Long day.. but she's out..

So not with a bang but a bit of a slow fizz, the season comes to an end.. not without some drama on the weather front, naturally - it is October after all - with one, possibly two (looks like this Wednesday is looking a little fruity) of the lifts cancelled due to strong winds, the lift out schedule was squeezing as boats looked to get lifted in the good weather.

My lift date was originally scheduled for the Saturday, but as I had also been rostered to work that day, I opted to move my lift out to another day, originally thinking Monday or Tuesday. With the winds forecast to build over the first half of the week though, I rocked up on the Sunday, knowing it would be stupid busy, but happy to take my chances on when I'd get out, and that I might have a long wait..

..and so it turned out. 

Either way was on the boat by 10:30, determined to recover my top tackle from the mooring before I left, as .. as..  well it's just easier doing it from Sparrow rather than a small tippy tender. 

Happily that grease I applied liberally in the spring worked it's magic, and with a bit of grunt the shackle freed, and I had the lift chain and pickup buoy with all additional iron monger'y on board..  started the engine, slipped the temporary rope mooring I had attached, and headed off, for the last time this season, under the bridge.. to be greeted with a scene of what I can only describe as 'lift out madness'.. 😀 

Boats everywhere, and more lining up as they came up the harbour channel - it was a bit like watching the jets land at Gatwick. Clearly the bigger boats (and we do have a couple of fin keelers) need the deeper water to be lifted, so as a small one, I picked a spot on the pontoon and waited my turn.

Lovely day, the sun shone, it was warm, there was lots of chats on the pontoon as we watched boat after boat being lifted and taking advantage of the height of the high tide, tea was drunk, more chat exchanged, I even got the fishing rod out for an hour or two before, with two hours gone after HT, I was told that that was it for wet lift outs, the last boats would need to ground themselves on the slipway and be collected at leisure by the tractor hoist later in the day..

Always a slightly traumatic thing to purposefully ground yourself, but the key is slowly slowly slowly - and once you touch bottom, just leave the engine to idle in forward maintaining your position as the water disappears.

Sparrow was picked up later that afternoon and finally dropped in her spot in the yard about 6'ish.. a long day for me, but hugely enjoyable compared to the guys on the lift out crew who busted their buns for getting on for 11 hours..  kudos guys.. 👍👏

Now the fun can start..  pressure wash tomorrow!