Date: 21-11-22
Location: Helford Passage
END OF SEASON – THE WORK STARTS!
Having enjoyed our first year of buying, and taking over Helford River Boats in Helford Passage, Cornwall, we now start our ‘out of season’ work. To the unseeing public we appear to be gone from the Helford beach and doing nothing! However, there Is so much to do including the removal of our client’s boats from the Helford Estuary and placing them in our covered workshop areas awaiting cleaning, repairing and renovation. We must also remove the mooring points from the riverbed that the boats were tethered to.
The biggest and most dangerous job was the removal of our 9 tonne pontoon from its beach mooring to the Gweek Classic Boat Yard. Throughout season, April 1st to October 31st, we saw thousands of people use our 1000-year older ferry crossing taking the ferry boat from our pontoon across the Helford Estuary to Helford Village. The pontoon will need cleaning repairing and new branded signs fixed to its sides.
This was a well planned operation including five men who would have to allow for tidal flow, the weather and the strong winds that push up the estuary. It involved the first team of men boarding the moored pontoon, that was sitting out in the estuary, who would detach the two tethers holding the pontoon in place. Our Dyson Sea Truck that was used for our popular river tours in the season, would be attached to the pontoon and slowly push it up-stream to the famous Gweek Classic Boat Yard about three miles away. From there, the pontoon was lifted out of the river and placed on a dry area for its forthcoming renovation work. Following that, the Dyson Sea Truck was also lifted from the water for the same work.
To hinder our well-planned work, the weather threw everything it could at our marine team including hail and rain making the worst possible condition to undertake this potentially dangerous task!”
