Other fun stuff – The Seadog Life

Trip to The River Orwell / Harwich – UK

Owner — Sun, 20 May 2018 10:23:46 +0000

On 8 May the Seadog and crew headed out for the first big trip to the UK. The first stop was Amsterdam to calibrate the birthday of my sister on board in Amsterdam Marina. The next day we first had to do some more preparations, then headed off to the seaport of Ijmuiden. Along the way to Ijmuiden we had to help tow a boat with engine troubles. Turns out a few days later we would also need to be towed into Harwich – UK with engine troubles of our own.
Below some pictures and video clips of the journey from Huizen to Amsterdam, then from Amsterdam to Ijmuiden and from Ijmuiden to Harwich. We started with a crew of three, but are now still in Harwich trying to fix the engine troubles and one of the crew had to head back to NL. All things considering we’re actually having a very good time. The weather has been nice and will stay nice for the coming days. But we’re also really looking forward to the journey home. More about that in the next blog post.

The cold weather in February 2018

Owner — Sun, 04 Mar 2018 09:18:24 +0000

Here are some more pictures of the current weather in the Netherlands.

A custom build-in fridge and freezer box with plywood, epoxy and polyurethane foam – episode 1

Owner — Sat, 20 Jan 2018 20:55:46 +0000

Ice, rain and snow

Owner — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 12:25:40 +0000

As you can see there were some snowy days here in the Netherlands. But nevertheless work continued aboard the Seadog.
On the starboard side some of the holes that were made to access the through hull bolts were patched up. And this time two hose connectors were laminated at starboard and port side at the back of the ship to allow excess rainwater to flow out of that hallow space in the top of the hull. Which are connected right into the drainage pipes underneath the waterline. Also all hoses aboard the entire ship have now have been replaced by new hoses with stainless steel hose clamps. Plus, the storage lockers at the back of the ship finally got there much-needed cleanup as well.

The building of the custom fridge / freezer has not halted, but only had some minor progress in favour of the above tasks. All the needed supplies are now aboard, so hopefully more on this subject in the next post.

Building a custom fridge box inside a sailboat: Step 1 – Preparations

Owner — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 19:59:41 +0000

This past week preparations were made for building a new fridge box inside the boat. There has always been a big empty space beneath the kitchen counter that has been hard to reach ever since the stairs were moved there. The fridge box will be placed in that empty space and will be accessible from the top. Although in this case there really was no other option, it actually always a good idea to have the fridge opening at the top. This way the cool air inside the box will not fall out when you open the door. The plan is to insulate the fridge with a minimum of 10 cm insulation to further increase the efficiency of the fridge box. In some places even more insulation will be used, especially in the small space where the freezing section will be.
To compensate for the immense thickness of insulation there will need to be a lot of empty space available underneath the kitchen counter. Therefor all unneeded planks and beams were removed and some much-needed cleaning and painting was done to prepare this space for the placement of the new fridge box.
The holes that were made to access some of the bolts that go through the hull of the boat were also closed off again. Plus some of the 230 volt wiring was redone now that those parts were easy to access.

The cooling unit used to cool the fridge box will be the Isotherm 3251 ASU Self-Pumping Water-Cooled Component System which is one of the most efficient systems out there, while also being near silent (no spinning fan). With this system the sea water-cooled skin fitting/heat exchanger replaces the air-cooled condenser and cooling fan that normal systems use. The through-hull fitting of the kitchen sink was replaced with this special fitting last month when the boat was on the hard (out of the water).

Isotherm 3251 ASU Self-Pumping Water-Cooled Component System

The building of the actual fridge box will follow in an upcoming post. Till then, fair winds and following seas…

