teadaemon

Don't quote me on this, but for the Horning Boat Show I believe the plan is for parking at Bewilderwood and a shuttle bus service. Maybe not perfect, but about as good a solution to the problem as i can think of.

Only when they're under sail power.

They've been around for a few years now, and are generally an object of derision on a number of sailing websites I frequent. As you can imagine, they don't sail as well as a lot of dedicated sailing boats, but if you just want to sail for fun and aren't too concerned that sailing performance isn't stunning then that's not a problem. To get them on the plane, you need to empty the water ballast tanks , and the rig provides a fair amount of air resistance and weight very high up for a planing motor boat. Inside they have a lot of space, but not much in the way of hand hold or other things that might be useful if sailing in even moderately lumpy water. Basically they're a compromise design, they do two different jobs moderately well instead of one job very well. This might be something you want in a boat, or it might not. Obviously some people do, as IIRC MacGregor stopped producing all of their other designs to concentrate on the 26X a few years ago.

I've heard about the Eastern European group as well, but IIRC their MO is to target much bigger outboards (150-200 HP), probably with a view to selling them on to groups engaged in people or drug smuggling. Whilst the new value of a 15HP outboard is about £2,000, the amount you can get for a used one of uncertain provenance is a fair bit less, so I'm not certain that even a haul like this would be worth their time and trouble. I suspect the latest spate of thefts is probably the work of more local criminals, taking advantage of the lack of people around at this time of year.

When doing a survey, I always recommend CO detectors and smoke alarms if they're not fitted, and if they are fitted, I give the test button a quick press (and recommend that if you have one you do the same every time you go to the boat - they're no use if the battery has died). They're not required for the BSS, even in the 2013 requirements, and neither are they required under the Hire Boat Code. Perhaps they should be, but on the other hand, I can't think of the last CO incident on a hire boat (although there's normally a few a year on private boats). Compared to times past, there are far fewer gas appliances on hire boats (or indeed boats in general) - gas fridges aren't anything like as common as they were, same goes for catalytic heaters or gas water heaters. Now often the only gas appliance on board is the cooker, and these tend to be used when people are awake and able to spot the signs of CO poisoning (or indeed a bad flame pattern).

It is possible to do a mast up cruise, but you will substantially curtail your cruising area. On the southern Broads there are two swing bridges, so if they're working (best to check the Broads Authority site for any issues) then you've got a reasonable amount of water to play with. you won't be able to get up to the Northern Broads due to the bridge at Yarmouth, but other than that your limits are Beccles on the Waveney and one of the bridges upstream of Thorpe on the Yare (exactly which one will depend on your air draft, I don't know if your boat is small enough to get under the A47 bridge at Postwick with the mast up). If you launch on the Northern Broads, then do so upstream of Acle and downstream of Potter Heigham, Ludham and Wroxham. There's probably enough for a few days in between those limits, but you will miss out on some of the best sailing waters (Barton and Hickling Broads, to start with). Since you trail the boat, you must be able to raise and lower the rig, what makes you so reticent to do it to get under bridges? If you just want to minimise it, you could start somewhere like Stalham, go one way through Ludham bridge, then at the end of your holiday pick up the car and trailer and lift out somewhere else. That would let you sail on Barton at least (you could also do something similar launching at Hickling or Martham and going one way through Potter Heigham).

Although still water will give slightly more accurate results (as tidal flow will vary over time somewhat), to use these to calibrate a rev counter you do two runs, one in each direction and average the results. Before going to the trouble of doing that though, anyone who's thinking of doing this might find it worth getting hold of a laser tachometer (I think mine was about £12 on a certain Internet auction site) and using it to see how accurate your rev counter is in the first place.

It depends. If somebody is moored outside you, and you (implicitly or explicitly) give permission for them to cross your decks, then you owe them a duty of care. So, if your foredeck is cluttered with spare mooring ropes, rhond anchors, and other stuff, and they trip over that stuff, or if you spill polish on the deck and don't clean it up and they slip over on it, then they may have a claim against you (although in practise this would be covered by your insurance). In other words, you must have been negligent in discharging your duty of care. Having said that, they owe themselves a duty of care, so if they slip over because they're wearing unsuitable shoes, or doing something stupid, or are crossing at night without a torch, then any claim is unlikely to be upheld. The same goes if they simply trip over a mooring cleat or something else that could reasonably be expected to be stowed on the foredeck of a Broads cruiser. Please note that I am not a lawyer and the above does not constitute legal advice.

If what you're looking for is a decent-sized liveaboard vessel, and the mooring available with this boat isn't a major consideration, then I'd suggest that if the reserve price is much higher than the highest bid (£2,800) then you might be better off looking elsewhere. As far as the engine goes (or doesn't), you can still find parts for BMCs (and indeed second hand ones are available, but can be quite pricey for what they are), and a decent engineer should be able to tell you if repairing it is feasible. The state of the hull is really impossible to tell without a detailed survey, which may be tricky as it appears that it may have been fitted out internally in such a way that quite a lot of areas aren't accessible (which isn't good). If I were going to survey this boat (I'm a qualified surveyor), then I'd spend at least a whole day, possibly longer, just on the hull. Every single plank, rib, or other component needs to be examined for rot, and if (as appears likely) she's been in salt water down in Essex for any length of time, I'd also want to check her over for gribble and possibly other borers, and if at all possible withdraw some fastenings for inspection. Clive, would she have been fastened with copper boat nails, or might they be galvanised steel?

