The seasonal work of the winter 2001 - 2002

This winter we have continued the work with replacing the upper-deck, a job we started last winter. And as if that wasn't enough, we discovered, after last season, that a couple of the boiler-tubes were leaking due to tube corrosion. After inspecting the rest of the tubes we found out that 18 tubes had to be changed, a job that we now have done. Some other jobs have also been carried out, a new stoker floor in the engine room, renewing some electrical cables, etc. etc.....

Report #1, Ejdern on dry land, October 27th 2001
The first job is already done. Ejdern has been taken up at the slipway at the Ragnhildsborg-yard for bottom coating and the every other year recurrent inspection of the hull by the National Administration of Shipping and Navigation. She went there Saturday October 6th and was launched back into the water October 27th making , on her own steam, a last short round-trip at lake Mälaren and then passing through the lock, back to the sea to our homeport, Borgmästarudden. Below you can look at some pictures of Ejdern at the slipway.


Report #2, January 13th 2002
We have our hands full with work! On the upper deck a couple of old deck-planks has been taken up, a difficult job due to the fact that the planks goes under the steering-house. The house has been lifted up a little on the port side (left side), as much as possible without lifting the upper-deck roof. Next phase is to clean and paint the deck beams before the new planks are mounted.
In the engine-room the activity also is high. Here they are working with the dismounting the tubes to be changed. (The tubes are pipes, through which the hot gases flow and transfer heat to the water on the outside of the tube). The tubes are mounted between the boiler's stern end plate and the fire wall. It's a hard and difficult work to dismount them, you have to crawl in through the fire-tube in to the fire-wall and work from there at the same time as another person works from the outside. Some parts of the job has to be carried out through the boilers man-hole. up to now 2 tubes has been dismounted and there are many remaing. We hope to speed up as time goes and we invent better methods for the work.


Report #3, February 23rd 2002. The work proceeds. We have started to put the new deck planks in place. One is already mounted and two others are soon ready to mount. Each plank has one or two glue joints to be long enough. It takes a lot of woodwork to get the joints look good. When these three planks are in place we have to take up more old planks if we want to carry on the work.
We also have got up speed in the boiler repair. The stack of old tubes at the afterdeck is growing. Ten tubes are now dismounted and Åke and Gunnar struggle hard to make the boiler ready in time for the season start. The new tubes have been delivered and are stored in the fore-pike waiting to be mounted.
But it's not only onboard that we are working. Our good kitchen maids take turns with making lunch to the hungry "shipyard workers" Saturdays (our main working day). Our office also has to be functional through the winter with member circular to be written and distributed, orders to be handled and economy to look after.


Report #4, March 10th and 16th 2002. Sunday the 10th we mounted two new deck planks, so now three planks is in place. The same day Gunnar and Åke dismounted the last of the18 tubes to be changed. One of the pictures below shows the holes after the tubes.
Saturday the16th we started to take up more old planks (2 more) and to clean and paint the deck beams. In the boiler Gunnar started to grind away the threads in the holes after the old tubes (36 holes).


Report #5, April 6th to 27th 2002. We are now in the final spurt of this winters seasonal work on the ship. The most critical job and the reason to why we won't be able to start the season in time (we have to cancel our first trip) is the work with re-tubing the boiler. We have started to mount the new tubes. The work is quite time-consuming. First of all the ends on the new tubes has to been annealed and ground. This is done on one hand to get rid of the oxide layer formed on the surface of the tube when it is manufactured, and on the other to soften the material so it will be easier to expand it. Before the tube is taken down to the machine room the tube ends is pre-expanded so we don't have to do all the job when the tube is fitted in.
Then its time to carry the tube down to the boiler where it is put in to the hole after the an old tube and finally mounted. Expanding the tubes is made with a special tool, a tube-expander, inserted in the tube-end, consisting of a set of rotating rolls which cold-work the tube until the tube-end fits tightly in the hole in the sheet of the boilers gable. Finally the tube-ends are welded. 16 tubes are now mounted and expanded and 10 of them has been welded.
On upper deck the hole we have taken up, old planks removed, has been filled with new planks and the seams are caulked, i.e. thread of oakum beaten down in the seams. After that melted pitch was poured into the seams on top of the oakum. Right now we work with scraping away the glut of pitch and grinding down the deck. Finally the deck will be varnished. We planed to finish the deck-job this winter but since the boiler job was added we could not manage it all the way. Quite half of the deck is ready anyway.
We also work with re-mounting things dismounted when the old deck was taken up, e.g. electric fittings, cables, etc.
Parallel to these jobs we do the ordinary spring preparations where we paint the hull and grind and varnish tree-parts etc. and see to that the ship is beautiful and presentable at the prospect season.


Report #6, May 19th 2002. The last report! Finally we got our old lady going again! At Whitsunday we could, two weeks late, carry out our technical test trip.
During the weeks since the previous report we have welded the last tubes in the boiler and after that the authorities have inspected it. However our problems continued since we had problems with some leaking gaskets on the boiler. But finally we got them stopped and we could take her up to full pressure. We have also gone through the engine. It has been cleaned, lubricated and the brass has been polished up.
On the upper deck we have scraped away the glut of pitch and the deck have been ground and varnished. We have also painted the deck beams and the Speaking tube (a tube for conveying the voice from the steering house to the machine room), demounted when we took up the old deck planks, have been ground, remounted and painted.
At the Saturday and the Sunday (Whit sun) we picked off all tools, machines and material, spread during the winters work, from the ship. We put the floor back on the after deck and hang up the covers that we use to have around the afterdeck. Then it was time for a thorough cleaning of the ship.
At Sunday afternoon we could finally let go for a short technical trial trip. We went south through the Brandal-Strait and turned the ship round at the Järna-Bay and headed back to port, a 2 hours trip. To conclude the day we finished the cleaning up. So now we are prepared for the journeys of this summer!