A Lovely Surprise for Chris

Chris had a lovely surprise this evening.  Mary, Chris's mum has made good progress over the last few weeks and has now been discharged from hospital and is in a nursing home pending assessment for a care home.

Chris rang the home to see how Mary was doing and was asked to ring back in 10 minutes. When she rang back she was pleasantly shocked to hear her mum speaking to her.  The nurses had brought Mary to the phone so she could speak to Chris and the pair of them had a good old chin wag for 20 minutes.  Chris's face was a picture as she chatted to mum and I could hear the Mary we used to know coming through now and then.

It is such a relief to know Mary is making good progress and that she is happy in the home.   I think this is a big weight lifted off Chris's mind.  It means that now, not only can Chris see her mum when ever she can get back to Essex,  she can also speak to her more regularly on the phone, an option not available whilst she was in hospital.

Here we go AmyJo

Chris and I paid another visit to Alexander boats today.  For Chris it was the first time she could actually see something real.  Like me on my last visit she was like a kid with a new toy.

We parked up and walked into Jim's shed and there was AmyJo.  We could not believe how much Jim had done in such sort time.

Does my bum look big in this?

Jim has the sides in place and all the ribs.  The swim was there and so was the stern floor.

Chris standing at the bows, thinks we're gonna
need an intercom system, or semaphore flags.

Jim was starting to put the last plates of the hull sides in place as we walked in and her hull was starting to resemble a boat.

AmyJo now looks even longer

We walked to the bow and found Jim had cut this to shape already to take the plates that will eventually make the Josher bow

Chris simply could not resist and wanted to walk inside to get a good feel for AmyJo.

No Chris its not going to be the Jacuzzi,  its the engine bay! Silly

Chris playing hop scotch with AmyJo's ribs

Chuffed to bits or what?

It getting difficult to fit all of AmyJo into the picture frame now

 After an hour looking over AmyJo and having a cuppa and a chat with Jim we headed home in the rain.  We'll leave Jim to it for now and we'll visit again in two weeks time as our friends Derek and Vicki are coming to stay next weekend.  Meantime Jim will continue to send us photographs of his progress to wet our appetites.

From flat plates to something resembling a hull

Since I last visited Alexander Boats Jim has been busy working on AmyJo.  Tonight I received some photos showing his progress and they blew me away.

Suddenly it dawned on me this really is happening and we cannot wait until Saturday when we are going to see AmyJo in the flesh as it were

The hull sides rolled and ready to be welded to the base plates

The ribs going in and the stern takes shape

All the ribs are in and the stern sides are fabricated

Bow or stern, only the stern tube gives a clue

At Last, AmyJo is born

A big day today and for us a major milestone.

I went to Alexander boats today and arrived just in time to see the steel arriving.  Jim was busy with the fork lift positioning one of the plates into place so I waited patiently not wanting to disturb him

And here she is.  The first two of AmyJo's three base plates.

The second plate is lowered into position

Each plate measures 8 meters by 2 meters

A few minutes later and the final third plates is positioned

Gently does it

Thats Jim in the distance

After the last plate was laid the full 67feet of AmyJo became apparent.  In the above photo I was standing taking the photo at what will be AmyJo's stern whilst Jim stood at her bows.  My thoughts were, my god she's long!  I'm not too worried I have handled a 68 foot boat whilst on holiday a few years back so am looking forward to seeing how AmyJo "swims" as the term for moving through the water is called.

The steel for the hull sides should be arriving on Wednesday and Jim has promised to mail me photos of his progress so I've started a Build page where I'll put them all.

And we're off, well we will be Saturday

Fantastic news, we just got word from Jim that he will be laying AmyJo's baseplate on Saturday.  Can't wait!

Apparently the Steel will be arriving on Friday so he can get started.  Not sure how much we'll see on Saturday but photos are to follow in the next post

At the starting Block

I realised today that Jim at Alexander Boats only had an email address to contact me by so I've emailed him our telephone number and rang him to tell him.  To be honest his email was knawing at me so much I could not resist.

Whilst on the telephone he informed me he would try an lay our baseplate on Saturday if he can get the steel inside.  He will email me on Friday to let me know if we are go on this or not.  This is great news for us as it means Chris will be able to be with me to see the event as she cannot get time off work at short notice.  I guess she will be please she can be there with me.

So now this week cannot go fast enough but then I should not wish my life away, still I bet it will be the longest week on record.

Email out of the blue

Yesterday I received an email from Jim simply stating the boat in his shed is being shipped out to Fernwoods on Wednesday, 7th November and was getting our steel immediately.

I've replied asking whether that means he is getting the steel on the same day or he means our base plate will be laid immediately.  If the former I've asked he let us know when the base plate will be laid.

Reply to an email I never sent

I'm a bit of a gadget man if I were to admit it.  

I have an android phone and can receive all my emails on it.

I was somewhat surprised then when I received an email from Julia at Ferwoods addressed to Chris.  In the email Julia informed Chris that Jim was shipping the boat in his shed next Wednesday and AmyJo's build will start immediately after that.

Naturally I replied with many thanks and so on then re-read the email.  I was still not sure I'd read correctly.  It was then I discovered as I scrolled down that Chris has used my laptop to send Julia an email and in so doing had sent it using my account.

Visit to the Beta Marine Factory

On Friday we took the trip to Gloucestershire and visited the Beta Marine factory.  There we were met by Andrew Winton who talked us through the various options that we could go for on our Beta 50.  After that he gave us a tour of the workshop floor

The Factory

The delivery area

 The engine blocks are shipped in from Japan made to Beta's specifications.

The basic block

 They are then prepared for addition of the parts to the customer's specification.  In some cases they are prepared in a silencing cocoon before shipping out.

A Beta 50 being installed into a silencer cocoon

The finished engine ready for shipping

AmyJo now has a permanant home

Hi All,
We posted a while back that we had sorted a mooring for AmyJo and had paid a holding deposit for it.  We had not realised that was a year ago until we received an email from the marina enquiring if we still wanted the mooring.  Where has this year gone?

Concerned I replied we did but decided we should go visit them to re-assure them we genuinely did want the mooring.  Saturday morning, in lovely (rare) warm sunshine, we drove out to the marina and had a pleasant chat to Sarah who runs things there.  We knew we had a mooring but not exactly which one so Sarah asked if we would like to choose one.  Unfortunately all the end moorings are taken but we chose this one on the inside of an end mooring.  Its a 70ft mooring so AmyJo should fit in comfortably.

Our mooring is on the right hand side

Interestingly the boat next to us used to be a restaurant boat but the couple who now own it are converting it into a live aboard.  Must be lovely and bright inside with all those windows.

The view from the other end of the mooring

Whilst at the marina we also got to talk to some of the other boaters who moor there and we were please to hear they all thought highly of the place so we look forward to keeping AmyJo there.  They seemed very pleasant and wished us well so I think we'll be accepted among them.  We had quite a long chat with a lovely couple called Brian and Sheila.  They have only just got their boat in the last week and were happy to show us around.  They had yet to take the boat out on a long cruise but had taken her up the cut to the winding hole and back.  Needless to say they were now totally hooked on narrow boating.

That's all the news we have for now so as dinner is on the table I'll say TTFN.