the other work this is one place I can’t screw up. Accidentally using a lower gauge wire, or the wrong fuse? Fire, destruction, death.

So I got the technical spec for boat wiring — ISO 13297 — and it starts out strong:

General requirements, DC and AC systems

The hull of a metallic hull craft shall not be used as a circuit conductor.

I would love to know which poor soul thought saving some cable by turning their boat into a live wire was a good idea.

These specs are not free. And normally, fine — it takes work and expertise to create them. But for the government to then require you comply with them is ridiculous. “Here’re the rules, but first — what’s your card details?” What a racket!!

Also god bless canalworld.net — boat nerds arguing about what regs apply, which circuits are best and how not to fuck-up.

Back onboard, this weekend I built the walls to the bedroom and bathroom, using the pocket door frames. Given I’ve never built a stud wall, nor did I look up instructions, my brother’s voice kept going through my head: “Single-piece flow! Single-piece flow! Single-piece flow!” One wall at a time, piece-by-piece.

(The metal-wrapped timber is where the door slides into.)

Getting them straight wasn’t easy nor are they millimetre-perfect, and gravity wasn’t much help because straightness is according to the boat, which itself tilts on the x and z axes.

Even so, I have zones! I’ve been imagining this geometry for over a year, and it’s suddenly real. I can stand in the bathroom and see where the shower fits, or where I’ll put the wardrobe in the bedroom.

And finally, I finished the stern battens this morning to then empty the insulation tanks this afternoon:

Until next Sunday!

- Nick