We had a very early start this morning because Ian was helping with the launch of the Le Boat charter boats.  Their season starts on 1^st April so they had to get their boats in the water and to their base in Nieuwpoort.  They were due to start at 6.30, so we were up at 5.30, and awake even earlier.  At least it wasn’t snowing today, or raining, but it was zero degrees when they all went out at 6.30.

  

This is the kind of work that Thijs loves and he was singing even before the work day began!  This is a photo of him taken late in the afternoon and he is still smiling.

Ian’s new best friend, and he is as young as he looks – just 21 – but he is the boss of the boating section of the business.

Klaas, his older brother, just as good at his job, is in charge of the “outward bound” activities, as I call them:  canoeing, karting, bicycle tours, paintball, guided tours of the WW1 Flander’s Fields monuments and museums, and a whole lot more besides that I can’t remember. A very impressive young man. They both are.

The boat launching was all done by 9.30,and by 10.30 Ian had had breakfast and was back on the job in the paint shed.

I took this photo yesterday: Njord with epoxy filler at the water line to disguise the transition from the underwater hull, which was taken down to bare metal, to the above water hull which is just being sanded and painted (with a few patches for various dings and scratches that have occurred over the years!)

In the background you can see Ian and Klaas, I will have to get a better picture of Klaas!

Late yesterday Ian filled all the “voids” and uneven surfaces on the hull with epoxy filler and this morning he applied the first coat (of 3) of black epoxy paint.  So here is Njord with a case of the measles!

I spent the afternoon on the deck with a toothbrush, getting rid of all the green crud that accumulates in every nook and cranny over the winter.  This is normally a job that I would do when the boat is in the water, but I’d much rather get it done in the heated paint shed than out on the water in the early spring!

Ian was again wearing out his finger prints (actually, I think they are long gone) sanding on the aft deck, by hand, various hard to get at places that have had the rust treatment which includes grinding out, treating, filling with epoxy filler, then sanding – and last of all – painting.  He eventually started painting the primer at 6.00 pm and came in for a snack, a drink and a chat at 7.00.  Then he went back to apply a second coat of the black epoxy paint to the underwater hull, a 3 hour job.  It is going to be a late night, and a very long day.