Finish line ship - 10 weeks to go?!

There are still 10 or 11 weeks to go until our planned deadline – the end of April. It’s an ambitious target, but not impossible. I can’t say for certain yet whether we’ll make it – you never know for sure with construction projects. One thing is clear: over the last few weeks and months, we’ve made pretty good progress – despite a few setbacks. Now the whole ship has been derusted and painted, and the seminar room is almost finished. We’ve started work on the substructure for the walls and the window frames below deck. Things are moving forward.

Since August, over 1,000 hours of work have been carried out on the ship!!! Around 901 of those hours were contributed by people who pitched in for a few hours, days or even weeks. The many motivated helpers are a huge blessing, and for a large part of the work, you don’t need specialist knowledge or can pick it up – provided someone explains things clearly. In the next phase leading up to completion (scheduled for the end of April), I will continue to need people who are simply willing to lend a hand. But I will also need specialists for various tasks (ventilation, heating, electrical work, plumbing, etc.).

Including the specialists, I still have around 800–1,000 hours of work ahead of me before completion. When I’m not out and about, I work on the boat for about 30 hours a week – 5–10 hours on planning, the rest on board. A carpenter friend of mine, who currently has some spare capacity and is skilled in everything (woodwork, welding, etc.), has offered to work for me whenever he can in the near future. However, he does need some money to live on – 10 euros an hour, paid legally with an invoice. I’d like to hire him for 100 hours a month until the end of April.

I’m looking for people to help fund one or more of his working hours so that work on the boat can continue to progress smoothly. If you’d like to get involved, you can do so via Betterplace, via PayPal or bank transfer. It would take some of the pressure off me – and increase the chances of finishing soon.

Volunteers are, of course, still very welcome – and we need them.