Well the past couple of days have been very eventful a little fraught to say the least . Yesterday when we went to pin down the elusive Mr Bruce (the boat yard owner) for a number of things, he informed us that our boat had been impounded!! because Portuguese customs officers had been around the boat yard wanting all information about all the boats in the yard. Any boats without their name, port or SSR no (if they have one) were to be impounded!!.

Typically, this was around the time we had gone back to the UK for Christmas and to sort a few things out, and we had not painted the name and port on her yet!! So of course Mr Bruce informs us of this the day before we are to launch!!  He had to give us a form which we then had to take to the customs office for them to release us!

When we arrived there, they took copies of our documents and told us they would let us know of their decision probably the day after, of course when we asked if this could possibly be done today they told us it will be difficult as there was a National strike (typical) . All this within 24hrs of launching!! we explained that we need this decision by lunch time tomorrow because of the state of the tides and that we can actually only get in or out of this boat yard once a month, because we draw 2.2 draft. So we left the office feeling very unsure if we would get a decision in time.

We decided to carry on and flogged ourself yet again for the rest of the day. Mr Bruce put us/Steely in the hoist so we could finish off the anti-fouling and work under the keel shoe.

One thing I was really struggling with was actually getting the Avon dingy back into a rather small bag (if I had not taken it out of there myself I would swear it was the wrong one) so with much huffing and puffing, folding it in various ways I was loosing my fight with dingy badly!  Luckily for me though our good friend Barry off yacht Beleza came to visit, so I set him the challenge of getting it into the bag for a beer, half an hour later an a total work out (who needs a gym in this game?) it was all tucked away in the bag! after several more hours of the 3 of us beavering away we all then flopped out with a good old glass of red wine or three.

So the BIG DAY we still had no word from Customs but we carried on from the night before with all checks, cleaning, shopping etc the wind had picked up through the night and there were gusts of up to 25 knots (typical, as most days it would have been hard to fly a kite!) Mr Bruce came and proceeded to start taking us to the key side (we must have been released by Customs,  nice to be informed !!)

Of course it was not so straight forward! when Bruce lowered us into the water Nigel immediately found water in the bilges, on investigation it was coming in through the stern gland! however the engineering team were to hand, Phil and Mary from Papa Kilo and Barry. With Bruce becoming increasingly impatient the boys where beavering away an poor Phil and Mary were running round the yard looking for a rather large spanner. By this time Bruce had removed his hoist and was shouting about high tide and how we would end up on the mud and other words of great comfort! He then proceeded to abandon us and take the hoist to fetch the next boat to be launched, while Danni & Graham from Nutcaracker waited patiently as they were to be leading us out (to Graham’s horror  lol)  as they knew the way. Graham was making noises of not being liable of navigational errors!

We are absolutely shattered!! We have been so busy with small jobs, big jobs such as tightening guard rails  anti-fouling the log wheel painting the deck in non-slip paint and so many other bits and bobs . We really can not believe how much work we have put into our boat!!

When we have launched we shall introduce ourself s much more formally, and back date our story from the time we bought Steel Appeal. We just wanted to make a start, so apology’s for the back to front blogging but we had to start some where.

Well after many hours of Nigel spending time in the small confined space of the ‘engine room’ (not so sure you can actually call it a room lol) contorting himself and sending the air a little blue at times it is now working!!! 3 cheers for my man hiphip hoary 😀

Things are now more definite for the ultimate date of the 23rd, pics to follow soon!

A good day! the top sides are all painted, polished and very much completed, the hull now has all the annodes on too!

We here by declare the exterior ready for the big splash 😀 whooh!!!!

Well we really are becoming very hopeful that we will be able to launch on the 23rd (xx fingers crossed xx) the anti-fouling is completed. Nigel is, ‘dare I say’ actually winning with the engine!!

So I will be polishing the top sides tomorrow (Happy Mothers day me lol) An Nig will continue with his domain of the engine and the heads