The weather forecast for the day was bright and sunny and fairly warm and since the forecast for the rest of the following week was cold, overcast and wet, it was time to get the gantry cranes reassembled and Naiad suspended over the trailer before the rain set in.

Putting the cranes together took longer than I anticipated as I found that I had only marked half the components and fitting the rest together turned out to be a 'try everything and see what fits' exercise. Still, I mananged in the end. The gaff and boom on Naiad were removed, the mast lowered and the cranes put in place.

The chain hoists and strops had to be carefully placed so as not to have the strops trapped between the boat and the trailer. This also meant that they were a little further apart than I would have liked.

The lifting began with frequent checks to make sure that the boat was only lifted far enough to get the trailer underneath.

Lifting the boat in slings is always a trial. Even though I know that the cranes are capable of lifting Naiad easily, I'm always concerned about her slipping out of the strops or otherwise falling to the ground. So much so that when running the trailer underneath the boat, I only remove the blocks upon which she has rested these last few months when they impede the trailer. Then, if something does go wrong, she only has s few inches to fall and then onto wood and not concrete.  

Eventually, she was over the trailer as you can see here.

She was gently lowered until the keel rested on the two main load-bearing cross timbers.

The two new cross timbers were then adjusted upwards until they too touched the keel.

The supports for the bilge runners were then cut to size.

These were cut to be a little shorter than required, leaving a 5mm gap, more or less, between the block and the runner. These are not there to take the weight of the boat, but to stop the hull from leaning over. Having that gap ensures that they do not end up under load. If there is too much gap, bearing in mind that all the timbers are softwood and will expand and contract in the humidity and from being in the water, then I'll just add temporary shims to fit.

The next tasks are to add extensions to the timbers such that they reach the outer edge of the timbers upon which they rest, I didn't have timber long enough to make these in one piece without having to cut into a new longer length, but I did have shorted lengths and hence the compound result. Then the new supports will need to be coated in preservative and fixed to the timbers when that is dried.

Finally, I have to make four removable stops that will fit on top of these new pieces which will be fitted once the boat in positioned correctly on the trailer and will prevent the boat from slipping sideways during transit. That is the disadvantage over this new system, the boat does slide sideways easily. This is good in one sense as it means that positioning the boat  on the trailer during hauling out is easy, but this is not a good thing when towing the trailer.

Time for a cup of tea.