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...
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| Big prop, shallow water, never a good combo |
Approaching boats had to be warned about the organised (?) chaos ahead:
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| After you |
which task was undertaken by those most useful of persons, the Americans:
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| Ready for action |
The actual craning was from a corner of the car park next to the canal, and made for some interesting sights:
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| Up she comes |
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| Round she goes |
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| and down she goes |
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| Mind the edge! |
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| Touching the water |
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| and afloat |
After putting one in, one needed to come out, to form part of the land based boats:
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| Slinging |
Positioning the slings is always trickier when the boat is floating:
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| 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.
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| Right |
After several trial lifts and some testy exchanges, they got it right at last, and away it went:
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| Swinging along. |
Meanwhile, Bungle's reversing had gone much better once out of sight of the crowds, and he celebrated with an ice lolly:
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| 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:
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| What's Gary doing, children? |
(apart from scaring you senseless, that is)
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| He's towing a boat! |
Though not all by himself:
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| On its way. |
On the main field, matters carried on, with some selected traders arriving early, because their displays need tricky manoeuvring:
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| Multicell coming in |
In the Bar Tent, the team was setting up:
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| Assembling the bar |
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| 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:
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| David Jason he's not, but it's a good try. |
and finally, I can't go without mentioning the car park:
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| 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.
3 comments:
Great stuff again, excitement and anticipation building.
Only 3 days to go for me!
I sincerely hope you have better lawyers than Aintree Boats, some little oversights are better not reported. I'm sure someone as pompous as you has things you would rather not have reported. BTW no connection with boat company.
Regards
livabord
Thank you canal junkie and GO-FOR-IT, glad you like the blog.
livabord, I don't think I'm then one being pompous here. I'm happy to admit being wrong in one respect; it wasn't a missing split pin, the Vetus prop which had been fitted has a different locking mechanism, and the fitter has admitted he forgot to put it on.
This is not a "little oversight"; if that prop had come off in a river section, the boat could have been in serious difficulties.
As to things I'd rather not have reported, the Building Sanity Again blog has the full snagging list we had dealt with last September. As for having good lawyers, there is nothing defamatory about reporting the facts, and my remark about a split pin is fair comment.
You don't have to read my blog if you don't like it!
All the best
Bruce
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