Short one today as the long post I just wrote managed to delete itself!
Today was the day for lifting the masts off. Patrick did most of the prep while I did boatschool with the kids, then we motored round to the crane where our new friend Paul was waiting for us. Thanks to Paul's demon boat hooking we managed to get the triatic (rope between the main and mizzen mast) down before Christoph arrived to operate the crane. As we pay by the hour for the crane we tried to be as prepared as possible, unlike at Burnham, here the crane is operated by one guy and we need to do most of the work ourselves. When Esmé started to demand attention she got told in no uncertain terms that her trip to Disneyland Paris was in jeopardy if we had to pay extra for the crane because of her distracting us.
After 40 minutes the main mast was off and ashore, and 30 minutes later so was the mizzen. We're yet to see what we get charged! Once we had motored back to our berth we went back round to the boatyard to start working on the masts to get them ready for shipping to the South of France. It was baking hot and I was reminded of the saying that "Only mad dogs and Englishmen work in the midday heat!". After an hour our so we gave it up as a bad job and resolved to return early tomorrow morning when it was cooler.
The plan was for an early night but as Esmé has only just gone to sleep at 10:30pm we'll see how tomorrow morning goes. Guess we're technically a motorboat now!
Today was the day for lifting the masts off. Patrick did most of the prep while I did boatschool with the kids, then we motored round to the crane where our new friend Paul was waiting for us. Thanks to Paul's demon boat hooking we managed to get the triatic (rope between the main and mizzen mast) down before Christoph arrived to operate the crane. As we pay by the hour for the crane we tried to be as prepared as possible, unlike at Burnham, here the crane is operated by one guy and we need to do most of the work ourselves. When Esmé started to demand attention she got told in no uncertain terms that her trip to Disneyland Paris was in jeopardy if we had to pay extra for the crane because of her distracting us. After 40 minutes the main mast was off and ashore, and 30 minutes later so was the mizzen. We're yet to see what we get charged! Once we had motored back to our berth we went back round to the boatyard to start working on the masts to get them ready for shipping to the South of France. It was baking hot and I was reminded of the saying that "Only mad dogs and Englishmen work in the midday heat!". After an hour our so we gave it up as a bad job and resolved to return early tomorrow morning when it was cooler.
The plan was for an early night but as Esmé has only just gone to sleep at 10:30pm we'll see how tomorrow morning goes. Guess we're technically a motorboat now!
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