The Houseboat (2021) s01e02 Episode Script

We made a lot of decisions.
A lot of weird decisions.
Sometimes I wonder if I haven't kept
a sharp eye on you.
So sassy, dude.
So sassy.
-You really paid 20 grand for this?
-No, 30.
-That's way too much.
-It is.
Damn.
This is a money pit.
We went into this completely clueless.
Your nose is closer.
BEAUTIFUL BOAT IN THE MAKING
This makes me angry.
We made a big mistake right at the start.
Right now we wonder
if we should continue or quit.
Dude.
This is the big stuff. I'm happy.
4 MONTHS AFTER PURCHASE
Today, we remove the top.
The pros wanted 5,000 Euros for the work.
We got another offer for 2,500 Euros.
Are you kidding me?
I just called my buddies.
We'll be done in three hours.
A currywurst
and good vibes on a Saturday morning.
That's what you need to get this done.
Here's the thing.
Olli wants to help, too.
He'll be late, though.
He wanted to be here around 10 a.m.
I guess it'll be 11.
We might be done by then.
That would be great.
This is a typical scenario. I'm late.
I had to drop off my daughter at my mom's.
She still lives in Hamburg but I've been
living in Berlin for 15 years.
I arrived last night and I'm always
a bit late. Fynn doesn't care, though.
I have family obligations.
He doesn't have kids,
he doesn't need sleep.
He can get up at 7 a.m.
and just go about his day.
I'm a bit jealous.
We hope that our fuse survives this.
Five grinders and a plasma cutter
is a lot for one wire.
It has to be somewhere here.
Right? Yeah.
Yeah, this seems familiar.
I'm happy things are moving forward.
Maybe it's one of my tasks
to make sure we don't fold.
Because
The boat and all the work we put in
is much more than we expected.
It will take a lot of money and sweat.
But hopefully no tears.
They're already at it.
-Damn.
-Dude!
Come here.
-How are you? Careful with the sparks.
-Yeah.
It's a great constellation
because we came into each other's lives.
-Yeah.
-I learn about the big world of media.
I can't promise you that.
And you learn how to use your hands.
Listen.
You just
go ahead
-You know how to use this?
-Sure.
You just press this button
and go like this:
Dude.
-Switch it on first and then go for it.
-Yeah.
Exactly.
We completely gutted this boat.
What I did to help?
I organized people, I pitched in a little.
But the true craftsmen
are welding up there
or are doing things I can't do.
But at some point
it's my finest hour.
And that's when we make music.
Up there on the roof.
And then
I know exactly how the wind blows.
If I know and love one thing,
it's music.
And this is a wish of mine.
To turn this boat into a music boat.
This is the Gunter Gabriel rhythm.
That just came to me.
Had we met, I might have written
a song for Gunter Gabriel.
Olli Schulz.
Former bouncer.
Failed musician for a few years now.
Just kidding.
I've always liked him and his wacky way.
And I was a huge fan of his music.
And when you meet your idol,
you feel like it's an honor.
You have to do this.
I always did stuff I dug.
I worked at a record store.
I was a roadie at concerts.
And then I became a musician which
was just logical being such a music fan.
I made that decision when I was 28 or 29
because everyone around me
had jobs they didn't like.
And what I like most
is entertaining people on a stage,
either with stories or with music.
That way,
Gunter Gabriel and I aren't too different.
Such a beautiful song.
Olli Schulz has a lot going on
on his mind.
Lots of crazy and wild stuff.
And if I tell him something,
it goes in one ear and out the other.
And then I call him again
to remind him about the money
and it's gone again.
He forgot about it again, so I call
the next day and he says again,
"Sure, I'll take care of it."
But gone again.
Out of his head.
So I'm stuck with all the inane tasks.
All the bank wires and keeping an eye
on how much money we actually have.
So I try
somehow
This company--
It is a company. To keep it running.
Damn.
I have a problem.
The plasma cutter
needs more power than we have.
It doesn't really work.
That thing would have saved our day.
It cuts through steel like butter.
Now it's getting ugly.
That's a lot of cutting.
We need more power.
