Coachline tape succesfully removed,and a very red faced moment!.

 It has taken us 2 days to remove the tape from the cabin sides. On Saturday the weather was set fair and hot and so after taking a trip across to the waterpoint, all of 10mtr, and then reversing back to the offside of our mooring, Ian armed himself with a freezer scrapper and my hairdryer and started to try and get the tape off. Well after an hour of getting nowhere fast and more swearing then I have heard from Ian in a long time, a car pulled up alongside and in it was Graham from Nb Best'o'mates. They had arrived on the 25th August to leave the boat at  Langley Mill moorings for a few weeks. Graham was on his way back to the boat to fetch some blue loo.

Graham on the tiller with Jennifer talking to Howard, ECP&DA chairman

  He took one look at Ian's pathetic attempt and said we needed a hot air gun. This is the one thing Ian ruled out as he was afraid our paintwork would blister, but Graham assure us this wouldn't happen. So we borrowed a hot air gun from the canal society, set it to its lowest setting, and very gingerly and with a lot of trepidation aimed it at the tape. Guess what. It worked. With a bit of teasing the tape peeled off but in a few places it stubbornly kept breaking. Ian again used my freezer scrapper as well as aiming the hot air at the tape, but as the scrapper was plastic only succeeded in melting it!!! The only other tool Ian had at his disposal was a small metal scrapper, so with me pointing the hot air gun at the tape and Ian scrapping and pulling, we managed to get the tape off. Some adhesive was still been left behind and trying most of the tips given to us in my update post comments, we found that Tetrosyl paint thinners which softened the glue and then white spirit to clean it off, seemed to work the best.
 
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Strange how the paint under the tape was blue!

Using the hot air gun and my plastic scrapper.

As you can see, some adhesive was left behind. The back panel with our sign writing on had already been cleaned. Quite a difference!!

Now I come to our cringe moment. I'll set the picture. Its the weekend and Langley Mill is very popular with visitors especially when the weather is good.  We have just finished removing the tape from the first side. Next job was to push the boat the 7ft to the other side. So I push the bow and step back. Ian pushes the stern and also steps back. Then realisation hit us, neither of us had a rope!! Thats when it went horribly wrong. With everyone watching the boat comes to a gentle halt right in the middle of both banks. There it was 3 1/2 ft from both sides and refusing to move. Now what do we do. Laughter and smirks from those around us didn't help a bit. Our pole was on the boat, there was no one else around with a pole so all we could do was wait and hope the boat floated back to us. Then Ian had a brain wave. He lay on the ground and with me holding onto his feet,  he stretched as far as he could. I had visions of him going head first into the canal. It was bad enough being snickered at from those around us but think of the hilarity if Ian had gone in!!!After several attempts, edging ever nearer to getting a ducking, Ian managed to grab a fender and pull the boat into the side. Cheering and clapping ensued making us even more red faced. Moral to this tale. Don't let go of the ropes!!

Before the tape was removed
Note the distance between the two banks and then visualise the boat smack bang in the middle!!!

 and after.