Third time's the charm

After a few days of break during which Grandpa got repayment for all the time he put into the boat (we reroofed his house), we returned this morning to the task of moving the boat.  Chantal, the owner of the yard, assigned us two guys:  Jean-Marie, an old salt who sailed around for 30 years and his young assistant, Luc.  Here was the team that was to get us out of the hole, literally.  

They got there at 9, leaving us plenty of time to empty the storage box again and move everything from around the boat.  First job they did:  Dig holes where the travelift had sunk in last week and fill them up with gravel, then they installed long planks in front of each wheel fo the lift, hoping that this would prevent it from sinking again.  The whole thing took about one hour and a half.  Jean-Marie, driving the huge machine, cranks it up. Nothing.  Nada. Zip.  The travelift raises the boat easily but refuses to budge forward even an inch.  The wheels inexorably sink in, crushing the planks that crack like matches.  After many frustrating tries, we give up for now.  We have to put the boat back down and reblock it because it actually moved back a foot, towards the ditch:  Doesn’t look too good at this point so we all go to lunch with our tail between our legs.

1pm comes around, we pull the travelift from there, dig and fill the holes again but this time the gloves come off.  We’ll apply an idea of Grandpa:  Not only do we block the path under the poor planks transversely like a train track but we put up a little ramp at the back end.  The lift will climb back up that ramp unloaded, we’ll block it up and then it’ll lift the boat.  On signal, Jean-Marie will give it a little reverse, we’ll pull the blocks and all forward: down it should go.  Once in movement, there should be no problems.  It works 100%  We were so paranoid when we built the ramp that the lift doesn’t even sink an inch when it lifts it’s 20 tons load.  How nice it is to see one’s boat move, be it on a travelift!  She’ll move to her new spot, in the center of the yard, where the ground is firm and her back end won’t be in a ditch

First though, we have to pull the centerboard out of there.  We originally were thinking to do this at the initial spot but Jean-Marie wanted to get out of the hole first; And how right was he.  So once she was sitting in the middle of the isle, we slid the pallet in its spot (oh, let’S hope those slings are solid…) and start to play around with the board in its well to get it down, softly if at all possible.  It’s child’s play; We spent a lot of time last week toying around with the board, moving it up and down in its casing and now it pays off:  Done in less than 20 minutes.  The lateral supports are installed and the boat is lifted up and backed up in its new berth.  Jean-Marie will pick the board up and drop it next to the boat with a fork lift soon after, and he’ll move the stairs/storage box next to the boat by the same token.  Nice!  That would have been quite a long haul by hand.

The whole ting took all day, we weren’t done until 4pm.  The board is quite rusted, especially the top that’s unreachable from under nor form the access hatch inside, but nonetheless, there doesn’t seem to be anything major, we should be ok with a good sanding and painting.  Same for the well;  At first glance, no patches to weld… We’ll see after sanding!

Here's a little video of the day's work: http://youtu.be/jXOLoAF3zcI