Staying A float

After a busy 2019 shifting boats all over Europe, Ashley Peden had his world turned upside down when coronavirus struck, but he got going again with a trip to Norway which ended with some wonderful news from home

- Ashley Peden

In June 2020, Covid-19 had a lot to answer for. I had been incredibly busy shifting boats right up to the Monday night Boris Johnson announced the lockdown in March. The next day I managed to get one boat off the trailer and another back on and get it home - where it sat for weeks in the yard. I have a few trailers I can use for transporting boats so it didn’t cause any problem, not that there was a lot of movement in that game.

As a company we had to furlough staff, cutting back to only a couple of us. I kept one lad motoring as best I could hauling general goods that were still deemed as essential. I did a bit of driving and in between times helped my dad put up the loft in the workshop we had been talking about for five years since we put this massive shed up! On our general haulage side we move seed barley, wheat, spuds etc. for the agricultural sector and thankfully that work had to continue.

We also do farm machinery and sewerage equipment which is also classed as essential work. I was determined to keep going as best we could. All being said it could have been a lot worse, but it wasn’t exactly efficient, transporting stuff one way with a lot of empty running.

With flats we can double bank them, to save on shipping costs from Ireland, but it still wasn’t what you’d classify as being profitable. We covered our costs, thankfully the price of diesel and the shipping companies’ fuel surcharges were down so we managed.

In mid-May things were starting to open up, and with the wonderful weather there were folks looking to move boats again. On Thursday 21 May after over eight weeks we finally got the yacht I loaded back in March off one of the trailers. Plus I was now rushing to arrange another trip to Norway for a good customer of mine.