Saturday, June 16, 2012

6/16/2012 How to Put a BIG boat in the Water.

When I got to the marina this morning I found the ramp parking lot almost full. Oh yeah, this was going to be a busy day. It certainly started out as a cool day as everyone had sweatshirts on, me included.


There has been a good sized cabin cruiser in dry dock next to the ramp since we started there.


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For the past few weeks a lot of work has been done on this boat. Motor work, woodworking, painting and who knows what else. The work is now done and she’s water worthy.


WeeWun IV is going in the water today.


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Now WeeWun IV is a good sized boat and you just don’t hook a truck up to a trailer and back it into the water. In fact, this boat isn’t even on a trailer.


The marina has a special machine that will get this boat’s bottom wet.


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The straps of the Travelift are placed under the boat.


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The straps are tightened.


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This is where Ian goes to work.


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By remote control, Ian moves the Travelift and boat from the dry dock area to the boat launch area.


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Its not fast moving by any stretch of the imagination. Safety and taking care of these expensive boats are the number one priorities.


Ian got the Travelift lined up over the water.


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The owner of the boat was on hand and I asked him how he came up with name of the boat, surely it had some meaning. He chuckled and said that he didn’t know the origin of the name as he bought the boat second hand. He explained that his dad told him many years ago that you never, ever, change the name of a boat because its considered bad luck. Over the years, I too, have heard this.


It’s in place now and ready to be lowered into the water.


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Down she goes.


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And there she goes.


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She’s on her way to Ocean City, Maryland where she’ll spend the summer.


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And to the ocean she goes.


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Ian put the Travelift away until the next launching.


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Right before I left for the day things just exploded! I had a half dozen boats waiting to come in and a half dozen waiting to go out and they all wanted to be first. One of the fulltime workers told me to get used to it, summer boating is right around the corner it will be like that all day every day. Bob came home and told me his afternoon was pretty much the same thing. Oh what have we gotten ourselves into?


We watched the other movie we rented, The Grey. We didn’t like it. In our view, it just didn’t live up to all the hype about it. In fact, when I was at the Redbox returning them I talked with this fellow who said that he and his wife were really disappointed also. It seemed that every single sentence had the F word in it at least once. I just don’t get it? Why do moviemakers feel that is ok? What does it add to the movie? Yes, sometimes for emphasis it may be ok,,,,,maybe. But every sentence, every other word, you lose me real quick and Bob gets a request from me to listen to it with his earphones. Especially here with kids running around everywhere and our windows open. I’m really sorry that we as a people got way too comfortable with this level of profanity. Maybe Rhett Butler shouldn’t have ever been allowed to say that first damn.


Two more days and its our weekend again. The temps are supposed to be in the high 80’s and Tuesday we’re planning on going to the beach for the day….all day. We are so looking forward to that.

4 comments:

Mike Volentine said...

I agree with you on the use of the F word in movies. The word adds nothing to the story and like you said in some movies it's like every other word.
The crabs sure look good and I can hardly wait until we get up to Delaware in August to eat some.

Snookie said...

Thanks for taking the time to comment Mike.

Where are you going in Delaware? We're at the Inlet camprground just north of Bethany Beach.

Mike Volentinep said...

We usually go down to the campground where you all are for a week and then up to the air base for a week. After that we put our motor home in storage until we get ready to go back home to Florida the first part of October.

Snookie said...

Mike,

Good! We'll get to meet when you get here. I am a little confused though. If you can go to the air base then why aren't you using Bethany Beach Training Center for your beach stays?

We'll be in Florida next winter, where do you go?