1 - 10 September 2009

1st September - working party meets to remove all tenders from the pontoons so Tam Grundy has a clear area to work in. It’s a hot day and I start to feel pretty tired by the end. Permanently close gates to pontoons and attach pukka safety signs courtesy of Dave Wagstaff.

2nd & 3rd September - Tam Grundy removes pontoons and steel cantilever arms

4th September - Meet John Davis and David Poole to discuss what can be done to start the ramp before the 6th October planning deadline. I decide that I should buy treated softwood for piles so that Tam G can drive them in during his time on site. John’s test bore finds only 4metres of mud before firm ground so the ramp piles only need to be 5metres long. Look at drawings of existing ramp and find the piles are 1.5metres long so its no wonder the ramp is sinking into the mud. Find its quite difficult to get hold of 5metre long 6 inch square piles but get two from Buildbase. They are 6metre long but I’m hopeful that they may get cut down to form 2 piles from each length.

7th September – Go to collect Nuts and Bolts quite a large pile of bags and boxes; probably too heavy for the car so opt to get them delivered direct to Eversons next week.

10th September - Went to DYC to accept delivery of the 2 softwood piles for the dinghy launching ramp. Thought I’d take a carload of Stainless steel plates down as well. About a quarter of the steel seemed to have the back of the car more or less down to road level. It’s now spread around the DYC veranda to make sure I don’t exceed the floor loading in one place by too much. This stuff is far too heavy to keep moving from one place to another! Decide to hang onto the rest until it can be loaded straight onto Tam’s barge. Took one look at the wood piles, they are big…fortunately the crane driver was still at Eversons so the timber got craned off the lorry and left in their yard.

Simon Shaw