Tuesday 17th May 2016 Pont-de-Loup. On to the dry dock

I know this is out of order but FB picks the first picture I post!
The dock, empty.

9.6° C Sunshine and grey clouds. Mike went for a look around the yard. While he was out a young man came and knocked on the cabin roof, time to go on the dock. I told him Mike was somewhere by the dock. He was back not long after and we moved round to the dock. The péniche that was on the dock had refloated and moved out and another one had just gone in. Vage from Gent looked like it had been retired a long time and was well in need of a hose down and paint, its prop was still turning and they

Our neighbour peniche Vage tying up

were just tying up as we went in. There were metal stanchions around the wall with welded-on bits to put ropes on. The two guys who were doing the docking wanted our boat on the bostocks nearest the gate. OK. Mike had already told the Vankerkoven siblings that the boat was flat-bottomed but we needed to be careful with the stern end gear as we have a skeg (a narrow flat bar supporting the rudder. No problem, but the men kept

Metal bits to tie to.

asking to make sure that the bottom didn’t slope up at the bows. Nope, completely flat. The dock slopes slightly. Once we were settled they craned the gate back in – it was in two parts and slotted into the gap, then they put the metal bridge back in place over it. Interestingly they use the same method here of stopping gates from leaking that was used in the UK when we first went boating. Called racking in the UK, it simply consisted of pouring shovelfuls of ash or dirt into the water around the gates

First section of gate going back in

edges to stop up the gaps. I took some interesting photos, especially liked the slinger hitching a lift back from the gate on to dry land on the crane hook! The péniche grounded first, on at the bows. Water was pumped out of the dock as it is next to a river and can’t be drained out like the ones we were used to on canals. Took quite some time to empty the whole swimming pool! Nothing else to be done today.