Out she comes
11 February 2008
The big day finally arrived for Deep Blue to come out of the water for her annual check and re-anti-fouling. Eight guys and the largest crane we have ever seen made short work of it but not before we had a visit from French Customs literally just before the lift! They realised that it wasn't a good time and therefore made only very quick checks that our paperwork was in order and that we held valid passports. One of them then got into a discussion about how to use the past tense when speaking English. A quick lesson later and we returned to the job in hand. For a crane that can lift 250 tonnes, Deep Blue didn't cause it too many problems at just 10 tonne. She was gently lowered into a dry dock, next to Composite Works, beside a beautiful 85ft yacht. Makes us look very small! We've only just started on the work but it's great to have all the gear to hand from Ben's business to make the job easier and is, of course, one of the reasons for spending the winter here.