Will our 1940's Dutch barge ever cross the channel?

 We first saw Xavier our 1940's Dutch barge in Medemblik in Holland on Wednesday 5 May 2021

The owner had been wrangling with the local council as he was one of the last liveboards, in a posh marina and the authorities refused to renew the resifential permit if he sold the barge. Unsurprisingly they did not want these big old barges with their occupant pumping raw sewage into their marina full of holiday yatchs.  Xavier had no black water holding tank.  We were something of a dream come true for the owner.  He had plenty of potential buyers for this lovely wide barge 6x30 metres.  A perfect size to make into a home.  But the buyers all wanted to make their home im Medemblik, who would not!  The owner could only sell it to someone who wanted to take the boat away. Or start a legal battle with the council.

Fast forward a few months.  Xavier was ours and she needed a complete de rust and paint and a survey before we could even comtemplate finding a crew to cross the channel to Gweek, where we had arranged a permanent mooring.

Gweek, Cornwall

Xavier needed a lot of work internally, but we do up houses for a living and we have owned a Dutch Barge before.  That did not phase us.

 

Our mooring, Gweek, Cornwall

Our broker found a yard called Geertman in Zwartsluis Netherlands, near Zwolle.  It seemed ideal as it was littered with old Dutch barges in various states of repair over a huge site.  A family concern and the young owner spoke English which was quite essential as we were not going to be there to oversee the survey or the work required.  We were in the first phases of the first lockdown and we had only been able to travel to see the boat as  our own house was under offer and this was to be our permanent home.

By the June 2021, Xavier had been taken to Geertmans and a surveyor was commissioned to look over the boat.  He identified quite a bit of work.  We negotiated a small discount with the owner bought the boat.  

What should have followed was a smooth process of painting the exterior of the boat whilst the boatyard worked through the list of jobs the surveyor had provided.  What followed was  months of delays and excuses. Work on our boat always seemed to be at the bottom of the to do list, yet we really were at the mercy of the owner of the yard to manage the list of works as we were unable to travel over to supervise.

By December the work was apparently complete.  Hefty bills had been paid  for the entire exterior paint and the work to make the boat seaworthy including sealing up the lower  portholes. But by then the weather had turned - we were in the middle of winter and a .crossing on a flat bottomed boat was not safe. Never the less we got back intouch with the skipper that we hoped would take the boat across the channel and we waited for good weather.  Waited and waited.  By March and April, we hoped that a crossing would be possible, but unfortunately our skipper had his own problems and everyone he know and we knew that could tackle this work was busy preparing their own boats for the coming boating season.  

April was also the time that we had agreed with Gweek boatyard that we would start paying for our mooring.  Never guessing at the time, that the work would have taken so long.  In fact the work did not take that long, it was the fact that work on our boat was the least priority.  We were not on the spot to make sure things got done. No one at the boatyard really had our interests at heart.