Bartimaeus

When we agreed to get the various upgrades done on Bartimaeus in July last year, it was suggested that it would happen over winter - for some definition of winter.  I don't think any of us involved thought that definition would include midsummer's day.  The rule on the canal though is: "it takes longer than you expect, even taking this rule into account."

I had hoped to be able to witness the relaunch, but a number of things conspired against that.  A family wedding meant that Caroline and Rob would not be available to talk to us or hand over, so we opted to travel down the day after instead and catch up with them when they are ready.  That was thrown in to further disarray when the red weather warning for exceptionally hot weather was announced.  This covered the launch day and the day we were intending to travel, so we've postponed our travels until Friday (at least).

Today, I was out cycling with Kenny and Billy.  On the train this morning I was able to see evidence of movement via Where Is Bartimaeus.  Upgrades I've made to that page allowed me to get an updated view of the location every minute or two.

I have subsequently been sent a large number of pictures of what was happening, but from my knowledge of what goes on and clues from the location data I could visualise it.  First Bartimaeus was lifted off the blocks it has sat on for the last few months.

Then the lorry was carefully reversed under the suspended boat and gently lowered on to the deck.  Lorry and crane then travelled separately seven miles down the A road to Droitwich Spa Marina.  I was excited to watch the little dot moving on the map - this is likely to be the fastest speed Bartimaeus has ever travelled.

At the marina, the crane lifted the boat off the lorry and on to the special launching trailer behind the tractor.  Reversing the tractor down the slipway produces a very low fuss re-launch.  No time for popping corks, and certainly not somewhere to be smashing bottles of fizz.  From the outskirts of Dunblane I could see that Bartimaeus was in the water from my phone.

After a few checks, the boat was reversed to its temporary berth at the marina.  It is now moored alongside Watt Knot, an Ortomarine boat of a similar design and vintage.  The original owner never knew that I was secretly competing with him to try to get more solar power each day.  For all I know he was doing the same.  The competition was very evenly matched then, but we now have 50% more solar panels, which might be considered cheating.

Kerrie at Ortomarine made us a short video of the highlights of the process.

The forecast temperature outside the boat tomorrow afternoon is 36°C.  Tracking the temperature today, it seems likely that the inside temperature will be higher than that.  Even the fridge is struggling to keep its temperature in single figures. We will cower in Edinburgh where it is about 10°C cooler.  By the time we arrive on Friday, things should have cooled a similar amount.  It still may be a sticky first night aboard though.