On June 19th, Bayti came out of the Lagoon Factory. She took a road trip of around 100kms from the Lagoon Factory in Belleville-Sur-Vie to La Rochelle in the west of France. La Rochelle seems to be a town that survives around the boating industry. You will find a number of sailboat, catamarans and trimaran factories there. Regardless, Bayti went straight to the yard where a company called Gulf Stream took charge of the commissioning process. All this was organized by my Lagoon Dealer, Tan Services (I think I will have a whole section about my experience with them – great experience).
I traveled to La Rochelle on the 21st of June where work had already started on the boat. You can find anything you need related to the boating industry in La Rochelle! I had 5 boxes full of personal items shipped from Dubai. A company called Renault-Delage handled my clearance and tax free documentation. My Dealer helped me sort all this out.
My dealer even had a gentleman (Patrick) who overlooked the commissioning work of Gulf Stream. Patrick helped me a lot with the things I needed to buy for the boat, which were not chosen as options earlier. These included safety equipment, specific tools, extra anchor and chain etc… All these were sourced mainly from 1 shop! ACCASTILLAGE DIFUSION! These guys became my friends, I would go to the shop at least 2-3 times a day 😀 They even opened an account for me! Super people to deal with.
My best friend Wissam joined me on the 25th of June. Frankly speaking, I could not have done this trip without him. This guy is an expert in Plumbing, Mechanics, Electrical, Electronics and IT. He basically did all the jobs that I would not have had the guts to do myself. We did the shattaf installations (bum showers 🙂 , we installed the router I bought from Dubai, we installed the antennas for the router which boost the 3G/4G signal up to 20nm (Nautical Miles). He installed the security system, the BBQ, name stickers as well as a number of other things and most important the TVs in both the main salon and the master bedroom. We had a blast!
On the 28th of June, my brother in law also joined us. We completed all the pending jobs and were ready to go. The boat was in the water on the 28th in the afternoon.
Provisioning for the trip should have a post on its own :D. Wissam, Omar Patrick and myself went to the big Carrefour in the area… we had no idea how to shop for 10 days! 4 guys (with a firth not 100% confirmed)… we agreed that each one would buy what he thinks is enough for himself for around 10 days. 5 trolleys were stacked to capacity. I think we had around 10KGs of pasta alone. What we did not consider is how we would fit 4 big guys, 5 trolleys of shopping into a tiny car! We managed! This was one of the occasions where we teared from laughter.
All stocked up, we went out for a test sail on the 30th of June, and were now ready to set sail for the 1st of July!
