Finally afloat and shipshape!

Shangri La heading to the water – Karen looking on.

It’s been another couple of frustrating days, but we are finally back in the water with nearly everything back working properly.

Monday started off with Eric, the mechanic from de Kranerweerd coming aboard to start doing all the things they were supposed to do during the winter lay up.

Began with changing the ignition switch. Sounds easy enough, but as usual no job is ever that
simple.

Heading to the crane

New switch completely different size to old one, so lots more drilling into the woodwork to make it fit.

And of course the wiring was not quite the same, so needed another electrical expert to check how to wire it all up.

As planned, at 2 pm, Wim arrived with the hauler to take Shangri La to the crane.

Seems like only a while ago we were doing the same thing last year.

Lifting from the cradle

Anyway, she was lifted safely from the cradle and held just in the water for a while to check the watertight integrity.

All well this time.

(Last year we had to change one of the through-hull fittings that had developed a slight leak).

She was lowered into the water and tied up alongside.

Lowering into the water

Here, between Eric and myself, we de-wintered all systems, got main engine and generator running, finished fixing the ignition problems, removed, refitted and resealed a window that was leaking, filled up the fresh water tanks and generally got
Shangri La ship-shape again.

The problem with the heating seemed to be only a loose connection, so that is now working well
again.

And thank goodness – it might be supposedly summer, but it is still pretty chilly here!

Afloat and ship-shape!

I found a brand new windscreen wiper motor on board, so we replaced the old one, and now have a working wiper.

Water system is working, but still a problem with the hot water – pressure valve I think, so that will probably have to be changed.

Add to all this that, we had to take whole of Wednesday out to travel to Den Haag to vote in the SA General Elections, so there is not much boating time left. In a couple of days I need to go offshore to do some proper work so I can afford to pay for all this!

So the Amsterdam trip has been postponed, and we will only do a short trip to Giethoorn and Steenwijk.

Bon voyage!