We waited and looked at the pictures of Kaiako being built over and over... It was a exciting time. All pictures are in the websites albums.
Then came the day. We were notified that Kaiako was loaded onto the container ship and were sent pictures of the loading inspection. That was pretty cool.
Rob got the AIS id of the container ship and we tracked it almost every day. It certainly built the anticipation as it got closer to NJ.
I was able to join Bob and Ira from Multihull source on the adventure down to NJ to accept the boat. We got there at 7am in the morning and had to go thru Port Security. That took a bit. Then we were escorted over to the container ship.
The boat had not been unloaded yet. We were allowed to enter the container ship and climb thru to where the boat was loaded. Pretty awesome to see the boat nestled into a hold. I was very surprised that we were allowed to enter the ship. A container ship has got to be one of the most dangerous places I've wondered about. It has all sorts of steel projections that are sharp just stinking out every where. I can't imagine moving around it in a large sea.
The port crew unloading the vessel decided that they would just lift the boat and drop it on the ocean side of the container ship. Then we would climb down a cargo net to get to the boat. Not really a good idea and the were going to use a 16' spreader bar where as Kaiako is 21' wide. I objected to this as I believed it would have put undue stress on the boat.
So started a 3 hour wait. The unload crew left us in the boat with no way to get out for a few hours, I think to see if we would give in. We didn't. We had contracted for a water discharge. That is the boat is to be placed in the water as part of our shipping contract.
So once we were able to get off the ship the port manager told us we would have to pay a additional fee of a few thousand dollars for them to discharge the boat the next day. He indicated that he had to bring on a special crew and we would have to pay the fee at that moment or they would have to schedule the water discharge at a later date. Of course then we would also pay for storage.
Quite the racket. We paid....
The next morning we arrived at 8am as instructed and the port crew were ready to go with the correct spreader bar and straps. We were in the water with in 2 hours.
Finally I got to drive the boat... We had a reservation at Lockwood Marina were we would assemble the boat.