Day 12: Craning day

Yesterday was craning day, when the show boats are lifted into the water, and in some cases out of it. Meanwhile, on the field, things got busier and busier. As a result, I've got lots of photos, out of the 171 Sheila and I took between us.

There was a fair amount of boat shuffling going on, and Bungle volunteered to move one of the workers' boats to its proper location. This involved a long reverse, and of course, since there was an audience, it didn't go all that well...

Big prop, shallow water, never a good combo

 Approaching boats had to be warned about the organised (?) chaos ahead:

After you

 which task was undertaken by those most useful of persons, the Americans:

Ready for action

The actual craning was from a corner of the car park next to the canal, and made for some interesting sights:

Up she comes

Round she goes

and down she goes

Mind the edge!

Touching the water

and afloat

After putting one in, one needed to come out, to form part of the land based boats:

Slinging

Positioning the slings is always trickier when the boat is floating:

Wrong!

If you don't get it right, the boat doesn't sit level and risks slipping out when in mid air. This is not a good idea.

Right

 After several trial lifts and some testy exchanges, they got it right at last, and away it went:

Swinging along.

Meanwhile, Bungle's reversing had gone much better once out of sight of the crowds, and he celebrated with an ice lolly:

Happy, happy Bungle

Just to finish with the craning, later in the day, one of the other exhibition boats was being moved under its own power, when the need to hold back led to a complete loss of drive. Investigation showed that all was well with the engine and drive train, but opening the weed hatch found the problem.

The prop had fallen off.

Not a good day for Aintree Boats, who seemingly don't know what a split pin is for.

Wrg came to the rescue, and Gary and Lucas turned out to do things the trad way:

What's Gary doing, children?

 (apart from scaring you senseless, that is)

He's towing a boat!

Though not all by himself:

On its way.

On the main field, matters carried on, with some selected traders arriving early, because their displays need tricky manoeuvring:

Multicell coming in

 In the Bar Tent, the team was setting up:

Assembling the bar

Ready for action.

Perhaps inspired by this, Site 2 was seen practising his imitation of the famous moment in Only Fools and Horses when Del Boy falls backwards through the bar:

David Jason he's not, but it's a good try.

and finally, I can't go without mentioning the car park:

All hands...

It looks like one of the piles will be cleared, but I have my doubts about the other one.

Today, we print the first issue of the newsletter, The Shobnall Shoveler.