She Floats!

Oh – you wanted to know more about the day in La Trinite sur Mer? OK: it all started with a big shock this morning, both dock boxes on the LUCIE trailer were broken in to, most likely on the transatlantic leg of her journey. Just last fall, I had everything perfectly organized and had eight new green totes bought in which all of her gear was neatly stored and labeled. When I opened the dock boxes this morning there was not a single of the green totes in them – instead a complete chaos of all sorts of gear thrown and rummaged into the box. I was shocked and …

So I spend the morning trying to sort thru the chaos and get a feeling for what is missing and how much our regatta would be effected. But ever since LUCIE came home from Helsinki and the tool bag was missing then I had started to ship the real valuable (meaning: not easy or quickly to be replaced) stuff inside the hull, under the cover, the mast cradles and the spars – so the LUCIE tool bag, our dry bag with electronics and the yellow/black boxes with bibs and bobs were safe.

Interestingly enough the thief took all eight of the green totes (you know, the rubbermaid ones you buy at Home Depot for $10 each), but he left all four of the really expensive winch handles ($100 per piece) – definitely not a sailor.

So throughout the day I was scrambling to get LUCIE ready for launch and dealing with numerous things missing. Jamie and Greenie were of big help back home and will each bring some of the replacements.

As I had done very detailed inventory during the winter I will know to the last roll of electrical tape, what exactly is missing. And I will deal with the insurance and the shipper etc.

But the main focus was to get LUCIE to the launch pad – and as usual the big meet and greet with all the other 6 Metre crews as they were arriving or putting their boats together. Despite several things missing and some improv LUCIE made it to the launch pad by 4:30 this afternoon and got launched (see pictures attached). Then we shuttled the mast thru the marina to the launch pad – but couldn’t get that stepped anymore tonight. The local dock crew explained to me that it would be too late and that they now had to stop working. This was at 5:45. This is the same crew that went for a two hour lunch break earlier. And did not even start working before 9:30 this morning…

So tomorrow morning after 9am we will step the mast and get LUCIE to her berth in front of the SNT, I will then get all rigging done, bibs and bobs installed and prepped for some sailing on Thursday.

A very long day with lots of up and downs – but LUCIE floats, looks great and I am now enjoying a glass of red wine in our crew house beautiful backyard…

Jens

Lucie arrives on her trailer