The winter has passed with little ice in the Muirtown Basin, and aboard Loch Ness Barge we have been updating the engine room and wheelhouse in preparation for the journey to Fort William in order to take part in Sail Caledonia. We will be working as a support vessel providing extra accommodation and social space for the sailors and rowers that will race (the event is called by many a ‘raid’…) east along the lochs and canal system to Inverness. It should be enormous fun and a huge logistical undertaking by Fingal, the holiday barge that organises and hosts the event.
To get to this state we have been redoing all the fuel lines, valves and the exhaust lagging for the 2 engines and 2 generators. We have also emptied all the diesel, oil and water from the bilges in the engine room… we have fitted guages in the wheelhouse, so we can now tell when things are going wrong without having to belt down 2 flights of stairs and through numerous doors to check… The star of all this work has been David Maltby, who we met when we had a day aboard Vic 32 during the artists residency last September.
lochnessbarge 