Dee And Mike

[MauriceMynah]

22 hours ago, smellyloo said:

By this I mean the reader is not aware how knowledgeable a respondant is

I couldn't agree more. Even I don't know where my expertise lies 

[JennyMorgan]

On 12/20/2017 at 16:30, grendel said:

I dont think Broad Ambition would suffer from osmosis too badly, being a teak hull.

However 'gribble' worms are a very real threat to wooden hulls, especially in shallow water, I kid you not.

[JennyMorgan]

22 hours ago, smellyloo said:

I think people need to realise that they are anonymous to most viewers.

By this I mean the reader is not aware how knowledgeable a respondant is. Over time you get a feel for those whose opinion can be valued and whose should be ignored.

 

I suspect that I am not alone in having seen the structural damage done to boats on the Broads by 'experts', more often than not by house builders or joiners who think that the skills required for houses are more than adequate for boats.  I can think of one quite famous houseboat that is testament to that!

[JennyMorgan]

Gribble damage can be eyewatering, even to oak, teak or greenheart. Witness greenheart or oak piles drawn from the mud. I had a Torbay Mosquito sailing dinghy. The spruce planking, even in a forty year old boat, was perfectly sound. The hardwood keel was riddled with gribble damage.

[dnks34]

All things considered if I have a job that needs doing if I dont know how to do it I go away and learn before starting anything and if Im not convinced I can finish any job to a good and safe standard I wont start it in the first place. 

Over the years we have done most things ourselves, basic gel repairs, resealing deck fittings, engine repairs, servicing, stuffing box packing, cleaning, steering system fluid change and hydraulic pipe replacements, 12v work using proper tools to make good and proper connections with things we have added wired up and fused safely.  Even rectified so called proffesionals work, its ex hire and some of the bodges we have uncovered over the years and put right were shocking would i ever buy exhire again....probably not.  Plumbing, antifouling, anode replacement, prop cleaning, exterior painting (not the whole hull its still original gel) the list of things i feel we do to a good standard is quite long. 

Upholstery and canopy always goes to the proffesionals, we have made some small screen covers for fwd windows ourselves using correct materials tools with correct thread using a sewing machine, the only thing i wont do is gas, we did put a new freestanding cooker on ourselves but got it checked out afterwards, other than that the gas system is as purchased.  Also serviced webasto a number of times using correct specified parts, refurbed a few small window frames but had bigger ones done proffesionally, we have had the boat almost 8 years! 

Its suprising what you learn how to do if you put your mind to it. I dont have unlimited funds but even if i did I would still do a lot myself as for me it was part of the enjoyment. 

We have had a lot of fun over the years but now ready to pass her on to a new owner and will be going up for sale soon, new interests and circumstances change. 

 

[stumpy]

5 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

However 'gribble' worms are a very real threat to wooden hulls, especially in shallow water, I kid you not.

At least a wooden hull won't be bothered by the dreaded polyestermite!

 

[JennyMorgan]

1 hour ago, stumpy said:

At least a wooden hull won't be bothered by the dreaded polyestermite!

 

Pesky little blighters, allegedly very partial to grp impregnated with diesel diluted by bilge water.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, JennyMorgan said:

Pesky little blighters, allegedly very partial to grp impregnated with diesel diluted by bilge water.

Yep hence the dry bilge being the desirable option 

[Vaughan]

8 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

I can think of one quite famous houseboat that is testament to that!

Do you mean "Iolanthe"?

[JennyMorgan]

No, but prey tell us more!

[Vaughan]

You show me yours and I'll show you mine!

[quo vadis]

I used to play that up our back passage 

[Vaughan]

Those who pass by Acle will have seen the old motorised houseboat "Doris" moored on the river bank at the end of the Hermitage Dyke, which used to be Easticks boatyard. She had two small petrol engines so that she could be propelled from place around the summer regattas - towing White Boats and Norfolk dinghies behind - where she would act as the family clubhouse, complete with a skipper, a crew and a cook.

"Iolanthe" was something similar, but a pure houseboat. Long, wide and flat, about 50ft long, with "leaded light" windows all round, and a big open well at one end. A throwback to the glorious days of boating in the mid 30s. I mentioned her because her construction and maintenance had a lot more to do with carpentry than boatbuilding!

When I knew her, in the mid 70s, she was owned by the well known artist Harley Miller and his wife Maggie. I knew them because Maggie came to work for us in the winter on the yard at Womack, as a painter (that is boat painter) and they became very good friends. Many an evening we spent on board, moored on the bank at Horning opposite what used to be Southgates main yard. Harley was an excellent oil painter, but he also did glass engraving. One evening, when it got dark, we were sitting there in the front well and there was a fisherman sitting on the other bank, in front of one of the little bungalows, doing night fishing with a Tilley lamp at his side. Harley depicted this on a large balloon wine glass, by engraving the bungalow and the background on the inside of the glass, while the fisherman sitting beside his Tilley were on the outside, giving a 3D effect. It was one of the loveliest things I have ever seen.

Eventually they moved up to Scotland and what became of Iolanthe after that, I don't know.

Sorry to "wax lyrical" but why not, at this time of night? These are very happy memories for me, of what it was like to live on a houseboat, in the "old days" of the 60s and 70s.

 

 

 

[JennyMorgan]

Doris once went to Cowes Week on the Isle of Wight. An eventful life, rumoured to have been a 'Royal Knocking Ship' at one time, now something of a wreck.

[smellyloo]

11 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

Doris once went to Cowes Week on the Isle of Wight. An eventful life, rumoured to have been a 'Royal Knocking Ship' at one time, now something of a wreck.

A couple of years ago there was a thread on here suggesting she was being restored for luxury trips? Did the restoration happen?

[Guest ExMemberKingFisher]

14 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

Pesky little blighters, allegedly very partial to grp impregnated with diesel diluted by bilge water.

That old chestnut, the polyestermite. Since it was the April Fools fabrication of the late Bill Beavis for Yachting and Boating Weekly, I don't suppose it will flourish in either a wet or dry bilge.  Ironically he did invent the pesky blighter before the discovery of osmosis, so some do say he was ahead of his time.  

[JennyMorgan]

7 hours ago, KingfishersTime said:

That old chestnut, the polyestermite. Since it was the April Fools fabrication of the late Bill Beavis for Yachting and Boating Weekly, I don't suppose it will flourish in either a wet or dry bilge.  Ironically he did invent the pesky blighter before the discovery of osmosis, so some do say he was ahead of his time.  

I'm not so sure that he invented the pesky blighters, more that back in Bill's time it was widely thought that something would happen, just that no one knew what. Bill, bless his memory, predicted a malady as the odds were on that one would develop sooner or later. Such thoughts prevailed amongst anglers with the advent of g.r.p. fishing rods, some expert reckoned forty years maximum before some as yet discovered lurgy struck. Whoever that was was wrong as far as fishing rods were concerned but not far off the mark with boats and the then unknown osmosis. 

[JennyMorgan]

8 hours ago, smellyloo said:

A couple of years ago there was a thread on here suggesting she was being restored for luxury trips? Did the restoration happen?

It happened, well, it started but was not successfully finished.  A lot of hard work and good intentions but boats is boats, not houses.

http://www.lowestoftjournal.co.uk/news/look-at-doris-now-1-848774