Up, Up and away....

Nestled at anchor, finally free of the mud

Well this has turned into a bit of a marathon effort! It has taken taken us two attempts to break Antares out of her muddy resting place. She had sat for so long in there she had dug herself a dirty great hole which could only be overcome on the highest tide of the month.... not necessarily the easiest thing to do when I am away offshore for 6 months of the year.

The first time we tried, my old mate Oran, had come down from his usual position - up some traditional boats rigging, to give a hand, but come the fateful hour, the pontoon that we required to be able to use the Drascombe Lugger I'd borrowed to tow her the 7nm down river, had broken and had been towed away for repairs. Bugger. Attempt one failed. "Ahhh well there is always next month" I seethed

Attempt two was a different affair, Oran was unable to come down from his perch aloft and so rather nervously, it was down to me to break her out. This required hauling up two kedge anchors astern, the mooring lines up forward needed to be slipped and then jumping into the Drascombe to tow her out before she had fouled herself up in the tangle of old line, cable and chain that littered the berth. However and maybe fortuitously, I'd overlooked one of the back pages of the insurance policy I'd selected... and wasn't covered. Unsurprisingly, Morgan's boatyard weren't prepared to lift a yacht that had no insurance. Bugger. Attempt two down the pan.

In the end it was Dave, the previous owner, who came to the rescue, expertly retrieving her out of the mud and putting her at anchor in the middle of the river, whilst I was away with work. But she couldn't stay at anchor with no one to check the warps for long and as I wasn't due to be free from employment for around a month, I was forced to hire two friends of Dave's, to tow her down river and along side the visitors berth at Brightlingsea Harbour. With everything now set in motion, I had organised the berth on the visitors berth, the tow from there to the hoist and the lads were in place to go......... but the engine on the Launch they planned to use, chose that morning to spit its dummy out and stubbornly refused to start!!!!

And up she goes....

I was 200 something miles to the north west and unable to help, they were frantically trying too breathe some life into their outboard and if i'm honest I though that it was going to be another failed attempt to shift her down river, but all was not lost and they did succeed in getting her down, with only one minor incident when they ran their fuel tank dry.

The following morning the lads from Morgan's Yard towed her round from the visitors berth, into the hoist she went and up she came. Rather alarmingly I was told that the fouling on her was so bad there was going to be an extra charge put on to clean her off. But I could now rest easy, knowing that she was up on hard standing, and now the real work could begin.....