Cambria is on her way to Mexico! Loading went well. Yacht Express’ crew were great. It was a slick and efficient operation.
We were the last to load, squeezed between a brand-new powerboat and a newly painted catamaran. Yes, I did feel pressured to not be the one to put the first scratch on either boat. Here are a few photos from our loading day.
The Approach
We drifted in the harbour channel for about an hour while we waited for other boats to load. When it was our turn, we entered the ship from the stern. We had to line up carefully as there wasn’t much extra space between the catamaran on our port and the new powerboat on our starboard. As we entered, there were plenty of crew waiting to take our lines and move us into position.
Positioning
We tied off to the catamaran on our port side. The Yacht Express crew, together with divers in the water, positioned us so we aligned with stands on the freighter’s deck. The next day the divers would position stands under all the boats and then the water would be pumped out. We were told it would take about 12 hours to pump out the water.
Final Preparations and Leaving
Once Cambria was secure, we turned off all systems and went over our
checklists to make sure we weren’t forgetting anything. To get off, we
climbed across the catamaran beside us and up onto the narrow catwalk
which ran along the length of the side deck. We made our way to the main
superstructure which is at the front of the ship. We entered the
superstructure and climbed several flights of stairs to an area known as
the atrium where we turned over our keys and our ship’s papers. That was
it. We were done. We climbed back down the stairs to dock level and
exited the ship.
We left but the ship remained for another 48 hours while they pumped the
ballast tanks to raise the ship and then welded the stands under each
boat to the ship’s deck so they would be secure during the passage.
Cormacks On Cambria 