Boat Transport Fail

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.

Boat Adventure

Quite suddenly, we have a new boat. For months and months Ron has spent night after night poring over eBay, and boats for sale websites, dithering over whether he likes this boat better than that boat, whether this one might be too small, that one might be too expensive, that one could go on the back of the mooring with Sarnia, this one could go in the dinghy park, that one is cheap but needs a lot of work, the other is expensive but he could sell lots of bits he doesn't want... it gets a bit repetitive and sometimes I just tune out altogether, not being able to tell a pilot from a pearn or an oyster from a pearl, indeed.

Until Monday. On Monday morning he saw the one he wanted, by Monday night it was his, cash on collection, and on Tuesday we embarked on an adventure to go and get it. Just to complicate matters, Tuesday is my morning in the Resource Centre and I had promised a master class on uploading photos to Facebook, no less, so I couldn't swap days. Anyway, he had enough to do in the morning running round trying to remember where the trailer board was (Downderry), getting the money out of the bank, trying to remember where we filed the TomTom (on top of the dresser), filling tanks with diesel and tyres with air, etc, so by the time we were ready to leave it was 3.30pm on the hottest day of the year so far, making Emsworth (Hampshire) and back rather more of an epic that we fancied for one day.

We got there quickly and uneventfully. The boat was exactly as described and pictured, just what he wanted, on a lovely new trailer, absolutely perfect, so that was OK. We asked the man who was selling it for a recommendation of a place to stay and he suggested the nearest B&B pub, about two minutes' walk away. The Railway Inn, Emsworth, can be thoroughly recommended as a place to stay. Comfortable, clean, friendly and easygoing, not too expensive, a perfect choice. We arrived there hot, tired and ready for refreshment at about 7pm. I left Ron sitting outside on the tiny terrace with the dog while I registered and took the bags to our room, and by the time I got back he was deep in conversation with a girl from over the road. We sat on the terrace until about 10pm, sending out for a Chinese which was both cheap and delicious (the barmaid brought us out plates and cutlery) while a succession of friendly customers, staff and locals came and talked to us. I learnt the best place to walk the dog, was advised on where to eat and when, was offered the use of a laptop to check emails etc (turned down, I was enjoying the day off!). At about ten I decided I should take the dog for a last walk before it got too dark, and that I'd better show Ron where the room was first. We had planned to go back down for a last drink afterwards, but by the time I got back from finding the Meadow Ron was well settled and we didn't bother.

It was still very hot - hotter than it ever gets in Cornwall at night - but we still slept pretty well. By 8 am Ty was getting a bit twitchy for a walk, so we went to explore Brook Meadow properly by daylight. Not the biggest bit of open space around - we went round two and a half times in a bit less than an hour - Brook Meadow is delightful, well cared for and obviously loved by the locals. It was a bit late in the season for the majority of wild flowers, but I sat happily on a bench breathing in the scents of mind and meadowsweet, listening to the birds... Until Ty asked me to throw a stick for him, and on running back with it skidded in a heap of dog mess. This in spite of the fact that not only are there plenty of dog bins, there is even a dog bag dispenser by the entrance to the meadow. Time for a paddle, I thought, well away from the water vole conservation area, of course. The brook comes into the meadow through a high brick tunnel under the railway line, and the arch frames a vista of parkland with impeccable lawns, sparkly weirs and rustic timber bridges, quite in contrast to the shoulder high vegetation on the meadow side. A dog walker I met told me that the other side of the tunnel was the garden of a private house, belonging to the widow of a former Admiral, he thought.

I'd have loved to have explored the village further - I also caught a glimpse of the river Ems with its swans and waterside, moored boats, small shops and a pretty square, but the boat awaited, so after a good substantial breakfast we walked down the road to get it.

When we got there the seller had already put the wheels on the trailer (it had been up on bricks the night before) and all we had to do was strap it down, hitch it up, plug in the trailer board and away! So far, the whole adventure had been utterly idyllic, free from problems of any kind, like a storybook in fact. One had wondered idly when it would start to go wrong, and when we took to the road home was when.

It was even hotter than the day before. The first part of the journey is A road then motorway, and after 25 miles or so we stopped at Rownhams Services, so that Ron could check that all was well with the boat and trailer. It wasn't. He touched the hub of a trailer wheel with the back of his hand to check the temperature, and it promptly blistered, burst and bled. White hot, they were, the trailer wheels, both of them. This was when we discovered that our RAC membership, paid for for ten years and only used twice, does not cover trailers. They could arrange recovery for us, but we'd have to pay. We were 25 miles in to a journey of 185, and we do not have money to spare for that kind of thing. That's what we thought we were paying the RAC for...

Ron had a few spanners and things but not his full collection. He came to the conclusion that the brakes were binding and had seized on. The trailer had not been used, we knew that, for a couple of years, but as the wheels had been put on by the time we got there in the morning he hadn't bothered to check to see if they were going round! Two hours or more we were there in the carpark, taking off wheels, trying to free up the brakes, trying to get oil (no grease available in the garage shop) on to the bearings with straws stolen from the Costa coffee machine. Ron's burnt hand was bleeding quite freely, my right shin lost some considerable amount of skin (and blood) while I was proving to myself that I can't jack wheels up, it was very, very hot, and 70 year old men should not be putting in that kind of physical effort. And another (minor) grouse - why do motorway services plant cherry trees as their only source of shade? Not that it would have mattered at any time but yesterday, really, but I tried to put myself and my dog in the shade, carefully removing all the old cherries from the ground before sitting, and was promptly rained upon by red squashiness. Luckily I was wearing a dress which doesn't show stains much - the cherries were only adding to the blood, oil, and whatever else that was already there!

Finally after a couple of hours Ron decided that it was safe to move on, very slowly and carefully. We stopped and checked the trailer wheels every few miles - one of them stayed cool and seemed OK, and although the other kept heating up (and had more oil poured in through a straw in a layby somewhere, plus cold water thrown over it when we found a garage with a tap) we did eventually make it to Downderry at 9.00pm, having left Emsworth at 11.15 in the morning. Drop boat, pick up fish and chips, eat, shower (second of the day) and bed. All sorting out and organising to be left for the morning. Adventure over, thank goodness!