Out of the Water and Onto the Hard

We have been seriously thwarted by the April weather over the past few weeks. We needed to get Pershilla craned out of the harbour marina at Watchet and onto the hardstanding for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, the underside needed to be inspected, pressure washed and new anodes fitted. Anodes are either aluminium or zinc and are fitted to the underside of the hull to reduce corrosion of the hull itself.

Secondly, and more nerve wrackingly (is that a word?) the overall height of the boat needed to be measured.

Pershilla is currently at Watchet on the north Somerset coast. Now, I love Watchet, but it's a long way round the coast from there to the Thames and Channel ports, which is where we want to start the trip from. It's a beautiful coastline and there are fabulous places to discover all along it.

But, there is a very important reason why we like inland waterways rather than coastal trips - we get seasick. Really, really seasick.

So, Pershilla needs to travel to the Thames by road. But we had no idea whether she would be low enough to fit under the various bridges between Watchet and Caversham.

With George at the helm of the crane (BTW, George features in Shane Spall's book - The Voyages of Princess Matilda, as seen on BBC4) Pershilla was lifted slowly and carefully up out of the harbour

Up and over the harbour wall and safely onto the hardstanding

You can see that the radar hoop has now been hinged, so it can be lowered, reducing the height, but we weren't certain that would be enough, so it was out with the tape measure and a few more nervous moments before Stephen worked out that it was just (and we are talking a few centimetres) within the maximum measurement given to us by our boat transporter, so thankfully can be moved by road, which will take a few hours, rather than by sea, which would take 7-10 days and a lot of seasickenss tablets!

So, packing goes on apace at home (I feel I am living in cardboard city!) and our new estimated date of departure is mid-May!