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Launch

Prelude

Before completing the work on the boat by early August 2006 I revisited the Goolwa Barrage as I was getting nervous about the Water Authorities agreement to open the removable section to allow Alcatraz through in order to exit the river.

It was soon confirmed that in view of the drought they wouldn't be able to open it until April 07 at the earliest and then there was no guarantee.

There was a suggestion I consider crane launching at the boat-ramp about 5 kms down river and after inspecting it and the state of river mouth I decided to adopt this strategy.

Having confirmed this it took 6 weeks to get all the different permits and clearances needed, which I won't elaborate on as they will be different for everybody. Suffice it to say it should be very early on any agenda to build a boat to find out who the local authorities are and what they will / will not let you do.

From the beginning I had always anticipated to load the boat onto the truck without the use of a crane as I felt we could jack it up prior to the trucks arrival and then lower it down onto the truck once it was in position.

In preparation for the move the boat was partially jacked up, using 4 Ton bottle jacks and cement blocks under the cradles it was build on. We worked the fore and aft pairs consecutively to minimise the lateral load on the cradles, but quit after raising the boat 400 mm, in lieu of 600 intended, as they were starting to show signs of stress. We decided the final 200 could be jacked once the truck was in position. The ute parked underneath illustrates how much room there was.

Day 1 - Loading the boat

To get the truck under the boat, with the paddock grass still not fully dried out, it had to back up the our access road up a reasonably steep hill. It could not manage it by itself and 2 tractors from the vineyard next door helped by pulling it up and the under the boat. Achieving the correct positioning was aided by the tyre alignment lines I spray painted on the surface.

Once positioned under the boat the ramps were lifted up in the transport position and only just cleared the bow beam.

The trailer was an air pneumatic type that could adjust the width of the bed in addition raising itself vertically by 200 to pick up its load. After the width was set we build up under the bulkheads (Mast & Aft) with hardwood pallets.

Once these were in position the spreader beams I had made up in advance were temporarily placed and the boat was jacked up a further 200 mm whilst the truck supported most of the load. Following the jacking, the spreader beams were removed, more pallets inserted and the spreader put back.

The boat, pallets etc. were then secured to the truck with numerous webbing straps as the truckie was nervous about the load shifting on the way down the hill

Day 1 - Moving off the block

Once the truck negotiate the bend just out of the tunnel it disappeared down the hill that quickly most of the on-lookers were caught out and left behind. The corner at the bottom, which was anticipated to be a big problem again negotiated without a fuss.

After a loop diversion into a paddock to get around a very tight corner a set of handrails along a culvert, spaced 5 m apart, was avoided by straddling one side.

The final major hurdle was the railway crossing signal lights, which were to close together, despite my protestations at the time they were erected (I'd started to build by then) This was overcome by a crew laying one light down without disconnecting it, while the truck passed.

After the rail crossing we pulled over on the verge, which was 8 meters wide, where we spend the night after a long day.

Day 2 - Road Transport

The journey this far had only been 400 meters from the block on small lanes which the council had given me permission to close while we on there, the rest of the journey was on the Department of Transport controlled roads, for which I had to, obtain a permit.

The conditions associated with the permit were 2 motorcycle police escorts, 2 escort vehicles and a team in front and behind the procession to dismantle and re-erect signs as required. Also travelling times were restricted to minimise traffic congestion.

The photo shows the truck travelling through Littlehampton, a small village, at 7.15 am. As part of the follow up team I got to realise just how many people, all keen to get to work, get held up by an exercise like this.

The route nominated by DoT send us inland, the first 30 km portion along the freeway, where the truck must have travelled at the speed limit, 110 km/hr

Once, off the freeway, things slowed down a bit, especially where the road undulated or where we had to negotiate obstructions, culvert edges, roundabouts etc. but the 80 km journey to Goolwa was completed in about 1.5 hrs. In fact we got there too early and had to wait for the shool traffic to stop

Day 2 - Unloading & Launch

Once we'd arrived at the boat ramp we had to wait for an hour before the crane arrived, as we were early. When it did we unloaded the mast first in order to re assemble the forward jumpers (removed to minimise the load height)

The crane then set up at the boat ramp, from where it could lift both the boat and the mast within its load radius.

The boat was launched utilising the lifting eyes I'd build in during construction and because both the fore and aft sets were build into bulkheads we used no lateral spreader beams.

The fore & aft spreader was more for convenience then load distribution.

The rigger didn't quite get the balance right in the way he rigged the spreader beam and as a result the boat lifted dipping forward.

This could have be awkward if we'd lacked depth, but as things turned out the crane had plenty up its sleave, as the load indicator clocked in at a fraction over 7 Ton (there was about a ton of water/fuel and supplies aboard). He could extend out far enough to have plenty of depth under the bow.

Once in the water I quickly inspected both hulls and was happy to see there were no leaks. Also she was floating nicely on her lines.

Day 2 - Mast

The mast was then lifted and positioned by the crane and as the stays had already been swaged, secured and finally aligned. The mast and rigging clocked in at 0.2 T, which indicates a dry weight of about 6.2T for the completed vessel.

Here the rigger can been seen unhooking the sling when the mast was secure.

Total cranage for the exercise, without travelling was 4 hours.

After a long day, we were glad to get away from the ramp and we anchored just down from the barrage where we awaited the right conditions to exit the Murray Mouth.

As things turned out this happened within days, before we'd had a chance to rig the furler and sails, so we motored out and from there to Victor Harbor on the way to Wirrinna Cove marina in Gulf St Vincent

Once we were there we had ideal conditions to complete the job which is just as well as I had to get up to the top of the mast to install the wind vane/transducer.