A Floating Home Part 15

Kitchen range, copper, etc. 6 0 0

Linoleum, wash-hand-stand, bra.s.s fittings 6 5 0

Plumbing 7 16 0

Raising main cabin-top 38 10 0

Wages: two men for four months 39 15 0

Lamps, 2 10s.; Nails, 2 3s.; Saloon stove, 2 10s. 7 3 0

Caulking deck and buying and fixing second-hand skylight for boys' cabin 5 12 0

Bra.s.s screws, hinges, and wire rope 3 19 0

Petty cash 4 8 11 ------------ 375 19 0 ============

A few words must be added in explanation of these bare figures.

As the cost of labour after the _Ark Royal_ reached Fleetwick, with the cabin-top raised, was only 39 15s., the reader can understand how much was done by the owner's hands. Help, however, was given by friends--in particular by a retired Civil Servant who displayed extraordinary skill as a carpenter. It was a mistake not to raise the main cabin-top ourselves. We probably could have done the job better, and certainly we could have done it cheaper.

Now as regards the annual expenses of upkeep, apart from the interest on the capital sunk. These expenses, of course, do not appear in the table of initial cost. The largest item is insurance. Our policy allows us to cruise sixty-two days in the year, with a rebate for the number of days' cruising short of the allowance. The policy works out at about 10 a year. So far we have done all the annual fitting-out ourselves, the cost of which, with varnish, paint, and renewals, has averaged about 5.

Our running gear lasts a long time, as our cruises are short. We have not renewed our sails since the barge was rerigged. The sails of a trading barge, if carefully tended, last ten or twelve years. Ours, therefore, should last at least twenty. The upkeep of barges has been reduced to a science. All gear and fittings are standardized, and there is, besides, a free market in second-hand things taken out of condemned barges.

A barge's sides are tarred and blackleaded. This costs s.h.i.+llings where paint and anti-fouling composition would cost pounds. Although we tar and blacklead the _Ark Royal's_ sides, we have a false whale which we enamel white. Another economy we practise is to paint the cabin-tops with Stockholm tar, thinned out with paraffin and with a little teak paint to colour it. As the superficial area of the two cabin-tops is four hundred square feet, much paint would be required. The stanchions, the wheel, iron uprights which hold the sidelight screens, metal blocks, and most ironwork, we cover with galvanizing paint, which costs little, is easily renewed, and looks smart.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF THE "ARK ROYAL."]