back deck

The original “roef” was just not working out for us, it was awkward to get to the back, making it higher as a 2nd bedroom would have been a ton of work, plus trying to keep the diesel smell out of it, and keeping the steering cable and inverters easy accessible, so we decided to remove and lower it, make a walkout back and a seating.

Nearly Finished

A new shower

The original shower was made out of wood, which was functional, but it had its limitations….sloped floor, drain with limited capacity, so it had to change.

For evacuation of the water I ended up with a Whale IC.

shower base . vandammekunstof . sides schulte douchemeister

Plastic Surgery

As of April 29 Jan-kees is at the surgeon (Welder), where the original roof is being removed and a walk out deck with cover and seating is being created.
Lars who also welded the gas tank, is taking charge

Today he did the incisions…the big hold up will be finding somebody who can manufacture a correct door.

Covering the electrical equipment
The first cuts around the outside and along the width

Port and Starboard cuts

Ready with cutting……….. attached to the crane and then …….there is the sun in the back

Here is a drawing made by daniel

The back dek moving along

One of the hinges for the hatch. With this kind of hinge the floor will stay even

And it is getting close
Door opening is 80 cm . which allows a door of 67 + the frame on both sides

Closed hatch, smooth surface

Open Hatch, just have to order the Gas Springs, and perhaps later an electric actuator.

Turn the Heat on ….

Well it really means, we just landed in Schiphol ( Amsterdam Airport), get your smartphone out, log into, go to jan-kees, go to the console, and press the start button , so it wil be warm when we arrive at the barge.

What really happened is with the help of the VRM website I was able to log into the Victron Venus, and turn on the relais ( which could also be used to start a generator automatically). The Venus has 2 programmable relais. 6A 250V/30V DC.
But just for safety we will use the Venus relais to use another 24 VDC relais to turn the Kabola on.
Just in the event there is no connection I also installed an over ride switch, and put it in a separate fuse box.

In the fuse box we will have the main heating fuse, the relais, over ride switch and selector switch selecting the Kabola or the Vetus ( see electric schema below)

—electric schema —

–picture box–

Just a reminder…software is more powerful than a real switch or…..why not get frustrated with replacement Victron multi’s

So I started getting alerts from my Victron Multiplus….AC overloads. Well wat the Frell!
So you go to the boat. open the hatch and you see flashing light,  turn off the multi , wait a bit and turn it back on and all seems to be working fine and you go home. Later you get again a overload warning, so you use the VRM website to get into the Venus control unit remotely, and set the inverter to charge only. Drive back to the boat and recheck it…and the same problem …it ain’t working….so you call your dealer where you bought it, and hear……  “Most likely the AC board I have seen this before ” and he provides and RMA and yes he sends at the same time a replacement unit, since it is still under the 5 year warranty !!
The new unit arrives. Plop it in its place and reconnect all wires, turn it on …and magically…the light work …..So you plug the table into the Venus and poof all goes dark. Ok …must have put it in the wrong input., ve.can…..but NO it happens a few second after you plop the network cable in. This happened a year ago also , and then it was a software update on the Venus which did this. A call to Daniel…and I was gently reminded that the moment the Venus detects the multi it will set it in the function set in the Venus, which was not the same as the switch on the machine……so I get into the Venus control , set the Multi to normal and voila….as the professor in the movie  the 5th element shouts…”Aziz .  LIGHTS”.

So before thinking it was Victrons error…we just have to check the Venus settings.

Shower …..upgrade …..

The current shower is built from wood, with thick layers of Poly-Urethane over it.  The floor is sloping draining the shower water in a trough which directs the water to a tank with a pump, then toward the kitchen area where it goes overboard.
The tank in the middle of the floor is only 11 cm high, so any other commercially available tank is too high for that space.  At the same time ti is more logic to evacuate the water on the shower side, than to direct all the way to the other side.  So this is going to happen.   I got a Whale shower pump, with the 2 point collection sump, this sump can collect the shower and the sink in the head. and because the sump has the sensor, the pump can be mounted high and dry away.  At first we explored the possibility of making a glass fiber shower base, with a decent edge, so the floor could be fairly level.  Now the wood floor has a decent grade.  And we would keep the wood side. So many hours of google was spend abusing our eyes and asking others how to best solve this.   Marc cam up with a tub drain, since they flow out immediately with a 90 degree angle, keeping the floor as low as possible.  We looked to tiling the sides….too much work.

Then we found  douchemeister and found a few fun options ( barging should be fun) and finally decided why not do both sides.  So here are our 3 options.

Then for a shower base we found

Why Jan-Kees

Well it was just using Dutch tradition……wordplay… it meaning…..and trying to show what we are.

So Jan-Kees is a very common Dutch name.   But as you know the Dutch founded New Amsterdam, which the Brits renamed to New York, after they had an arm wrestle with Peter Stuyvesant in 1664.  The Dutch got even with the Brits by sucessfuly invading England in 1688, after Michiel de Ruyter kicked the British navy around a bit in 1667.  A good movie actually.

Many American words, are left over of the West India Company settlement of New Amsterdam/York.  Like cookie instead of the English Biscuit, Harlem of the Dutch City Haarlem.  You will find many Dutch town in NY state.  The same is said for the term Yankee.(wikipedia)  Pronounce Jan-Kees as an Native American speaker and you will hear “Yankee” .

So Jan-Kees embraces both Dutch and American.  Now to further seal the duality, the port of registration is Amsterdam, Texas ( since Deb is from Texas)



Kever haven – > Zaandam

August 27

We did had quite a lot of very hard wind and some rain during the night. There was an whole army of meerkoeten just in front of the boat having breakfast.


We set of around 9 with quite a bit of wind and very choppy water. After the Kager plassen we turned onto the Haarlemmer Meer Ringvaart , and around 09:30 the engine started sputtering, and died. Restarting only gave it life for a few seconds.  I steered it to the shore with the road, Deb jumped off and attached a mooring line to a traffic sign.  I jumped off and hammered a stake in ground to secure the 2nd line.   Next was going in the engine room and checking the fuel lines. I got to a point where there was diesel coming out of the fuel filter, but the engine still only kept running a short period.  Daniel gave advice how more to check the lines, which I dutyfully did. Yet still no running engine.  I called the harbor master of Kever Haven and she gave us a number of a local shop.  Unfortunately they were closed till 10,  But the harbor master had a private number of the owner, called him and secured us a mechanic at 10:30.   Deb and I just settled won sipping coffee.   I tried to start the engine one more time and it ran a little bit, but died again…so we waited.      Sharp at 10:30 Hugo came.  I explained the situation and we started the engine…….and it kept running…and running.   Hugo started following the fuel lines, and remarked that one fitting was kinda ‘loose’. Because these are copper lines, he asked if there were inserts in, to prevent it from being tightened so much that it totally closed the lines.  I had NO clue, so I put Daniel on the phone.
We ran the engine for about 20 minutes and then attached a second rope and ran the engine on full speed with engaged propeller for 10 minutes.  it seems the air in the line was gone, by the wait period. so we went on.

The leimuiderbrug which had us waiting on the way to Delft opened up within minutes of requesting.  Actually all bridges opened very quickly, especially in Amsterdam.

Once out of Amsterdam we had a quite rough Noordzee Kanaal towards Zaandam, where we filled up 100 L Diesel at the bunker station, so that we have enough for heating this winter.  All and all a very fun and enjoyable 6 day trip!


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PLEASE PULL OVER !!! Flashing Blue lights!!!


Oostpoort brug h




Here is Today’s Track


The hunt for Red October









A Ford Ka