Patience and puzzling with 7,85m pieces

It has been a long week and weekend for us. With The Caribbean Edition getting closer, the time had come to prepare and load the boats for transport. In the last few weeks all the boats we need in Curacao and Bonaire have had a full service and perform as if they are new!

Last week was all about the final boat preparations. All the sponsor stickers had to be removed from the tubes and hulls. Of course they all had to be renewed again! This means that we spent many hours on Thursday and Friday to resticker the boats. With a 6 men strong crew it still was a nervewrecking assignment to get it all done in time. However, rushing it was not an option because the stickers have to look neat and symmetrical on the boats. Still, we were stuck on a tight schedule because the stickers also need time to attach to the boat. After placing them they need to rest for at least 24 hours for the best result. Seeing the things our boats have to go through during the Rib Rallies, they might even need 48 hours in our case!

Of course after stickering the inevitable loading started. We ship two boats (and a lot of loose equipment) per 40 feet container so it is a big puzzle on how to get the boats to fit in the containers. Eventually (and luckily) we found a way where we only had to remove the propellor from one boat and could leave the rest in one piece. This saves us a lot of reassembly time in Curacao. The boats will arrive in Curacao in a few weeks and our tech crew will be there to welcome them to the sunny Caribbean.