An afternoon at the harbour part 1 of 4

 What an afternoon. I never thought an afternoon at the harbour could be so entertaining.
When I arrived there, men in day-glo waistcoats were busy attaching bright orange straps to the biggest Crain I have ever seen and then passing the straps around the underbelly of the yatch which was sitting in the boatyard. 

As the afternoon progressed the yatch was lifted out of the boatyard, lowered over the wall and gently sat in the outer harbour. 

There was a little fishing boat that was moored exactly where the yatch was destined to land and it had to be manually towed out of the way.

Once the yatch was safely in the water it turned itself around and glided through the harbour gates to its berth in the inner harbour. .
AND……….. as if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, as soon as the first yatch was safely berthed in the inner harbour, another yatch glided up to take its place and the giant Crain proceeded to lower a new mast over the boatyard wall onto the yatch waiting below. 

This was quite exciting, just as the Crain was manovering the mast into place, there was a sudden gust of wind and the mast swayed around over the heads of the workmen. 

There were men on the yatch guiding the mast into place until it slotted neatly in, the men then had to secure it ( I was too far away to see how this was done) before the Crain relinquished its hold. 

And then the second yatch also glided through the harbour gates tom its berth in the inner harbour.
AND……………..while all this was going on, the new Catamaran was sitting, partly obscured by boatyard gates, in the cradle at the top of the slipway waiting to descend from the boatyard into the water. 

Apparently I missed the bit in the morning where the giant Crain had lifted the Catamaran from the boat yard, over several other boats and onto the waiting cradle on the slipway. 

The Crain had travelled all the way from Peterhead that morning, my friend witnessed it arriving and reversing into the boatyard, which was pretty tight. 

Can’t help wishing I had seen that too. After all the action around the two yatchs the gates in front of the Catamaran began to lift and we had a really clear view of her sitting in the cradle at the top of the slipway ready to launch. She had flags and bunting flying and was full of people. I was told that our boatyard couldn’t build her from scratch she had been delivered as an empty hull and was built up from that. I expected her to slide quite fast into the water, but she didn’t, it took a while and then finally, once the hull was submerged, the cradle withdrew and a smaller boat came to attach a rope and tow her through the harbour gates to her berth in the inner harbour. It took a bit of reversing and manovering but she did eventually make it through to her berth where they all proceeded to party.
WOW……………I was so impressed at all the action. Every one started to leave the area, people returned to their cars and the cars all started to leave. My friend and I decided to go round to the back of the boatyard to see if we could watch the Crain leaving. I was amazed, I don’t know what I expected but I didn’t expect what I saw. It was like watching a giant transformer toy. This huge Crain folded itself away and then just got ready to drive away. We had to move before the Crain actually left because we were standing right in the way. It felt a bit on the dangerous side to hang around in the hope of getting shots of it moving off. There was no place to stand and take photos that would have been safe. It was such a huge vehicle and the space was tiny………..so after watching it fold up like a transformer, we left it in peace to inch its way out of the boatyard.
I took so many photos, I’ve sorted the first lot of the yatch being lifted into the water and well………this is them.
I’ll have to sort through the others of the new mast being lowered, the Catamaran being launched and the giant Crain folding itself up and post them in stages……..

Oh what a great afternoon.