She floats! (they always do for the first few minutes!)

It was a very busy day at Blackthorn Lake Marina, first Clive put the cruiser Carina back into the water, then a crane and a low-loader arrived and lifted out a narrowboat that Nene Boat Painters had just re-painted, then we were re-floated. A new widebeam arrived on another low-loader and was craned in and finally narrowboat Hudson was hauled out on the trailer that we had used.

Listen for our neighbour Ted's comment when Glenda says "She's floating!"

The final push before we re-float.

The blacking is finished, I've repainted the matt black along the gunwhale sides, then re-lengthened the tunnel bands (we blacked over the rear yellow roundel when we first bought them)

The stern over-plating is finished, the new rubbing strake has been curved around the stern and welded into place. I then re-instated the red tunnel band that we had blacked over when we first bought the boats. I then painted the top rubbing strake matt black and painted a matching matt black stripe above the white tunnel band. And joy of joys everything looked much better and the two tunnel bands ended up the same size. Happy days!