A simple task. Pick up smallish boat and trailer from dinghy park, drive round to Millbrook, hand over boat, come home. Nice day out, take the dog, perhaps stop off for a pasty and a pint on the way back, lovely. Or not...
It started well enough; Ron had already checked that the boat was secure on the trailer, tyres blown up, bearings greased, trailer board tied on and working, etc. All we had to do in the morning was hitch the outfit to the back of the monster truck. A little bit more pushing and heaving than I really enjoy, but we were soon ready to go. The road that runs along the shore and up to the main road is fairly narrow, often has cars parked on either side, and is furnished with speed bumps every hundred yards or so. At the second set, Ron told me he was going to take them awkwardly as a roadworthiness test. Fail. Absolute, abject, utter fail. The offside stub axle on the trailer snapped in two, the wheel fell off and the trailer tipped over.
So there we were, monster truck with eighteen feet of trailer and a ton of boat, stuck in the middle of the road not going anywhere. Luckily, very luckily, we were still within the shadow of the two bridges, so I went walking back down the road to try and round up some strong men with toolboxes, while Ron looked for trolley jacks in the back of the truck. I found two likely looking lads in the carpark; one under a car with a spanner (he'd got a trolley jack and a toolbox!) and another 'helping' him. Off they went to the rescue while I carried on under the bridges to the pub, where I found another 'volunteer' just about to take the first sip of his first lunchtime pint. Into the fridge it went for later. Another kind person didn't just leave his coffee, he left his child on the shore (under supervision, of course). Posse rounded up.
By the time I'd walked back lots of things had happened: the police had stopped by and told him to get his triangles out (!), he'd jacked the trailer up and a couple of little green trolleys had been produced. They proved not to be quite robust enough, sadly, although they did just about serve to get the whole rig turned round and pointing back towards the river. And I had the presence of mind to start taking pictures, beginning with this one of the broken wheel and one of the broken trollies.
The next bright idea was to use a trolley jack as a roller skate under the broken axle. This looked quite good but didn't work - it just kept swinging round, even when anchored with half a mile of rope.
The final plan involved turning one of the broken trollies upside down and just skidding along on it. This worked, just about, until we had to go up the half inch kerb into the dinghy park, but generated a lot of noise, a vast cloud of smoke and an extremely unpleasant smell. It has also left a deep scratch gouged in the surface of the tarmac.
And so, finally, the trailer was backed down the slip and the boat was set free. This is the dead trailer on the slip.
And this is the boat on the river.
That was yesterday's adventure. It had a happy ending thanks to the people who were willing to drop what they were doing to come to our rescue - we'd have been in deep trouble without them. Friends are wonderful...
I declined the opportunity to take part in today's adventure, delivering Millie by water the couple of miles down river to Millbrook - it was raining and it meant starting before dawn to catch the tide. It was, I'm told, quite unadventurous - a two boat convoy went downriver, tied Millie to a buoy (possibly the wrong one) in Millbrook lake and got home in time for brunch.
On the trailer, by road, the scenic route is almost forty miles. It would have been easier to go by water in the first place, but the new owner had bought the boat on the trailer, so that was what we tried deliver. We'll send the trailer on later, when it is rolling under its own steam again.
