After living at Lennart’s place a few weeks, I have now officially moved aboard Elida V. I now live in the crew compartment in the aft of the ship, sharing the compartment with four other people.

There has been little time for resting the last week, since we plan to depart for Holland on Sunday the 18th. Needless to say, there is, simply put, a lot to do. The kitchen is half-done, we wait for the final installation of the stove and LPG (propane) tubes and connectors.

Rickard, who came back again last week, has started with the great undertaking of installing the cable seals between the compartments of the ship. Since the ship is split into seven watertight sections, the cables and pipes that penetrate the walls need to be sealed. For that we use the very cool Roxtec seals, that seal each cable individually and protect the other compartments from water and fire in case of an accident.

Jimmy has as usual been fighting with the electric installation. He really has a lot of work to do and has to finish the electric system for almost the whole ship by this week. He started the lights in the green cabin for the first time this friday, so at least some progress has been made.

This saturday we had an evacuation training on board. We invited a lot of people to come and help out with some preparations in the progress of certifying the ship. The deal was to measure the time needed to evacuate the ship in case of fire. I was in charge for this event, which was interesting and a learning experience. We had a volunteers, “passengers” to lie down in the cabin beds. After filling the cabins with smoke from a theater smoke machine, we ordered an evacuation and measured the time it took for everybody to exit the ship and gather on the aft deck.

We did this a few times, with different people and in different compartments, and the times we came up with were excellent; all around one minute from the alarm to the gathering. We also ran this test in the lounge, but we failed to gather more than thirty people, so that test needs to be re-done on Wednesday. Hopefully we will then get the required number of fifty people who can simulate the evacuation. We already invited Billdal Pentecostal church and Word of Life Göteborg to have their prayer meeting on the ship that time, and we will have the tests after the prayer is finished.

Today, I have slept at Elinor and Mattias’ place in Gothenburg, went to a service at Word of Life, and had a nice lunch and “fika” with them and Hjalmar, Karin, Robert and Matilda. Robert and Matilda recently announced their new social status (couple). Congratulations!

Now, I am going back to the ship to get some hours of sleep before waking up to the reality of shipbuilding on Monday. Dear God, let us finish this ship of yours in time!