The Curvature of Our World

Chris did not only bring us Light; he has given us Warmth.

Everyone said insulation is essential if we are to be warm and not have condensation running down the hull walls.  Insulation being about the importance of tiny pockets of trapped air which is a poor conductor of heat, rather than the solid bits of the insulating material.  It seems counter-intuitive but is, nevertheless, a scientific fact that I expect everyone knows except me...I find it all fascinating.

For a long time I resisted the idea of covering Davenham's ribs at all.  Their curvature emphasised her raw, industrial ship-ness, her essence.  Look how beautiful they are.....

Transparent insulation was the answer, I thought and searched and found. But its technology is relatively new and costs far more than our budget could bear.

Glass panels might have been a solution but without insulation we would face the same problem with condensation unless we created a huge, glass, tank- like space at one end of the hold but, even ignoring the strangeness of living inside such a structure, again, the cost.....  A "window" - a sort of museum display cabinet was yet another suggestion. Then, Gary (co-captain with Julie on Tara Hill), had a ingenious idea: a photo-wall!

A simulacrum.  Very postmodern.

John took this photograph which can be blown up and made into said wallpaper...

And John, a few months later (this May), after brushing the ribs in preparation for insulating. Looking very Erol Flynn with his sooty mustache I thought.

Spray foam insulation is a peculiar substance: its creamy frothiness  belies its toughness; it is like polystyrene to the touch but, unlike polystyrene, is hard - so hard that removing it requires a chisel and hammer.  It isn't pretty.  It looks to me like some kind of alien birthing discharge.  

At any rate, it now coats Davenham's interior hull and will, in time, itself be covered with ply or corrugated plastic...and the photo!

I wanted to share this luminous image from  Agnès Varda's exquisite (in every sense of that word) "La Pointe Courte (1955).  (I can find no credit for this picture which appears in many places on the Interweb and surmise it may be a frozen image rather than a still in its own right.  As I say, I just want to share the beauty of it but if I have infringed anyone's copyright in doing so I hope someone will let me know).