Progress Progresses Progressively

So the boat has been dragged kicking and screaming from it's nice warm haven in Lydney Harbour and towed to Dave's home near Malvern almost without incident. This is not to say that there was not a deal of gentle persuasion with judicious use of WD40 and some lump hammer semaphore which finally persuaded the brakes that there was, in fact, two states of being, on and off. Once this had been established, Dave being something of a machine whisperer, and the wheel bearings inspected for signs of impending disintegration, Missy Moto was hitched up to Pete's Land Rover Discovery and hauled reluctantly to the tidal streams of the Malvern Hills with two sets of ears akimbo for sounds of metal or worse grinding off tarmac. As it turned out boat and trailer behaved impeccably and our purchase is now Dave's latest in a long line of inappropriate garden decoration which his long-suffering wife, Pat, simply accepts with a resigned shrug. (No doubt she has some serious shopping penance in store for him when he least expects it).

Now it begins. The endless list making. The discovery of dire inadequacies of seaworthiness. The dreams of installing navigation equipment worth more than we paid for the boat. The cat's cradle of the rigging which seems to involve thousands of metres of rope of varying thicknesses, lengths and braids in fact the only uniform thing about all this string is the expense of it.

We need some antifouling. Our experienced sailing friend who is well-connected to scientific boffins who've done the research on this stuff advises us to use Compound A. Off I trot to a Poole based chandlers who, when I mention Compound A, gives vent to the longest, sharpest intake of breath I've heard since one of my uncle's farm tractor got a not-so-slow puncture in a tyre, you know, one of the big knobbly one on the back wheels. 'It's veeery expensive. How much do you need?' '2.5 - 3 litres,' says I all innocence and ignorance. 'That'll be £200,' he says. 'What! I only want to anitfoul it, not gild it. Isn't there anything cheaper.' 'Of course there is. This is £90 for 2.5l and this £70 for 3l but I wouldn't recommend it.'

So off I trudge, ninety quid lighter and beginning to realise that the old adage about a hole in the water surround by GRP into which you pour money is all too accurate except that the actual saying involves being surrounded by wood in which case you'll need all the resources of the Federal Reserve but they seem to be broke now too, so maybe George Bush owns a boat.

I have also acquired a tender, spotted for me by a neighbour whose hobby seems to be dumpster diving or whatever is the British equivalent. This he persuaded me was 'a good buy' and would probably be cheap which indeed it did turn out to be though not quite as cheap as I'd hoped. He's promised to repair the mild damage to the engine mount and so he joins the long line of people seemingly put on the planet to make me look inadequate and yes, it is all about me!

We now have a) a boat, b) a mooring and c) a tender plus engine(another of Stig's acquisitions from the aforementioned dump - it's astonishing what people throw away) It's all shaping up rather well.

Meanwhile John hasn't even seen what he's sinking his money into, I have had only the briefest of glances at the little beast and Dave is sitting on our investment wondering where and when to start the Augean stable thing. Ho hum and all's well with the world.
Watch this space, it's surrounded by water.