How did you get that up there?
A burner.
We can burn through the steel.
And Max returned to his old shipyard.
He's our permanent boat builder.
You'll see a lot more of him.
He works here now.
And he's getting a distributor.
In February, I was on extended vacation
in Norway.
I didn't really use Instagram at the time.
But a buddy sent me their request
for a construction manager.
I wondered how many people would even fit
the description,
what they were looking for.
Someone flexible, someone who can accept
that the project might not be
perfectly organized.
I mean, they're known for that.
So I did it. Why not?
They were happy, too, and were like,
"Let's do this.
We don't really know your skills,
but you seem like a nice guy
and we listen to our gut."
So I was onboard.
Finally some progress.
This was--
Look at this.
I turned it off the wrong way.
Always acetylene first and then oxygen
or there'll be a small flame here.
It can also go the other way round.
The flame can go backwards
-through the pipe--
-Let's hope there's a check valve.
And without a check valve--
-There's no check valve?
-No.
-Acetylene bottles can burn on the inside.
-Dude.
That was a close call. I kid you not.
If that flame didn't come out here
and turn off,
the flame would have gone back
and there's no check valve,
we'd have blown up.
The steel was too thick
for the plasma cutter.
So we got a burner. That's working
with a mixture of two gases.
There are two tubes
and you have to light it.
When you turn it off,
one thing is really important:
The right order of turning them off.
-Who did it the wrong way? You?
-I won't tell. No.
It happened to me with a hairspray can.
I burnt flies sitting on a window.
The whole can exploded.
Sure, but this is another league.
It's called the Venturi effect.
Do you often have projects
where you wonder why you even did it?
-Every single one.
-Every one?
-Yeah.
-Is that something--?
We don't know each other that well.
If I knew
that you'd call me next week and say,
"Olli--"
-I'm out.
-Yeah, leave me alone, please.
I changed my number.
What is it?
-It's not empty.
-Not yet. Half empty.
What? That shit was 500 Euros.
This is--
This is sort of my Way of St. James.
-It is?
-I'm too lazy for the real one.
I've been acting as a musician
and in the media for years.
And you go places, you talk a lot.
-But doing something yourself--
-Let's be real.
-Yeah.
-I mean, it's awesome
to revive this thing.
But if we wanted a floating studio--
We could just buy a boat.
Yeah, or just build one.
It would be less work than this.
We cleared out
so much shit. Just construction material.
But when you're sitting here in the sun,
it's just so awesome, you just know
that it will be amazing.
Not on my windows!
One, two, three.
God.
This thing is killing me.
No power, no equipment.
Everything is empty.
I thought we'd be done by noon.
Really. I told everyone, too.
What now? Five friends.
And a blowtorch.
Three hours, 5,000 Euros.
Screw it, I'll have it done before noon.
Now we're standing here.
Halfway done. Everyone hates us.
-Doesn't go out.
-Hi.
We're almost done!
Clap your hands, so it'll go faster.
Without that bonus
for our idiotic attempt,
they'd have chased us away.
-They think--
-She just said to us,
"It's annoying,
even for Olli Schulz."
-I rarely hear that.
-Yeah.
I don't think this is the right place
to do this.
I can already tell you that. I'll go crazy
if I have to carry stupid cables
across the street every day.
-We need a place with a workbench.
-Yeah.
We need a place with electricity
and where we can build this thing.
Without all that annoying stuff
and people complaining about sparks.
6 MONTHS AFTER THE PURCHASE
We decided that the boat
needed to go on land again.
So I contacted
my former employer.
And crossing over to Finkenwerder
takes a while. It was a bit spooky,
since the boat was completely open
in the inside.
With such a rotten, gutted out boat,
it's more likely that water enters.
So I was always checking
and we had a submersible pump
and a generator.
Yeah, it was quite the adventure.
But in the end there was just
a small puddle.
We're trying to get that thing
out of the water.
But not by hand.
This is just
an extra safety line
to fasten the boat on the trailer.
-Okay.
-Go!
Shall we put on rubber boots and push?
Yes.
BOAT BUILDER
-Awesome!
