On The Move

At last the day has arrived for me to move Jomima, with the help of a large truck, to her new home at Mayflower Marina in Plymouth. The truck arrived at 8:00 am at Newark, where I had stayed overnight on Jomima to avoid an early start and the heavy commuter traffic. I gave that sort of thing up two years ago when I took early retirement.

There was already a boat on the truck when it arrived and that was quickly unloaded and put in the water. Jomima was then lifted out from her home of the last six months and placed carefully on the lorry. While all of the straps were being fitted I took the opportunity to anti-foul the six places where supports had been placed to support Jomima during the winter. I had carefully kept the remains of a tin of paint for this purpose because, if I did not complete this work, we would have been trailing six clumps of weed within a fairly short period of time.

The journey to Plymouth, at a steady 55 mph, was uneventful. However it did rain quite heavily half way down which liberally coated Jomima in dirt and traffic film, some of which remained in the usually covered helm area. After a short wait, outside Plymouth, we met the escort vehicle for our wide load. We then proceeded into the unloading area at the marina to park overnight for unloading tomorrow.

Trucking Back to Newark on Trent

On the 6 August at 0800 prompt, the crane arrived. It was an enormous 60-ton capacity machine that they had hired for lifting a large steel boat. It was easily big enough to lift 10 tons of Jomima. Normally, she is lifted by a specialist boatlift, which straddles the boat and lifts her on two adjustable straps. When they came to lift Jomima with a crane with straps that were a fixed distance apart, they realised that they would have to lift her nose down. I am not usually nervous when they do this but today, with an ‘ordinary’ crane, I was. I actually had difficulty watching as they made the lift and raised her comparatively high in the air before putting her on the back of the truck. I should not have worried, they certainly knew what they were doing and the process went relatively smoothly.

By 10:15 am, we were on our way south and into the heavy rain. Jomima was clean when we set off but she was covered with a traffic film very soon afterwards. The route south down the A9 was magnificent – or it would have been if it had stopped raining. Still, from my position high up in the passenger (second man) position it was possible to see a good deal more than you normally can from the seat of a car. The rain continued all of the way to where we stopped for the night at Penrith. This is a secure trucking stop where we were able to get a good meal, and limitless tea, for a very reasonable price.

I slept in my usual bed on Jomima but was woken at 05:30 by the roar of trucks leaving for their next destination. We left at 07:00 and were in Newark for midday where she was safely unloaded and returned to the water.

Travelling to Scotland

After months of planning, Jomima was just about going to be ready for lifting onto a truck, for transporting to the west coast of Scotland, by Thursday 15^th May 2008. On the Tuesday before she was due to go I received a call to ask if we could be ready a day earlier because the truck was ahead of schedule and they could then bring a return load back

from Scotland on the Friday. The return load saves me having to pay for the truck to travel back from Scotland empty and therefore saves me money. So, after a busy 24 hours, we were ready for the off a day earlier than planned.

Jomima is nearly 4m wide and is therefore a “wide load”. This means that the driver needs a “second man” and an escort vehicle for the last few miles of the journey to Inverkip from Greenock near Glasgow. I had agreed to be second man so, once Jomima was loaded after lunch, we headed north up the A1 from Newark and then across the A66 to Penrith. The A66 is one of the highest roads in England so the views were great. At Penrith is a secure truck stop where we were able to stay the night with the driver sleeping in his cab and me sleeping high up on the back of the truck in Jomima.

Cruising Back by Truck

I had originally planned to take Jomima back to Newark on Trent, which is near our home and where we bought her from, via a cruise up the east coast of England and then down the river Trent from Hull. However that is a journey of about 400 miles by water and, even if the weather was perfect, would probably take at least 3 or 4 days. Unfortunately, based on our recent experiences, the weather would have been diabolical for two out of three days so it would probably have taken us two weeks! If you then factor in the cost of the diesel and moorings the other way back is more appealing i.e. by truck.

Jomima is 13 feet wide so a second man is required to help the driver. I had to get back to Newark myself anyway, so I became the second man. The day was planned to with an early start but the yacht that they had to lower in first, at Swanick Marina, went straight into the mud and would not move away from the crane. We therefore had to wait for the tide to come in sufficiently before Jomima could b safely loaded onto the purpose built trailer. I do admire the skill of the crane drivers when they manoeuvre 9 tons of boat and lower it precisely onto the supports on the trailer.

When we got underway it was great to watch the traffic from my lofty perch in the passenger seat of the truck. I rapidly began to appreciate the problems that truck drivers encounter as they steer such a wide and long load through the traffic. Suddenly lamp posts, pedestrian refuge signs and other tall objects become a hazard that have to be squeezed past. Main roads and motorways were relatively easy. However, as we got nearer to Newark, we negotiated a traffic island signalled left and swung out to make the turn. At that point a car then sped through the inside of us and nearly ended up under the port side of Jomima’s hull.

The last hazard was a low bridge and, after careful measurement, I was assured there would be two inches of clearance. As we swept under the bridge I listened for the crash of Jomima’s windscreen hitting metal and was greatly relieved when the hazard was passed without problems. Jomima was then unloaded and returned safely to the water.