1st September 2004
In the early hours of morning on a sunny September day we made our way to Nieuwpoort, Belgium via ferry from Dover. It was arranged to lift PINTA out of the water at 11:00hrs so it was imperative that we arrived as near to that time as possible over wise the lift out crane would be in use elsewhere.
We arrived with minute to spare, I went to the harbour masters office to pay for the lift out and also to find the lift out area. We made our way to this area, just down form one of the local chandlers.
The surveyors carried out a really thorough survey, taking about fours hours and in fact so thorough that the survey carried on for a further 40 minutes after she was back in the water. Once complete they cave me there initial verdict, as this was very favourable I proceeded the negations and then finalised the purchase agreement.
After this we made our way back to the tunnel terminal, our original plan to air on the side of caution would be to return on the 19:00hrs mission but after paying the penalty (£10.00) for arriving early we managed to depart some 3 hours ahead of schedule.
They final survey report arrived first by email followed shortly after by the written report.