The journey home started off in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, being loaded into a covered car transporter. This was the second attempt as initially the courier sent a trailer designed for wide American cars and little Helen's (Mary christened her) girth was too narrow to fit. Good news was she had another Healey to keep her company. Note in the first picture the price of petrol (gas) - I suggested to the seller that at $3.259 per US Gallon, and we are currently paying £1.45 per litre (which equates to $7.519 / US gal) it would be a good idea to fill up the tank. Unfortunately the tank has to be drained before shipping.
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The vehicles were taken to New Jersey to be loaded into a container, before loading onto the OOCL Seoul container ship. Progress of the ship tracked on a shipping web site, which was infuriatingly slow as it docked, moored, and general hung around off the US coast. Finally it headed off across the Atlantic and docked in Southampton on Sunday 28th November 2021. It was unloaded and cleared customs very quickly so was available for collection on Tuesday 30th November.
Nick & I loaded up his trailer and we headed off to the south coast on the Thursday. It was a text book 390 mile journey down so all looked good for an easy enjoyable couple of days away. Friday did not start paricularly well with a puncture on one of the trailer wheels - fortunatley we'd brought the spare so changed that before leaving the hotel. The J&A Marshall guys at the docks were brilliant and the car was soon loaded up onto the trailer with their assistance and we were on our way.
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Heading off through some roadworks on the dual carriageway we heard a noise coming from the trailer - best check it out at the next services. Good job we did as one of the trailer wheels had managed to work itself loose, damaging the rim by opening up the stud holes, and now was hanging on by just three nuts. Now down to three good wheels, a punctured tyre and a damaged rim - what to do? Fortunately there was a garage at the services that sold Tyre Weld, so a can of that repaired the punctured wheel and was replaced back onto the trailer.
A check at the next services reassured us that all was now good so we continued our journey until... a car passed us on the M1 and the driver started gesticulating. Fortunately we'd left the Smart Motorway so could pull over onto the hard shoulder. Catastrophe! Another tyre had shredded itself! We had a decent tyre in the boot (the one we'd taken off at the service station) but that had the wheel rim with enlarged stud holes so would not fit securely. An engineering solution was required quickly as lorries were thundering past us on the motorway - not a pleasant experience. The hydraulic jack that, fortunately, I'd put in the boot had washers holding it together which we salvaged. The jack was reassembled (without washers) as we needed it to jack up the trailer, and the damaged wheel was jammed on using the washers - it would hold for the five miles to a tyre place in nearby Loughborough. Fortunately they had a couple of tyres which fitted and we were on our way again. Saving grace was it was still daylight (just) and not raining
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We finally made it home, in the dark, after a tortuous 400 mile journey taking 15 hours (the journey down only took 9 hours) and changing wheels on the trailer five times. Let's hope the restoration goes a little smoother.
