Alanne Afloat - Day 230

Fuelled-up, engine checked, water tank full, food cupboards full and ready to go.  I can hardly believe we are about to set sail and head south for winter.  Only two jobs remain outstanding - - The fuel gauge and the replacement for damaged fridge door.  Garry assures me they will be fitted soon,  We will be going back to Orchard Marina to pick up my car -- eventually, so hopefully Garry will have the outstanding parts. Johnny came over to "Alanne" at 7.45am this morning, he came to mount the CE plates and wish us bon voyage, Johnny has been a great help over the last 9 weeks, it was his weekend off, but he still came over to put the finishing touches on "Alanne".

We fired up the engine and set off  at 10.10am.  I almost got out of the marina without a bump, but failed miserably when I hit the opposite bank of the canal, no damage to the boat, only my pride.  The rest of the day went without problem and we negotiated locks and bridges without incident.  We moored for the night near bridge 22 on the Shropshire Union Canal.  We are at last getting into the swing of cruising and with no fixed plan for each day, we are going to chug along and if we see something of interest we will have a break and wander off for a close up look.

The story of "Alanne" is almost complete.  We have had many ups and downs over the last 9 months and our problems have not been unique.  Wrong drawings given to build team, wrong boat built, not kept in the loop, un-answered phone calls, no reply to text messages and wasted journeys.  Amazingly we met Ken and Sandra who recently took delivery of a Collingwood boat, "Hummingbird" and all the above wheezes used with us were also visited on them.  The finished boats are great, they have a high quality fit-out and look stunning, but the delays and mis-information will almost certainly grind you down.  "Alanne" was originally going to take 6 to 8 weeks to complete and deliver, no show stopping modifications were added and the finished boat is almost exactly as my original drawing.  Mid February was the original agreed finish date,but it was almost 8 months down the line before we could start our first real cruise.