In crane

Moving slowly

Being lowered

Looking pretty

Yesterday we got Grace back into the water. She’s been on the hard standing all  winter and access has been up and down a ladder. Now she’s in her natural habitat again.

Its always a bit worrying when your life savings are being trundled about in a couple of slings but all went very smoothly and to plan. The crane is an incredible bit of kit and my guess is the driver will be amazingly good at computer games, looking at the controls. Not my skill set at all.

It was actually a warm spring day in Hull yesterday so we got quite a few of the halyards and lines back on. It was most pleasant working in the warm sunshine. Sails next time assuming it’s not a windy day.

We have paid to be on the visitor moorings until the end of May. Back over to Hull in a couple of days – work needs attending to. Ho hum.

Two main jobs today.

1. Chain. Joining two lengths of chain together to give us 90m in total, marking it at 10m intervals, splicing a length of rope into the end to tie it into the anchor locker, reattaching the spade anchor after Richard helped us ‘touch it up’ with some zinc paint then getting it all back onto the boat. Job ticked.

2. Holding tank or as it colloquially know, ‘the poo box’. We want to put one on the boat so when we’re in those beautiful anchorages, nothing unpleasant gets pumped out. You get my drift. We had plan a. Dave built a model and we tried to fit it. No go. So to plan b. Another model built at home and it fits like a dream. So tomorrow we order the poo box plus a whole load of ancillary bits like diverter values and pipes. Never thought I’d be the proud owner of a poo box.

Other jobs ticked today…. New anodes attached, hull line scrubbed, boat washed, more lists made. In the words of Wallace and Gromit, “A grand day out”.

90m of chain

Our old generator works but it made sense to get it serviced before we set off as its a pretty useful bit of kit. Getting it to the manufacturer involved a 6:1 pulley system, two fork lift trucks and drive to the New Forest. A few days later we get a phone call to be asked “do you know this generator is 25 years old?”

So to cut a long story short, getting the old one serviced was silly money, to buy a new one was silly money plus a (large) bit. So we now have a new generator. Thanks to Martin at Hull Marina, it’s now on the boat waiting to be plumbed in.