HADAR's Launch

The final Preparations to launch started early, some padding was attached to the arm of the dumper truck, and this was used to nudge the boat forward out of the shed until the start of the baseplate was over the fixed roller in the slipway. The winch cable was attached to the bottom of the rudder post, this would be used to stop her from rolling out on her own. The stern was then jacked up until the bow rested on the fixed roller. Unfortunately at this point it was discovered that the pivot point of the boat was too far back for the remaining rollers to support her clear of the concrete at the top of the slipway.The answer was to build 2 ramps up out of wood and steel plate to shift these rollers back behind the pivot point, this took quite a while as Roger wanted to be certain that she would roll down them without breaking the ramps, or falling off them! But once he was satified with the setup, the boats moored in the basin were all tied together and then drifted out of the basin across the canal out of harms way. A large piece of wood about the size of a railway sleeper was tied against the opposite bank where it was expected for her to strike the wall. Roger then gave me the go ahead to name her, which I did, " I name this boat HADARm godbless her and all who sail in her" accompanied by the mandatory bottle of champagne.

Ceremony over, the cable winch was detached, and the final holding chocks removed, and she started to roll forward. It could not have gone better as she slipped out of the shed and into the water. However as was expected due to her size and weight the far bank took quite a wallop as can be seen from the photos, the Wooden plank was snapped clean in half!!!

A moment never to be forgotten, a definite one-off experience. We then moored her up against the bank and returned all the boats to their moorings in the basin.We would like to thank those people who came along to watch HADAR's launch, we hope they enjoyed what was a special moment for us. A huge thank you must go to Roger and everyone at the boat yard who have built HADAR. She is everything we wanted and more. All photographs of the launch are in Hadar's Album in the diary menu. We now look forward to her fit out.

Because the fit out will take some months we are going to take a trip away on Misty Lady, so Hadar's diary will be quiet for a few weeks, but if you would like to catch up with our exploits on our trip you can follow us on www.ladyjogearman.blogspot.com

We just could not finish the day without a photograph of us with Roger Fuller and our new boat "HADAR".