We had a good trip to Lymington, the tide was with us so we got about 10 knots, wizzing along, we arrived about 3 in the afternoon and a steady stream of men came aboard! Curly the carpenter, bald as a coot, Kevin the painter, Keith the planner, the man from the crane and so it went on. We had to go out for tea as there was nowhere to sit and nothing to cook with! And anyway we needed a drink.



|Next morning at 8.30 we were in position and lifted out by 9am, sent to have our breakfast and when we got back she was in the shed. Another man came and bought us a ladder, locking it onto Rowena with a bicycle chain so it could not disappear and we carried on emptying.

Russ took all the stuff in the landrover up to Trevor and we caught the train back to Portsmouth, the flat was full of all the other stuff we had previously emptied so that had to be tidied up. Yet another drink was needed.

So that's where she is now and will be until March 2011, whilst she has new decks, is painted and has the gearbox and rudders and propellers checked over.

We had to almost empty Rowena before she went to Lymington to get her new decks. Not an easy task with 10 years worth of junk in her! As you can see from the photo the waterline moved up about an inch, the shame of it having that much stuff on her, we must try harder when she is back in the water not to load her up so much.

We finally got around to mending poor old Rowena's 'by pass' and just look what we found. All this gunk was stuck in the t piece, actually I spotted it and asked what was stuck up there, I'll make an engineer yet.

Paul replaced the t piece and all the plastic piping and every looks good, we ran the engines and they were fine.

Keep watching this blog because Rowena is about to go to Lymington in the big sheds and have new decks! I will be taking plenty of photos and moaning about the cost probably.