So the story begins......

Being more of a Blur fan than a Confucius fan, the intro of Country House where in the background you hear Damon say 'So the Story Begins....' comes more naturally to me than some wise conundrum about every journey beginning with a single step - But whatever, you get the idea!

It's about 11.30 on a bright sunny Spring day in Dorset - in a village just outside Weymouth and we're collecting the boat and clapping eyes on it for the first time. Ady, our middle man has been on the road with me since 7 am ish and and we are met by James' parents and Gareth and Sarah who help out brilliantly throughout the hour and a half of retrieving bits of the boat from corners of the Chalmers' beautiful garden and tying them to the trailer (the boat parts, not Gareth and Sarah)

Then we're off - The mighty ex Rockport looking a bit deshevelled, but strapped down firmly and rolling along nicely. I had been a bit concerned about the trailer having stood out in all weathers for 2 years, so we checked the bearings a couple of times and generally took it easy -but in the end my fears were groundless - the trailer towed perfectly.

At 19.11, 12 hours to the minute after picking up Ady from the depths of Suffolk/Middle Earth, I dropped him off again and pointed the car and skiff at carbonology HQ, where 30 minutes later I was unhitching and dropping off the skiff, neatly blocking off just 4 parking spaces in the yard!

So the story begins.... or we take our first steps or whatever way you want to put it. Next step is to get her into the workshop and devise a plan... more on that in the next post.

One final point - the Ex Rockport 18ft-er already has a new sailnumber courtesy of the European 18ft association so to avoid the typing of it every time - and so as not to replace 16 key strokes with the 21 of 'the carbonology skiff' we will now refer to it as GBR52.. Cool eh?

Take me back to carbonology.com