Party Time Aboard the Seadog

Owner — Sun, 17 Sep 2017 15:51:06 +0000

First solo sailing trip with the Seadog

Owner — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 20:57:09 +0000

The galley (kitchen) – maybe the most importend part of ship

Owner — Sun, 12 Jun 2016 11:40:18 +0000

The two most important things aboard a ship (especially if one lives aboard) is the galley and the sleeping area. The sleeping ares should be as comfortable as possible and of course always stay dry and free from molt etc. which by itself can be quite a challenge aboard a ship, but more on that subject in an other post.
The galley needs to be a well-organized area where all necessities are close at hand. It should be easy to keep clean and have plenty of storage for fresh food and kitchen supplies.
One thing I’m particularly fond of in my galley are the magnet strips on which I hang all the forks, knifes, spoons etc.. But recently I also found an other use for them. When one mounts those strips to the ceiling of the cabin, then you are able to hang pans and the like to the ceiling!
Of course this safes space, but also has two other benefits. For one, the pans are easily accessible and two they stay in their place instead of bouncing around when under sail.
There is one prerequisite though. This trick only work for pans that have been made to work with induction cook plates. Those pans have a special kind of thick bottom plate that sticks to these magnet strips like glue.
Another new addition to the galley abroad the Seadog is a new drainer rack for the dishes. I did already build one a few years ago from wood, but never really finished up on that project and did’t varnish the wood. Bad mistake, because with all that water splashing around in the galley that rack soon began to get infected with all sorts of molt. So I decided the new rack should be made from stainless steel. After some searching on the internet for the correct measurements that I needed I ended up ordering a small, quite cheap stainless steel rack from IKEA. It was not a perfect fit at first, so I did have to use the angle grinder here and there and drill some hole in the rack to hang the thing onto the galley wall, but all in all, the end result is near to perfect.
The beauty about this solution is besides the fact that the molt infection problem has been solved, this drainer rack also has two new functions that it did’t have before. Namely it can now also support smaller kitchen items (because of the stainless steel bars) and it has the ability to be folded onto the galley wall when not in use. Sublime!
Also one more new item that was added to the galley this month. A new juicer! Very happy with this (rather big) guy. I use it almost every day now. I already had a slow juicer aboard, but it was a real pain to clean that thing. So I decided to buy myself the most easily cleanable juicer on the market and found it in the Philips Juicer HR1871. My god, what a wonderful machine. You can also just through about anything you want in there. Hole apples, or pineapple (with skin and all), carrots, zucchini, hole beetroot, everything. And indeed very easy to clean. So now my breakfast usually consists of two plates full of beautiful fruits and vegetables. Pure heaven!

Kayak trip to Elburg (NL)

Owner — Sun, 22 May 2016 11:05:23 +0000

Every year in the weekend of Pentecost (White Sunday) our family has the tradition to go camping near Elburg (NL). After being incredibly busy with preparing the Seadog so that the tarp could be removed, plus moving all my belongings aboard (most of which where still stored at my parents house and in their shed) now I finally had some time to relax.
One of the items that is now aboard the Seadog is the kayak. I had purchased this kayak about two years ago, but had only used it ones, or twice and after that is was stored behind the shed. This thing was to big to store aboard back then, because much of the restoration work still needed to be done. But now that most of the outer work is finished the kayak can be stored on top of the cabin.
This makes it very easy to just grab the kayak and go peddling whenever I feel like it. And that is exactly what I did a few days before the Pentecost weekend. It was such a nice feeling to be on the water again and peddling in a kayak, that I decided I could just go peddling to Elburg for the upcoming Pentecost weekend. So I made some preparations and scheduled the time to do it. I calculated it would take about 3 days peddling to get there, and 3 days to return, plus the 1-2 days to stay and recover from the journey.
After scheduling some free days from work and preparing the gear I was ready to start the journey on the 11e of May. It was extremely good weather for the first 3 days and I only had to wear swimming trousers, although it was kind of tough to pedal against the wind. And for some reason I had headwind almost every day.
The journey back I did had some rain showers and very low temperatures (especially at night), but even with the bad weather it was still a lot of fun. It really felt like being one with the elements and nature and I will definitely be doing this more often. And when I leave the Netherlands to sail around the world, this kayak is definitely going along.

The Seadog Life now has a Facebook page

Owner — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 14:53:25 +0000

Seadog under sail back in 1974

To broaden the exposure of the Seadog Life to the world, the website now also has a Facebook page. If you are reading this and are willing to help the Seadog out a little, please like the Facebook page and share it with all your friends and family. When you like the Facebook page, new blog posts will show up in your Facebook timeline so you will know when there is a new story. Also please click the “like” button in your timeline if you like a post, because this will greatly help The Seadog Life become more popular.
You can find the Seadog Life Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/theseadoglife
The “like” button can be found in the black and white cover image.
Many, many thank!

Nice work!