The Perch - Latest Activity

From Chris Gane:

What a great response from the community to the appeal for bolts. I have received bolts or offers from David Norrie, Richie Dinnes, Alasdair MacColl, Dave Cash and especially Trevor Potts who went off to Newco Engineering in Fort William. We now have enough to fix the upper half to the lower part until the full marine spec versions arrive.

There was a big effort today to get the lower part cemented into the concrete block on the reef. The on-shore party consisted of John Chapple (who lent his mixer), Richard O'Connor, Angus Gane and Grant Cameron (who had come up to Kilchoan with the Ganes for a quiet holiday but ended up on concrete mixing duty). Lauren and I went out to the reef on a boat laden down with the perch, supporting blocks, buckets, cement and anything else we might need. As usual, Commodore MacColl was making sure everyone did everything right. Out on the concrete block we dropped the lower part in to the pre-drilled hole and braced it with stone wedges. Then we cemented in an old feed bucket (donated by Pat McPhail) upsidedown around the base using fast setting cement donated by Dave Cash.

Then the on-shore team got to work with the mixer and made 3 batches of a very strong cement that is usually used to make bridges and flyovers. This was ferried out to the perch by Angus in another boat and hauled onto the reef where it was poured into the hole and pushed down into every crevice.

As the concrete started to go off we wrapped the whole block and perch in a type of industrial clingfilm to try and stop the actions of the waves during the incoming tide from washing the soft concrete away.

We won't know how successful we've been for another couple of days when we will go back out to fix the upper section to the base. If all goes well we'll have a perch ready for the Regatta and something in place to help all boaters come into Kilchoan Bay safely.

Once more, thank you to everyone who has provided materials, tools, equipment, help and support to the project so far - a great community project!

Many thanks to Chris Gane for story and pictures.