On the morning of our launch we updated our marine insurance to cover cruising afloat as well as storage ashore. The transaction went through at 0800 and we received confirmation of cover at 0830.
At 0900 a loud bang reverberated around the boat yard as the cradle conveying Shimshal from land to sea collapsed and smashed into her port topside. Very luckily nobody was hurt and Tyler, one of the launch crew, was especially lucky as he was standing on the collapsed gantry controlling the slings at the time.
After frantic improvisation Alex, Darren and Tyler were able to lower Shimshal down the rest of the railway into the water with Shimshal supporting the broken cradle teetering on her keel. An anxious few moments.
Fortunately no insurance claim will be required as the damage to Shimshal was just some easily fixable gouges in the gel coat proving that she is a tough old boat. The cradle however needs a lot of welding to get it serviceable again but, hopefully, it will be recommissioned and ready to haul us out in a month. At 17 tons Shimshal is a beefy boat but the cradle was rated to haul boats up to 50 tons so we don’t feel too guilty for disrupting the yard’s launch and hauling schedule.
A few miles south of Mahone Bay we picked up Peter and Terry’s mooring adjacent to their lovely house on Young Island. A great place to hang out and attend to those tasks that can only be done when afloat. Peter aimed his home WiFi at us and this immediately exposed a security weakness in our boat’s network which Peter duly fixed when the errant hardware was delivered to him on his deck.
