So the two double deck rigs were moved from Monmouth Boat Club to Dave Watts’ driveway for 10+ days (Thanks Dave!).

Mark Schneider worked with Victor and they determined that we could save a ton of $$ by using Mark’s loading dock at his plant to pack the boats. So… Change of plans !!!

Mark goes to pick up one of the rigs from Dave’s house – and successfully delivers it to his plant ! For some crazy reason – he did not get his fill of driving other peoples double deck rigs – so he returns to Dave’s house (over an hour away) to pick up the 2nd rig !!!

Ten minutes into his return trip – a blowout on the double deck trailer, on a dark road. Mark makes the tire change, drives to a local gas station (to make sure things looked ok) and returned the boat back to Dave’s house – fearing something was odd with the trailer.

I drive up to Dave’s house this past Monday and inspected the trailer. It seems that the wood block that goes under the springs had compressed – forcing the fender very close to the tire. So, I jacked the rig up and inserted a handy mast block under the existing wood block, removed the jack, and drive off biting my nails to Mark’s plant. The rig made it – and I parked it next to Rig #1.

Yesterday, Mark recruited the help of some very nice, Lightning local fleet sailors to help us with packing the boats. Bruce + Bart Nicholson, John Mangan, and Millian Tweerdy, all helped with stuffing the container. We used Tommy’s very detailed packing instructions and we were done in about 90 minutes !

The great thing is --- we now have a process in place to get boats shipped overseas. Mark’s facility makes it very easy and convenient to store and pack boats to be sent. Also, the costs that we saved by having the container stored in his yard at no charge, and packing it ourselves saved lots of $.

When the Finn’s and Ian’s Australian boats are ready to ship – we will be a well oiled machine !