Steve Bloom joined me for a day trip to Heronshaw and the Paxton Princess which was delayed by problems with delivery of my new Howard Hayle rope cutters. Upon arrival in Horning, we still collected the boat and took it to Barnes Brinkcraft and they lifted it out for us to do some scraping and sanding of the rubbing strakes. Home to Paxton for a couple of hours with the family before bedtime.
Up very early at 6.00am, worried that Steven would arrive fifteen minutes later and catch me not being ready. I need not have worried as he had overslept and did not arrive until three quarters of an hour later. By this time, I had loaded up the Range Rover to be all ready to go and we set off for Bar Hill. There was disappointment that the cutters had not arrived. We were advised to wait a while and so ate a hearty breakfast at the nearby Little Chef before returning to find them still not there. We pre-occupied ourselves with trying to load up the new P.C. Maritime Wayplan charts but found that they had either sent the wrong ones or that the installation programme was faulty.
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We then heard that the cutters were not to come for us and so decided to set off for Norfolk having wasted several hours of our time. Telephoned P.C. Maritime and Hayles on the way and they sought to trace the cutters, calling us back later to establish that they had been delayed at the "Colney Depot" but had now arrived at Cambridge whilst we had already travelled half the way to Norfolk! We dropped in at Barnes Brinkcraft and saw Daniel Thwaites who said it was OK to bring along the boat for lifting out before lunch so that we could have a look at the problem. We were soon to cast off the boat from Heronshaw, cruise up the Bure to Wroxham and arrive at Barnes in time for them to lift the boat out as arranged. It was now time to eat, and I had two prime pieces of fried plaice for lunch from the Wroxham fish fryers which I thoroughly enjoyed and then went on to Roys to get some scrapers and varnish remover to have a go at the lower rubbing strakes whilst the boat was lifted out.
We continued on until dark and had not only got the varnish off the rubbing strakes, but had sanded down much of it and stripped off the teak on the bathing platform as well. The Paxton Princess had run well today, with engines and heating functioning, but I still felt that the starboard engine was hunting slightly and want to get to the bottom of this. The new software from PC Maritime is also giving me some worry but I will return to Norfolk tomorrow and try to sort it out. I had called them later today and asked them to put the right disks in the post for me but I do not expect to receive them if recent experience is anything to go by! Home this evening with a couple of hours to spend on my journal and family and then relaxing in time for an early night.