Port Saint Louis du Rhône in France

The big day! Hauling a boat out of the water is always an exciting affair, except perhaps for the shipyard workers who do it almost every day. But judging by the cautious approach of the people here, boats this big are not moved that often. In any case, when Mathias said his heart was pounding with excitement, one of the helpers replied: “My heart is pounding too!” (Communication took place by means of gestures and skilfully interspersed snippets of French 😉 ) It was most definitely not what Mathias wanted to hear.

We had arrived in the harbour the day before the appointment, and the evening before we moved the boat to the spot in front of the slip ramp.

Here we go: the slip trailer was positioned under the SAN at a snail’s pace and with precision work. One man checked from a dinghy in the water that the supports were at the right points. Very slowly, the tractor started to move and pulled the SAN up the ramp. We were very relieved when everything went so smoothly and the boat was brought to its parking space.

The worry of putting the boat on the hard was now over. A very busy time followed. Mathias cleaned the outside, we removed the remains of the barnacles, and I started packing our things into boxes. Most of the things are to be collected by a removal company. We keep asking ourselves whether this is a good idea. When you live on a boat, a lot of things accumulate. At first, we had no idea where to store the packed boxes, then we found out that there are rental storage units here and one was still available. But the question remained how to get the boxes down the ladder. We took an Ikea bag and the bag from our folding bike. These were tied to a rope so that the boxes could be roped down. Three or four together fitted onto our small sack truck and the transport problem was solved. But this work used muscles that we didn’t normally use. Every evening we fell into bed completely knackered.

The removal company had problems finding us. They were looking for a house ;). We found each other after all by means of a video call.

The first few days we spent the night on the boat, so we had to climb down the ladder to get to the bathroom. Then we moved into a small apartment, which was more comfortable, especially because it’s now much cooler at night. However, there are almost only shipyards in this area. The nearest apartments are the “Lodges de Camarque”, where we got a small hut equipped with an outdoor kitchen. It really wakes you up in the morning when you’re making coffee outdoors. 😉 The distance is not short, but with our on-board bikes it was ok.

Because we had moved into the apartment, we could now completely empty the SAN. Well, almost. There are still a few things left to do. And the month ashore was really only enough for packing and a thorough clean. Having said that, Mathias still set about making two shelves, both of which were featured on his “nice to have” list.

We travelled back to Germany by train at the end of November. We travelled to Marseille by bus and train the day before. The connections worked out so well that we arrived far too early and were able to eat out before our hotel room was ready. The next day we were able to have breakfast in peace and then walk the few steps to the train station.

The TGV departed on time and was super comfortable.

In Germany, travelling by train went well at first. We boarded an ICE from Mannheim. The delay was in the order of minutes. But then we got to the north: The tracks between Hamburg and Hanover! There had been a lightning strike there in the morning and all trains had been diverted. So we accumulated quite a few minutes of delay over the last few kilometres. Then there was a technical defect on our train, and it was only allowed to continue at a slower speed, so even the previously friendly train driver sounded exasperated. In the end, we arrived more than 2 hours late.

Our journey with the SAN is set to end in Port St. Louis du Rhone. We hope that the boat still has many nautical miles ahead of it and that we will find nice successors.

Interested buyers are welcome to contact us: info@trimaran-san.de

In this blog I will continue to report on our visits to the boat and perhaps also on the relaunch.

We would like to take the opportunity to thank our blog readers, and also thank for the many comments. It was great to see that so many of you have stuck with us right up to this blog. We really enjoyed our time on the SAN, despite the corona period throwing all our plans out the window. But if we have learnt anything during our time on the boat, it is to take a relaxed approach to changing plans, especially as the weather did what it wanted anyway. We can only recommend all those who dream of (temporarily) downshifting to take the plunge.

The website will remain, apart from news of what happens to the SAN, there are still Baltic and North Sea adventures in the pipeline……