My God! It Actually Floats

Well the day finally arrived and Missy Moto got put in the water but not without some antics of which read on.

Our little Coromandel, Missy Moto, has been primped and polished, but regardless has been sitting on her trailer in a yard full of assorted caravans, boats and motorhomes waiting endlessly, or so it seems, to return to the sea and her true purpose. 

Lambs To The Slaughter

In the interim Missy has had a solar panel fitted to top up the on board battery, had some of the wiring tidied up, the engine dropped in and a new fuel tank but mostly she has just sat on her trailer staring forlornly at the cattle in the field next to her probably wondering when, if ever, she would re-visit her old marine haunts.

We had intended to launch her at the end of April to maximise our usage in this the Queen's Jubilee year, but the vagaries of the Great British weather have dictated regular judicious postponements. For one thing three novices launching a boat into the teeth of a south-easterly gale in Swanage Bay was deemed foolhardy in the extreme. For another, though the mooring was laid in June last year, I had not stirred my aged stumps enough to go and locate it. When I did finally canoe out and pinpoint its location, amazingly enough right on its GPS position, it had disappeared three days later when the mooring service company came to lift and inspect it. It was definitely there on the Monday because I saw it and photographed it, if only to stem the gentle ribbing of my co-owners about buying a mooring sight unseen, but by Thursday when it was due to be inspected it had disappeared. So another delay is incurred while the local divers locate and lift it about a day too late as it happens.

See There It Is!

The year of Our Lord 2012 has seen the weather system go completely off the reservation and throw weather front after weather front onto the South Coast like rubble onto a skip. After a brief hopeful sunny interlude in March we have had pretty much continuous rain and gales so the launch has been put back numerous times and I sense a slight air of discontent in the ranks and mutiny brewing, Mr Christian. Finally we decide that we can wait no longer and, as a brief weather window appears, Friday 6 July is the target date. Dave arrives on Wednesday and Thursday dawns bright and sunny and remains that way all day. The forecast is good for the Friday but, as is so often the case, the forecast is wrong. Friday is overcast and there are ominous clouds glowering over Swanage but John is on his way from Wellow and we're not going to have another postponement. Undaunted, well slightly daunted, we tow Missy off the wall she's been snuggled under for the last nine months and head for Swanage slipway.

Now, we've had significant discussions about whether it was better to hoist her into the water which would involve a ten mile road trip to Ridge near Wareham or just to risk the sight of three landlubbers being towed down the slip by a runaway boat and trailer gambolling towards the water like a newly released cow onto fresh pasture. In the event and after exhaustive soul searching and pestering every known local to the point of insanity for information, we have plumped for the Swanage slipway so it is to there that we repair with everything but the kitchen sink.

It was carefully planned to park boat and trailer well out of the way in order to dress and step the mast but, as we arrive, a Swanage refuse collection lorry follows us impatiently into the boat park and we end up parking in the RNLI spot strictly reserved for the crew of the local lifeboat. Things are not off to a good start.

The mast stepping and attendant rope charming capers proceed with as much speed as we can muster acutely aware that the lifeboat crew, not renowned for their tolerant patience, may arrive at any moment. And it has started to rain.

Finally we're ready to roll and one advantage of the steady precipitation becomes immediately apparent. Normally the local angling club, whose club house is next to the slip, would be lined up for the sport of watching three tyros launching. It's usually a bit of a pantomime and what passes for entertainment for the anglers. I guess when your 'sport' is watching a little red float bobbing on the surface of the water 90% of the time the frolics of people like us must be the equivalent of the Roman games in the Colisseum.

Missy Is About To Start Stargazing.

The rain has kept them away so we get to fuck up in relative privacy. Not that we fuck up...much. There is one slightly heart stopping moment when Missy is first unhitched and we realise that the trailer, now loaded, is tail heavy. The first sign of this is that the tow hitch begins to travel skywards not rapidly but inexorably. Luckily Dave's been here before and he quickly hangs onto the hitch allowing John and I to get our combined weights onto the trailer while Dave undoes the travelling straps. Missy slides gracefully into the water and the trailer is returned to the boat park, the tender is inflated, Missy's engine is started (it's raining steadily and completely windless) and we chug out toward the mooring.

We reach the mooring ( not ours you understand which is still at the bottom of the bay but No.15 which, I'm reliably informed is vacant and we can use pro tem ) tie up to it after some faffing about on my part and, since it's still raining and we're all getting cold we decide to head the tender back to Buck Shore and some warm food. Unable to start the small Suzuki, Dave & John paddle doggedly back the five or six hundred yards to the shore against wind and tide, where, on lifting the small outboard, Dave discovers a fuel tap on its port side. Turning this on and pulling the cord he is rewarded by the little motor spluttering into life! We have all been there but since he is our guru for all things mechanical we are slightly concerned for the future of this escapade!

Still, she's in the water, everything works and the following morning there was no sign that she might be sinking so all's well with the world. She does look incredibly small though!

Postscript: On arriving home there is a voicemail from Divers Down to say they have raised our mooring. Oh! It must have been the one we passed on our way to number 15. As I say, everything went without a hitch.