On Monday, the 10th, Canadians celebrated their Thanksgiving. We were fortunate to find a so-called hydraulic trailer. This machine positions itself on a ramp and is able to lift Brio out of the water once she is driven in between its two arms. It is a tricky process if there is a cross-wind, because Brio can be blown off to the side, out of the reach of the two arms. On Monday, the wind was blowing 20 knots across the ramp and that pushed her to the side, out of the reach of the arms and towards the rocks that formed the breakwater. Here are the photos.
The ramp is in the upper left-hand corner of the Marina. The rocky breakwater extends down the left side of the artificial harbor.
When we discussed how Brio would be hauled out by a crane in the "Hold on. I'm Coming" post, the crane would have picked up Brio as she sat in the open commercial port to the right of the picture. Right after those arrangements had been made in early October, though, we received a call from the Marina's Julien Heraud. Julien has been an incredible help through our stay in Rimouski. He made the initial dive on Brio and discovered that the port pod was missing. He has worked to line up cranes and hydraulic trailers and chase boats. He wasn't present during these last stages due to his coming down with Covid. But he has been essential in making all of this happen.
Julien informed us that the commercial port was closed to cranes lifting boats because the commercial port's docks were deemed to be no longer stable and strong. That meant we needed to find an alternative.
The use of the hydraulic trailer was one option. Another was to tow Brio 60 nautical miles to another port. If we could find a hydraulic trailer, that would be preferable. The contact at the crane company, Mammoet, in Montreal, knew of someone who had a hydraulic trailer. It was also in Montreal. So we arranged for the hydraulic trailer to drive 6 hours from Montreal to Rimouski to haul Brio.
To give you an idea of the view of the ramp "from the ground", here's a picture of how the Marina ordinarily hauls boats on the ramp using their articulated tractor.
The man walking up the ramp is Claude. He is the Marina manager. It is low tide, and the tractor has placed a cradle mounted on wheels into the water. Next, the boat owner will drive their boat around the docks and between the dock fingers on one side and the breakwater on the other side. If all goes well, the boat will be driven onto the cradle once it is underwater. The boat is then lodged onto the cradle and is lashed to the sides of the cradle. Then the tractor pulls the cradle and boat up the ramp and tows it to wherever it goes in the boat yard.
This wheel-mounted cradle is much too small for Brio. That is why we need the hydraulic trailer. We also need a skilled team of operators, Max, the truck driver and owner, and his sidekick, Sylvian, who operates the hydraulic trailer. Max is the taller of the two.
Here is the hydraulic trailer. You can see that it is much longer than the wheel-mounted cradle. The two arms, which go from where Sylvian (in the blue shirt) is standing back to where the double axles can be spread apart so Brio (which is 15.5 feet wide) can drive in between the arms as they are underwater. Then the arms can close in on Brio's sides using the hydraulic pads to hold her in place. The pads and the arms can then "lift" Brio up so she's clear of the ground and can be transported around the boat yard and left on blocks.
So, now the trailer gets in place at the bottom of the ramp and spreads its arms so Brio can drive in between them. Below, you can see Sylvian standing behind the truck cab on the head of the trailer where the arms spread apart.
It took three tries to get Brio in between the arms. On the first two tries, the wind blew Brio to the left. On the second try, the wind blew Brio almost onto the rocks to the left! That was a very scary moment. We were able to get her stern positioned so we could back way out of the area and line her up further to the right. Then we could come back in towards the two arms, very nearly running over the floats you can see on the right, to allow for Brio to be blown to the left.
This time, we made it in between the arms where Sylvian stood. You can see below that he holds a control panel that adjusts the arms and the pads on the arms to close in on the side of Brio. This holds first the bow in place. Then Brio can move her stern to starboard or port to get her properly centered between the arms for Sylvian to make the final adjustments and "clamp" her in place on the trailer. The hydraulics on this hydraulic trailer are indeed amazing!
Once in place, Brio is towed up the ramp by the truck. We will go through the yard, just missing the other boats by inches as we thread our way to the yard entrance. You can see below just how close we are to the breakwater as we go up the ramp.
Here she comes out of the yard. She stops about here so we can use the pressure washer to clean off her bottom before she is towed out to the entrance of the boat yard and blocked up for overnight storage for the next stage.
Cheers,
Brio
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