The day has arrived at last. We pack as much of the boat stuff into the car as we can and set off for Thames and Kennet marina for a 13:00 appointment!
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| Luckily just 2 of us were travelling to the marina! |
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| The old dog blanket was just to stop the petrol can rattling around! |
The traffic on the way was conspiring against us; it took an hour to cover the first 10 miles and almost the same to get through Sonning! We arrived a little late but no bother, Guy was ready with the paperwork and we were eager to get on board.
There had been a few challenges during the last phase of preparing the boat for us. A water leak from the water pump had allowed a significant volume of water to escape into the bilge and when fitting the engine the platform transom developed a large crack! Although obviously disappointed I didn't want to let this spoil the moment and it was clear that Tingdene and Viking had done and were doing everything they could to rectify the situation. The transom had been repaired and strengthened and most of the water removed (some further investigation and drying out to be done this week). At times like this it's more important to judge the suppliers on how they go about resolving the situation rather than the situation itself. I have great confidence that both Tingdene and Viking will soon have everything rectified and that this will be nothing more than a small hiccough in my ownership experience. This is the first 295 to be delivered and it's been a learning experience for everyone involved, the subsequent boats will of course benefit from this learning.
Because of these unexpected problems time had not allowed for all the PDI jobs to be finished, but rather than delay delivery we were able to take the boat as planned and the list of minor snags will be dealt with this week.
So after a talk through the challenges they'd experienced we were led out to the boat!
Life's too Short looked fantastic and we were all smiles! This was the first time we had seen her in the water, engine fitted and clean. Guy showed us around the boat and the various checks that are needed before and after use (I'll be making a checklist book of course!) before taking us for a little test run around the marina.
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| Happy Caroline at the helm, it's her birthday on 29th and we joke that this is her present |
After our test run we moor up again and set about unloading the car and finding a home for everything. It took 3 trips with a trolley to bring everything from the car, feeling thankful that our boat had been allocated a mooring not too far from the car park!
We soon learned that marina-living is very friendly and laid back. We were made to feel so welcome by everyone we met with many offers of help and advice. I think we're going to settle in very well, it's not unusual for me to spend 2 hours doing something that should take 15 minutes as I'm so easily distracted by anyone who fancies a chat!
Before dusk we named and blessed Life's too Short with a bottle of fizz.
After a cooked supper and a bottle of fine wine we settled down for the evening. We couldn't get the TV tuned (problem with the aerial I think) so made do with the radio for entertainment. We were very pleased to have a decent heater as the temperature soon fell to no much above freezing.
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| Two of the other boat names we considered |
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