08/12/2006, Franktown, Colorado
Today is the day! We got up early and went to Bernie's. We had unloaded the blocks and extra stuff from the back of our truck, and drove to meet the boat. He was a bit earlier than expected so instead of waiting for him at the turn, we pulled over on the main road and waited for them to come over the rise. I tried to get video, but had to do it through the side mirror instead. We led him to the property and stopped just before we hit the private road. Michael had concerns about the road and wanted to show them to Courtney before he tried it. He said it wouldn?? t be a problem.
I waited at the top of the hill as Courtney released his pilot car. They took a while as the pilot car operator had to get a picture of her, her vehicle and the boat. I guess she has never been a pilot car for a boat before. It was like slow motion as the truck with Aurora on the back started moving down the long drive. I was praying as Courtney drove our baby up the hill. Michael and I both rose our hands in celebration as she hit the top, the day was starting out good. We got the mast unloaded using Bernie?? s boom truck and got the rest of the stuff good to go for the crane guy (All Mobile Crane Service). He was supposed to be there at 9am. He called to say it would be 11 when he was there. He showed up at 1:30.
First thing out of the crane guy's mouth was 'OK, I need to know whose going to pay me?" Let me tell you, it did not make a good first impression. The crane guy put his rig where he decided was best, and told Courtney to get as close as he could to him. The crane guy only had 20 feet to move around with. He was concerned about the weight of the boat. Now he tells us.
So, they strapped her up and Michael noticed she was going to come off the truck at an angle. Up until this point he left the crane guy do what he thought best, but this was too much. Michael told him it would come off the trailer wrong. The crane guy said 'yeah she would swing a little'. Michael said "No! She's 30,000 pounds, she doing to come off and her momentum was going to per her into one of the crane's supports and knock a hole in her', he wasn't going to let that happen. Michael told him to find a different way. Finally he moved his rig as tight as he could go to the indicated spot and this time Aurora was safe. She came off the trailer straight. I yelled to Michael while she was in the air "Look honey, she's flying!".
We got her laid out where she was to go. Michael and Bernie leveled her as best they could. We got the stands tightened against her hull and she stood by herself. She had made it. WHEW.
See photos of her arrival in our gallery here.
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08/11/2006
Michael didn't sleep well last night, he was worried about the crane. This morning Bernie called at 7:30am saying he had a crane line up. WHEW! He said he got 3 calls back about 9pm, but thought it was too late to call. Next time call!
Since Michael took the day off we drove out to Bernie's together, unloaded the trailer, assembled the stands and the pivots and got as much ready as we could. We drove to pick up the new straps Michael ordered. The manager had come out to see Michael and asked him who had the boat. When Michael told him and what kind the manager asked what we would do with a boat that size here. Michael just told him we floated in one spot, the guy laughed and knew it must be a refit. He said he gets a lot of stainless rigging stuff there and gave us a bunch of catalogs. Excellent, another local resource!
We got two more mast stands from the warehouse and gathered more blocking material and more rigging; Michael firmly believes you can never be over prepared. We went home, picked up some donuts and sandwiches for everyone tomorrow, and went home to wait… and wait… and wait.
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08/10/2006
During the day Michael ordered new 6” straps to lift the boat. Jen and Jess flew out today. This was the day when they found those men in London who were planning to blow up those various planes over the Atlantic with liquids. So we worried about the security lineup all day, got there 4 hours early and then they were through security in 15 minutes, go figure. They now had to wait behind security for 4 hours! So much for listening to the news.
When we got home from the airport Michael contacted Bernie about the crane. Bernie knew someone who was going to come out and do it for us fairly inexpensively. Well, Bernie went to see the guy today and on his door read a sign "Gone to Sturgis this weekend, be back Monday". Oh man, not good. So tonight we don't have a crane.
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08/09/2006
Michael took the day off but went to the office at the regular time and Lori followed about noon. While we were in the yard a salesman from Portland was out visiting Michael's office and came out to say hi. He said his brother would love to be doing what we are doing. We chatted a bit more and left.
When he left I thought about it a lot, how people can be do different. Some people we know just don't 'get it' and think we are crazy. Funny how they are also the people who tell us we can't do it when we share the dream. Then there are people who want to be doing what we are doing, but never seem to get past the dreaming part of it. They have desire, just not the courage or the will. Sad really.
Michael and I worked together on the new spreader bars until about 6:30pm, when we drove out to Bernie's (OK, whose this Bernie guy) to drop the trailer and her contents off. We decided against the concrete blocks, they were too big and would be in the way. After we dropped the trailer off, we went over to Bernie's and relaxed a bit before driving home.
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08/08/2006
After Michael's work was over, I went down to the warehouse and we got the trailer loaded with the spreader bar, stands and concrete blocks we were going to use to tie her down with (windage). Michael was worried about the strength of the spreader bar and asked George at the office to calculate out the strength. Bad news, it was going to be *borderline* . Michael didn't like that and came to the conclusion he had to build a heavier spreader bar. So we found some heavy bars to make the new ones, moved them behind the warehouse so Michael could get to them first thing in the morning and we went home discouraged.
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08/06/2006
The kids and I went to church while Michael went to the warehouse to get more work done. He needed the extra time and I joined him after church. But by the end of the day we had finished the other 4 stands. I put the carpet on the pivot heads and got the stands painted. Michael bundled them all together and had them stacked in the warehouse yard to get them ready to put on the trailer.
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08/05/2006
We built 2 more stands, and added the feet to the first one. Since the angle took over an hour to put on just one stand we decided to change to square feet with strapping, and it should save us much needed time. Michael welded all the pivot heads to their bases, I painted them and the 3 stands. 4 stands down - only 4 more to go.
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08/04/2006
Michael took the day off and we went to the warehouse first thing in the morning. We chopped up all the parts. Juan (warehouse guy) had found us a metal band saw and it went so much quicker this day. Juan stayed and helped flatten out the ends of the tubes to be used for legs. He would heat them up and pound them with a hammer until they were flat enough to weld. He heated and pounded for 2 hours and was such a great help. We got each center piece welded to one of each of their legs. The nice new shiny all-thread got welded to old rusted all-thread to give it additional length within the center piece. As well, all the nuts were welded with handles to make them easy to move the pivots up and down.
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08/02/2006
Michael said we had to make the stands so I was to come down to the office after he was done work. When I arrived Michael had the layout for the stands chalked on the floor. We found scrap tubing for the legs, old rusted all-thread for the height adjustment part and we thought we could use angle for the feet. I kept busy by cutting the pieces using a chop saw and by grinding the rust off the all-thread, and anything else that needed grinding. We worked on the prototype for 4 hours and got most of it done. It had the center piece with legs but no feet and no pivoting head. Michael spray painted it because he knew the guys in the shop would be checking out and commenting on his welding and he wanted it to look good.
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07/31/2006, Colorado
We got a call from Courtney with USA Yachts on Wheels. He said he could pick Aurora up next Monday - 7 days! We hadn't even gotten the stands ordered. We expected 3 weeks of lead time and he gives us 7 days! PANIC!!
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