Ricardo & Joey go boating?

On Saturday we had a few burly friends around for a fairly traumatic event...taking the roof down to the boat. Yes we have a boat 'Roxane' (named after Richard's daughter). She's been a dream for a long time and is having to be finished off to a much lesser extent than either of us would have liked and sold. She is a beauty and one of the reasons I fell in love with Richard was because he was the kind of adventuresome dreamer that had such a boat. She is a 27 foot long symphony in steel, a highly unusual small size for a boat with a steel hull. Called an Akerboom and built in Holland she's a coastal cruiser so not quite ocean going but more than just a river boat. She lies at a place called Isleham on the fens in Cambridgeshire.
I have never even sailed in her. It was always hard to get the time to work on her as Saturdays were the only days we could and only the fine ones at that, which meant half the year (at least) was out because of the weather.
Here are aforementioned burly lads helping to load the roof onto our friend, 'Bladesies' truck.
and here taking down the old ply wood bits that held up the old tarpaulin...
Richard struggled manfully on but was clearly exhausted by such emotionally charged stuff. Having to ask other people to help him with this has been a hugely humbling experience.
At last the roof was up but still needs to be set in place properly.
Checking out the work that's still to be done...
here's a picture from a while ago of Ricardo of the rippling muscles. He's rebuilt the whole 'Super structure' (top part of boat for us landlubbers) immaculately.
and lined the interior so beautifully...
We couldn't have done what we did today though without the help of wonderful, wonderful friends who are willing and happy to give up their time to help. Thank you Jon-boy, Pauly, Bladesy, and Gary.