Month: October 2022

There were two survey boats in the Wet Dock on Saturday. We have seen them both before but some of our new subscribers won’t have seen them.

The first off was the Cerys Line that we have seen recently – it is a 27m survey vessel.

I always show the back of these boats as they always have interesting stuff and I have subscribers that like anything with a crane on it!

The send boat is the Humber Guardian. I try to be very careful when it comes tho typos but I loved the one on the Humber Guardian front page. (more incentive to click through – grin)

It’s getting near to Remembrance Day on 11th November so I always like to show my readers the lovely Merchant Navy Memorial that sits just outside The Cult café. One of the good things in life is that I have never seen any of the wreaths placed around this memorial being vandalised!

Read the words and wonder at the bravery involved.

One last little note. It is nice to see that the benches that we waited so long for are in regular use.

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We have a different boat in the Wet Dock at the moment. Check out Cerys Line A-2-Sea. It was against the dockside when I first saw it and then today it was over at the fuel dock.

We have a new aerial that has come up outside our balcony.

I am told that this is the “Howler” aerial. Howler are the company that supplies the comms between all the emergency and fire equipment up on the scaffolding and the Carters office (the top cabin in this stack).

Lastly, more scaffolding, I am sad to say, but it just keeps growing. I have learned to call the sides of the building by their compass orientations. Ss you can see, they are severely affected by the sun! Here goes:

North

They are creeping around to our apartment.

East

The sun was difficult here and I was constrained by the Anchor Street buildings.

West

They are creeping up this side.

South

This is what the rest of the building is going to look like!

There was a gathering of graduating students down by the Cult. I didn’t want to barge in on the celebrations so took a photo away from the crowds.

The Aurora has a fence between the downstairs bars and the car park but someone has got a bit up close and friendly!

Back to the cladding – again! They are pretty near finished with what we might call the south wall of the block; i.e. the Patteson Road side.

I don’t know why they haven’t put the covering on the extreme left as we see it but they must have some reason. next time I see Andy, I will ask.

They have started to put up the scaffolding along, what Andy calls, the West wall which I always call “the front”. It can go now that they are happy that the ground isn’t sodden after the leak.

You will note that they have now extended their blocked off area out and the pedestrian walkway is now fenced off all the way down to the Aurora car park. It is getting trickier for my wheelchair every day!

Nothing about cladding today except that the lorry came to take away the digger that they used to test the ground after the leak. This lorry was some big beast!

It appears that the results for the ground stress test are off to be analysed so we will see what happens.

Graduation Day

The Uni are getting ready for Graduation on 15th October. The marquees are up and everything is looking great. Funny how things happen. I took this photo on my way to the pharmacy on Duke Street.

By the time that I came back, it looked like this.

They got that poster up quick! They have put stickers on the path to make sure that everyone knows where to go.

Everything looks very smart. This is inside the marquee by The Cult.

The Cult is getting ready for some music as well.

High Tide

I notice that the “Baltic Trader” Queen Galadriel was sitting much higher against the wharf edge so I had a quick chat. It appears that it was high tide with the lock gates open so the water level matches the River Orwell. I guess that they will ease it down to its normal level over the next tide.

Anglo-Nordern

Not much to say but the scaffolding that has been going up has been wrapped. Not sure what they are doing though. I guess we will find out after so time. I might try and collar someone and ask. They are not talkative at the best of times so we shall see.

The new hoardings have arrived to block off the view of the cabins from the restaurant. I have to say that I thought that they might be higher but there we are.

I asked about possible graffiti and was told that they had the strongest cleaning available so would get rid of it if any arrived.

Just round the corner along the front, where the leak has been, the ground needs to be tested before they can put scaffolding up. Here is another of the diggers that they use to “plate test” the ground.

I am sorry to keep on about the cladding work but there is little else going on at this time of year. Only the regular boats are coming and going so this has to do. They have reached nearly to the top now with the scaffolding.

They have started the wrapping process on the front of the building. The wrap material looks a bit dense but a photo I have seen taken at night shows that the light gets through quite easily but that is bright light up close. We shall wait until they get to us to see how you can see through or get light through.

I caught the arrival of Shelley’s, the office cleaners, who have come to start their regular clean of the Carter cabins. I have forgotten the lady’s name (Ann?) but say hello to Andy from Carters.

There are some new steps up to the double stack cabins.

I did ask if there is some lighting coming. We shall see.

Scraps of news. They have started taking the tiles off along Patteson Road and have had some minor issues with the aluminium clips – no surprise there then. When they get round to scaffolding the waterfront side of the building they are putting in a personnel and goods lift which will make running up and down a lot easier.

Anglo-Nordern

I noticed, as I was going back in, that there is some scaffolding work going on inside Anglo-Nordern’s yard. There is an old warehouse along the wall on Patteson Road and they seem to be putting scaffolding up on top of it. At least, that’s what I can see.