-That's glued.
Have you seen that, Max?
-Yeah.
-That's old news for you.
For us, too, though.
We're boat owners now.
-So these situations--
-We're hard-boiled.
How--?
-He just pulls her out?
-He just pulls her out.
-As if it was nothing.
-Dude.
Just real quick, didn't we redo this?
New--
We redid all of that.
Yeah.
The Caribbean waters of Hamburg
are eating away at our boat.
But this is impossible.
We've just had it repainted.
Or he didn't do anything.
No, we saw it.
Seriously though, what is this?
This is the water level, right?
Maybe ask one of them.
In a minute.
He's got other worries right now.
-Yeah, right.
-Why has the paint come off?
You know what? Seeing it like that?
This is one ugly boat.
-It really is ugly.
-Yeah.
Nothing fits. Back there, her butt--
Like a disfigured back of a tank.
Like, she's just ugly.
She is really ugly.
We'll make her pretty, even if I have to
sticker her up with Seventeen posters.
For real.
Then it's like before.
What's worse, everything we got there,
we attach a piece there,
we have to raise the roof,
cut off the pillars,
insert steel, the back part
of the roof will be lifted three feet.
-We completely change this thing.
-Do we have to do this?
-Well, the guys could-- Right?
-Yeah.
Back there.
Back up.
-There's still room.
-Yeah?
Yeah, a bit.
-We often thought we were done.
-Yeah.
That's true.
This is a nice metaphor for life.
You always think
you will be through tomorrow.
It's worse than you thought, right?
-It is, right?
-Considerably.
Considerably worse?
But we've already done so much.
We really have.
We've already invested a ton.
-This was supposedly painted.
-This is crazy.
Around there.
Is it normal that this is--?
They had the boat repainted once.
That was for nothing pretty much.
After two months in the water,
there are rusty spots again.
That happens when you just paint
over rusty spots.
Somewhere the paint chips off,
you just sand it down a bit
and repaint it.
But the problem is this,
if at some point the old paint
doesn't adhere to the steel anymore,
you have to remove it
completely all the way down to the steel.
If you don't do that,
no matter how good the new paint,
you'll always have issues.
And with ships this size,
it is extremely expensive
to remove all the paint
and that's why it's usually not done.
But-- Well, after--
Gunter wasn't necessarily--
Well, he didn't take good care
of his boat.
So it's time to completely redo it.
We have to make sure
that there are no new chips when it is
pulled out of the water in ten years.
And you only achieve that
when you completely redo it
like we are doing.
I thought we got rid of this problem.
You know? We have a zillion problems
but this isn't one of them anymore.
Imagine at this moment
the stern just breaking off.
Please, don't.
So the plan is to wash it here?
-Yeah.
-To hose her down
and then we get her inside.
-And inside we'll analyze her?
-Yeah.
And then we'll see.
Yeah, we'll--
We'll have to talk about that.
Yeah, I heard. There are new
insights.
We have to remove that new paint again.
Why remove it completely?
Yeah, well--
If you want it to look good
in five to ten years, we need to.
Look right there.
-Right there?
-Yeah.
So we remove the paint
we bought for 5,000 Euros.
By hand.
That's the stupidest thing ever.
Who will believe that? It's all crap.
It's like taking money and a lighter
and just burning it.
That would have been less work.
Yeah.
This will take us two to three weeks
and we can't do that every day.
It's just so loud that no one else
can work or just be in there
at the same time.
We'll just do two to three hours a day.
And in total one to two weeks
continuously.
Easily.
Right now we're at around
a third of the surface on the bottom.
So--
Well, I guess in total
it will take us--
Half an hour to 45 minutes per 10 square
feet and it's 1,700 square feet.
How much time will we spend down here?
You do the math.
This is the area we're working with.
The work space.
And this right here
took me five minutes.
Thinking back
to our first day, throwing out
the personal stuff of Gunter Gabriel.
I know that we made a huge mistake.
And right now, I'm deeply regretting that.
All those books and records.
I'm still shaking
because I didn't interfere.
I'd have loved to keep
some of his personal stuff.
