Butty Stretching - Part 4

Less than a fortnight ago, we arrived at Sheet Stores Basin to get our butty stretched to an overall 60 feet in length from around 40, and our motor boat reblacked.

All finished and ready to leave the basin this afternoon

So earlier in the week, once the team had finished all the work on the butty, we could begin all the painting works necessary.

A huge area has been created by adding 19feet to the butty

Paul kindly let us have access to the butty in the workshop, which was great, so that we could undercoat/prime the steel, bitumen the external steel sides and then 'red oxide' coat the interior.

Primer going on in various different colours as we had run out of grey!

View of my feet because I had painted all the floor area and had nowhere to go!

The finished interior with Richard hiding behind the ladder!

I have to say that Paul and his team have done a first class job of Echoes and we wouldn't hesitate to get them to do other work we may need doing in the future.  We are already thinking about alterations to the cabin on Echoes for next year if things go to plan!

Out of the workshop and ready for a relaunch, complete with a name!

Luckily, Paul had some tarpaulin which he had no use for allowing us to use it to temporarily cover over the centre stretched section to keep it dry until the new covers arrive later in the month.

Successfully relaunched and dry as a bone inside to my relief!

For more photos, PJ Barber have a Facebook page where they have documented the build PJ Barber Boatbuilder Ltd. Please 'Like' their page to get updates on future projects.

So today, we set off to Trent Lock (about 3/4 mile!) to wait for the river Trent to drop and enable our 2014 voyage to begin.......