Inside Capstan House

More work is going on internally to increase the fire protection. It seems that there are voids underneath every apartment threshold! Needless to say, these are a fire risk so have to be filled.

Each void has to have its surround painted with a fire resistant paint and then filled with the same stuff that they have used on the ceilings. This is the job in action.

There is a rumour that all the internal doors now need replacing, but we will wait and see.

Spirit Yachts

At last, something about the Waterfront itself, but not too exciting. There is a lovely Spirit Yachts boat in the Wet Dock.

First off, a wrap-up for the week regarding the cladding. We are expecting some new fencing to come, in a few days, that will shield the Aurora from the cabins. The scaffolding has one more “lift” before they start on the penthouses. There is a new safety poster turned up by the new office block.

I missed the final closing of the of the water leak but the have fixed it and filled it in up the block level but now we have to wait for the “re-laying the blocks” team.

Swans

I mentioned some time ago that there was a family of swans in the Wet Dock. Well, the cygnets have all grown up but now we are only seeing two of them. We hope, obviously, that the others are still around. Anyway, the two we can see are learning to fly. Here is one huddled up beneath the boats on the other side of the dock. (taken with a long lens and then blown up so sorry if its not too clear)

University activity

It’s getting near to graduation time for Suffolk Uni. Here they are putting up the marquees.

FPV Morven

FPV Morven is a survey vessel owned by A2Sea. We have seen it before but not for a long while.

I had my long lens on so couldn’t get back far enough to get the whole boat into the frame.

Wind

My, it has been windy around the waterfront over the last few days – Alexa says 20mph but I think it is stronger when you get down to the water’s edge. Anyway, here is a short video. Turn your sound up to get the best effect.

Now, we have the little office cabin that was the first on site being taken away. This one was easy because it is a bit like a normal touring caravan – two wheels and and a hitch. A man turned up with a small lorry, that incidentally, had four portaloos on it. They hitched it up and off he went. I haven’t had a chance to ask them what the alternative is but it has had one good effect. The old one had a small generator going that was quite noisy all day. I hope, now they have a good electrical connection into the building, that they won’t need that anymore.

Carters have put up a new “hazard” notice board at the “entrance” to their compound. It is nice that they have a little bit of humour in all of this.

At last, the Water people have turned up. Well, they did the usual. Dug a hole, put barriers around and left! We shall see when they return! If you look down the hole, they have, at least, found the pipe. As to whether that is where the leak is, I don’t know but there has been some subsidence along the road – not much but it is noticeable. Patience!

I am sorry but there isn’t much going on here on the Waterfront so you will be getting fairly regular reports on the cladding activity. Yesterday, they turned up with another full length cabin and today they took away the little office cabin that they have been using up to now.

I did a bit of a scurry round to see if there e was anything of interest but it was all quiet – except for Anglo-Nordern running backwards and forwards that is.

Anyway, I thought that I would show you what the east side of the building looks like. This is all the wood cladding. I am told that this needs to come off, obviously, the in insulation replaced and some new, treated wood put back. Whether that is the same wood or different, I am not sure. In any case, it is a large wall!

They are getting very high up now on the south wall.

Here is how the cabin layout now looks.

As I was round there, I checked on the unloading situation and all that was left were piles of rope that come off each pack of timber that they lift from Suntis.

Carters

Carters are getting on with it. Today we have some protective sheets on the car park windows. These are to stop anything that falls from the scaffolding from coming in through the windows of the car park, which are just an open rectangle with some bars across to stop access. They had them made up and, amazingly, each window was the same size which saved a lot of messing about.

Now just a little thing that shows how professional that Carters are. They have put a notice board outside the Podium door so that anyone can keep up with what is happening.

They tell me that the end wall away from the dockside is to be the next wall to be scaffolded (is that a word?). They can’t do the other end yet due to the water leak. The water people as supposed to be coming on Wednesday but we are all waiting to see. Even when fixed, it will need some investigation to make sure that there won’t be any subsidence where the scaffolding is going. This end wall is all wood sheathing, as in the photo above. This just has to be unbolted, the insulation replaced and new(?) treated wood put back – easy(!)

They are sorting out the next step once the scaffolding is in place. It seems that each level has to have a fire point. These are all connected to a warning system in the site office so, if there is any fire or first aid event, handling can be started at the level of the event and emergency services called from below. Clever.

Suntis – again!

Sorry but it all seems to be exclamation marks today. Suntis is in for its regular fortnightly visit. They are still protecting their “grandfather” rights so they are up along side the block – again.

It appears that Cadman, the crane operator at celebrating 50 years in business as they are displaying on their cab.

That’s all for now. See you soon.

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