But that was crazy stuff.
And we kept some.
I think we kept what's necessary.
My whole attic is filled with stuff
that is coming back here.
But what do I want with old articles?
I have those.
When I saw her
the very first time,
it looked like you'd want to sell her
for scrap.
More like she should have been scrapped.
However,
when we first met I didn't say
straight to their faces
that this was a piece of garbage
and to keep their hands off it.
They should have consulted an expert
when they bought the boat.
They didn't, though.
Another problem was
that most of the problems became visible
only after they had gutted the whole boat.
So my next step was
how to deliver the bad news.
Okay, tell us.
You've seen this right here?
That screed went out.
It wasn't too bad as it wasn't
firmly connected to the floor.
You could just get it off with a crowbar.
Smash it with a hammer
and we would have little pieces.
What about this here?
Was this filled?
Yeah, condensate accumulated here
and ran down these profiles
and ended up in the lowest spots
in the floor.
Everywhere.
The problem is that you can clearly see
where the screed was.
-It was humid right here.
-Yeah.
Exactly this area.
Both the floor and the wall are screwed.
Yeah.
-And that area is important?
-Pretty important.
That whole construction
is only connected at this point
and there's nothing left.
If every profile looked like this,
it would just stand on there.
How practical, we can just lift them.
Speaking of which
Because if we
fix this
and put another plate in here,
it doesn't matter how big that plate is.
So I can lift it in one go.
So we have a higher ceiling.
We have a higher ceiling
and get rid of that problem.
And it makes work
so much easier
when the deck is gone.
We can do the sandblasting and coating
without needing to get in any cavities.
You want to take out
the floor and the sides?
It's a lot of work but the only way.
-You need to think--
-So we have nothing left?
We'll--
A new ceiling.
It's crooked, we need a new top.
The roof in the back, too.
We'll have nothing left.
Yeah. We still have the floor.
That will be redone, too.
Right.
This stays.
Not if we lift the ceiling.
A little gunk from Gunter Gabriel
here and there and that's it.
That's it.
This is gnarly.
We could have built one.
We could have-- A new--
It would have been cheaper.
But it wouldn't say "Gunter Gabriel."
This one neither.
-This stays exactly the way it is.
-Right.
-Bench, table, floor.
-Yeah.
The ceiling is still in good shape, too.
This will stay like this.
Actually, it is--
-This is--
-No, this is--
Right now I wonder if we
should continue or quit.
This is just one huge mess.
I saw it and thought
it's a great, funny idea.
I'd just met Fynn.
YouTube's king of all handymen.
The boat was a reason to get to know him
and he couldn't resist.
And now?
A few months later we're here
and the boat is getting uglier and uglier
and we're completely gutting it.
We keep saying that nothing's left
but there's still shit everywhere.
We paid 15,000 Euros for garbage disposal.
You know--? You know what should have been
a sign for us?
What?
Out of 100 people,
no one wanted this boat.
Usually that's a sign.
But we were like, "Lucky us!"
Yeah, lucky us, awesome.
If a Craigslist ad is active
for more than one week--
Lucky us, no one saw that ad!
-And I copped it.
-It was an ad in Bild.
That should have been a bad omen.
That was a sign.
Have you ever seen
a life changing offer?
-Changing for the better?
-Not in Bild.
It is what it is. The question now is
if we continue or not.
We might have to talk to Klaus, too.
About money.
Because
my resources are limited.
HOUSEBOA
That was the moment I started
pulling out of this mess.
-I admit, it was cowardly.
-Well, it's true.
There were weeks
during which I just disappeared.
Fynn was on his own.
Without Fynn,
the project would have been over.
TUESDAY IS BOAT DAY
Tuesday is boat day.
Right, Olli?
Olli?
Olli!
Olli, where are you?
Tuesday is boat day.
8 MONTHS AFTER PURCHASE
We stripped the floor at the sides.
And the most important step,
that huge slot right here in the middle.
Down here everything was rotten,
so we'll replace these sheets.
Once the outer tanks are built,
these things will be split, too
and we'll raise the roof by 20 inches.
