The great engine exchange day

Thursday was the big engine exchange day for our Hennie H. I can honestly say it all went well, until the tow boat crew, whose crane we were using, lifted our old (and, to our horror, much heavier than we thought) engine off their deck at a steep angle and oil started pouring out of the head....
Well, after leaving a nice pool of it on the loading quay where we were doing the transfer, we got it on the trailer where it was also at an angle. Although slightly anxious, I was comforted to know we had several layers of tarpaulin beneath it, so I didn't worry unduly as we didn't have far to take it. Anyway, we believed there wasn't much oil left in it given the reason it had conked out in the first place was because all the oil (we presumed) had run out of the oil cooler. We should have known better...much better.
To cut a long story short, when we lifted the engine off the trailer to store it, the trailer tipped and the oil that had been steadily leaking during our short drive poured onto the road...yes...heart failure time...and there was a lot of it, so a quick brush over with cat litter and sand wasn't going to hack it.
Not only that, we discovered the engine (being so much heavier than we'd thought) had damaged the floor of the trailer too. Since it was being lent to us as a favour, the whole situation was assuming nightmare proportions.

Anyway, we spent hours on Thursday afternoon and evening cleaning up oil (cat litter, sand, detergent, the whole lot) and the whole day again on Friday (with a high pressure cleaner), all the time praying that no one from the council would come and catch us at it (think massive fine). The upside is that the pavement and road have never been so clean (thank you, high pressure cleaner) but we were both exhausted from all the anxiety and extra work.

Koos went to eat humble pie with the trailer owner who fortunately acknowledged its floor was already rotten, so they came to a mutually acceptable financial agreement. Koos is very good at charm offensives. I think I would have been so overcome with remorse I'd have ended up paying double.
I also think I'm getting too old for all this excitement.
Here are a few pics of the exchange process.

Tugboat with hefty crane arrives to help us

Crane in position

Out comes the old engine (we had to cut open the deck)

old engine landed

Then to the loading quay nearby where we had the new engine
on a trailer

new engine hoisted

And lifted onto the tugboat

Which then went back to the HH

Old engine on trailer (note the angle)

New engine on back deck. Lots of preparation and cleaning
to do first.