Cotehele Quay Friday morning and Shamrock is floating on the tide, her mooring ropes are released and she is floated over to the rear of her cradle and then hauled forwards towards her correct position over her cradle only for some reason she stops about 2 meters (6ft) short and even with Nancy Belle pushing she will not move. As the tide is starting to drop the decision is made to try and get her back over to her mud dock, this also fails. So as the tide is falling fast Shamrock is allowed to settle on her cradle where she is. Once the tide drops it is noticed that steel band that protects the stempost (bow) and continues around the stempost curve and along the bottom of the keel for about 1 metre (3 ft), had become detached on the keel section and was acting like a large hook. This had originally stopped Shamrock clearing the top section of her cradle and also stopped her being pulled back off. As the Shamrock keel is ether hidden in the mud at low tide or floating in the muddy waters of the Tamar this had gone unnoticed. Later that day the offending section of steel band was cut off and Shamrock's sternpost shored up to prevent her stern sagging. The Friday evening tide was higher than the earlier one and Shamrock was finally floated onto her correct position over her cradle. Then, around midday on Saturday, with the aid of a tractor she was hauled to her position at the top of the slipway ready for her much needed repairs.
While the crew has been waiting for the tide to be right to finish laying the slipway track, the time has been used to collect the various sections of Shamrock's cradle from Cotehele Quay boat yard and place them at the top of the slipway track. Next came the Chinese puzzle of assembling the cradle and it was discovered that the weld numbers on the various sections are not in order, but assembly was achieved successfully. The cradles old base timbers, which where rotten, have been renewed, levelled off and finally topped off with old railway sleepers on which Shamrock will sit when she is hauled out. So much for August being a quiet month!