So that means
we're close to raising the ceiling.
There are still some things to do today.
Right here.
We still have to cut off this edge
so the tanks you can see right there
and that are being manufactured
on the big bender--
They're being manufactured
at the sheet metal bender.
And in order to set them in nice and
clean, we have to cut this edge.
With a grinder.
You're plunging into a project
and suddenly realize you're the donor
but you can't do anything.
And all the people
And this is a lot of pressure.
I wasn't up to the--
I didn't want
another big project in my life.
I have enough going on as is.
And you just see your bank account
draining.
You can't do anything but pay
and hope everything will be fine.
It's a tough situation.
Wow, that stinks.
-Seriously though, this is--
-You're smoking!
-Where?
-On your chest. On the left side.
Outside.
Right where my heart is!
See!
See!
I wondered what that smell was.
What was that?
A spark, right?
Flying sparks.
Let's go over there.
I'll show you how to install a float.
So the boat floats and we can invite
more people.
Buoyancy for 150 people.
-Guys.
-Exactly.
You know what's awesome?
You see this edge?
-Yeah.
-This gap.
This is where our heat exchanger will go.
-That's why we rebuilt it. Pipes will--
-That's going in there?
That's why that edge is there.
So the pipes will be
all clean and protected.
Heat will be exchanged
and we turn a little power
into more power.
Of course we're trying to build this
as green as possible.
Our heating system
plays a big role in that.
Our heating system takes its energy
from the surrounding water
the boat is floating in.
So our heating is a very
ecological solution.
Solar panels and we're self-sufficient.
Even if the world ends.
You want me to do the spots?
Now he wants to weld for the camera again.
Those guys do that every day.
Now Fynn is welding three spots,
posts it on Instagram
to make people believe he did something.
Before you--
-Electrode?
-Yeah.
Time to shine.
-Electrode is my Kryptonite.
-Sounds good.
-I thought you loved welding.
-Sure.
Give him a glove, just to be sure.
Here you go, but it's pretty warm.
Great.
It's just a spot.
I hate electrode.
This will be embarrassing.
-Come on.
-No, not there!
-Don't weld!
-Why? It's clean.
Yeah, but-- No!
Two worlds colliding.
Give me that.
Just a second.
Do you--? He got one.
I can do that, too!
Now he's closing it.
He's closing it.
He's closing it now.
You can grind this.
I don't want to do the unimportant stuff.
I want to do the important stuff.
-The back--
-Get used to the electrode first.
I'm a welder, everyone knows that.
Close your eyes.
Is it on?
Is that closed or what?
-No, it's not. Another one.
-No, please, don't.
-We have to weld over that anyway.
-Why again?
I feel like you don't trust me.
-I trust you but we have to over-weld.
-Did he make a hole?
That's not so bad.
It's not, no.
But it's not good either.
We haven't marked that yet.
-He's like, "Please don't weld again."
-We--
Okay.
-The more you--
-Yeah, I see.
I don't-- No wonder this is getting
so expensive.
We're keeping these guys
from working all day.
The problem is that I'm
the financial department.
And I'm pretty bad at it.
But Olli is-- No, he's--
Olli doesn't really care. I just tell him
when we need new money.
And these moments are complicated.
YOU IGNORED MY QUESTION
WHAT ABOUT THE MONEY?
IT'S NOT A GOOD TIME RIGHT NOW
DUDE
WHAT'S YOUR PLAN?
YOU SAID WE DIDN'T NEED IT RIGHT AWAY
YOU'RE ASKING FOR MONEY EVERY WEEK.
THAT'S SO ANNOYING
AS ARE DAMN UNFRIENDLY MANNERS
OLLI, WE ORDERED STUFF
AND HAVE TO PAY THE BILLS
IF WE CAN'T PAY, OUR COMPANY IS BANKRUP
SHUT UP
I DON'T CARE
YOU ALWAYS BUG ME WITH MONEY
AND EVERYTHING HAS TO HAPPEN RIGHT AWAY
I'M SICK OF YOUR ANNOYING QUESTIONS
Subtitle translation by Marcel Zriki