Although I haven't surveyed it, I can't see that the chopped out cabin will significantly affect the stiffness of the hull (it might be a different matter if there wasn't still the rear deck and outboard well). It will however significantly affect the value, as Clive has already mentioned. Personally, I wouldn't want to pay more than about £500 for it, and to be honest, I'd probably just carry on looking. There are a lot more boats for sale at the moment than there are people who want to buy them, so if you persevere you should be able to find a much better boat to spend your money on (top tip, empty projects like this one are money pits, much better to pay a bit more for a boat that's already equipped and ready to go).

Are you just replacing the blacking, or do you want to repaint the topsides/superstructure as well? If you want to get back to bare metal (in order to coat with something like Zinga or another zinc-rich primer and/or go to two pack epoxy blacking) then shot blasting is the best way to do this. I don't know of any yards that do that in-house on the Broads, but you may find one that's willing to allow an outside contractor in to do the job, and a quick google shows that there are mobile shot blasters that cover this area (I've never used any of them so can't recommend one unfortunately). I know the last time I was at Wayford Bridge there was a converted BCN dayboat on the hard, so they can certainly lift a canal boat. If you do want to get the hull surveyed at the same time, then I'm a qualified surveyor and have an ultrasonic thickness tester (a DeFelsko PosiTector ME if anyone's really interested). I don't normally do hull-only surveys, but could probably work something out.

It's definitely not just hirers. A couple of years ago I was stood on Ludham Bridge and spotted a very nice newish aft-cockpit cruiser with a green canopy heading towards the bridge. I did think they looked a bit high, but assumed the helm might know what they were doing. As they went under the bridge, it became very apparent from the tearing noises that they didn't, and after getting momentarily stuck, the boat emerged from under the bridge, the canopy now with added ventilation from a number of tears. One wouldn't like to speculate, but the way the boat then proceeded to weave up the river, one might suspect that the helm's judgement was somewhat compromised in some way...

1) You will need to access the underside of the deck anyway in order to bolt the cleats on (screwing them is definitely not an option). 2) I've never heard of using HDPE sheet rather than marine ply for a backing plate, but if it's strong enough to take the load and whatever you use to stick it in place (probably epoxy) holds then I see no reason why it couldn't be used. 3) Bevel the edges of your backing plate to ease the transition between deck and plate, and glass them in place with epoxy (not easy working upside down as I know from experience, you need to put the epoxy on then wait 'till it starts to cure and goes sticky before trying to get the glass cloth stuck down, which then needs to be done in a bit of a hurry). 4) Use penny washers or a stainless steel plate washer (better, but possibly overkill) to spread the load from the bolts. 5) When you do get to bolting the cleat down, cleats that use four bolts are obviously better than those that rely on two. Use plenty of goop (Sikaflex or similar), as you don't want water leaking into or through the bolt holes. 6) Fit fairleads to prevent rope chafing on the GRP, preferably ones that allow a fair lead for ropes going forward and aft, giving you maximum flexibility when mooring up.

Is it the one at Laggan? The damage is a bit more understandable on the Caledonian Canal, as most of it has a solid rock bottom, with sloping sides to the canal sections.

I suspect he'll probably be scrapped unless somebody makes the BA an offer for her quite quickly (assuming she hasn't been scrapped already). I did wonder what might cause a ferrocement hull to sink like that, and a skin fitting (or in this case stern gland) was near the top of my list of possible causes. A situation where in hindsight paying for a lift out perhaps doesn't seem like such a bad idea after all.

I admit that they're similar to ColRegs in many instances, but they're not the same, as we've already established. If I'm sailing on the Broads, I abide by the byelaws, if I'm sailing at sea (highly unlikely in my boat with it's current equipment, but technically possible), then I'll abide by ColRegs.

Well there's a byelaw that specifically negates ColRegs in all areas under BA control, which now includes Breydon Water, and there's no byelaw that requires the use of a motoring cone, so ergo there's absolutely no requirement to fly one.

5 The Collision Regulations as hereinafter defined shall not apply in any waters to which these Byelaws apply. (incidentally, byelaw 4 is worded in such a way that the byelaws now apply on Breydon and the lower Bure, since they've been taken over by the BA). 40.2 Notwithstanding paragraph (1) the master of a pleasure vessel of less than 25 metres (82 feet) in length when at anchor otherwise than in or near a channel shall not be required to exhibit an anchor light or shape. I was under the impression that there was a similar paragraph in the byelaws concerning motoring cones, but having re-read them, I can find no reference to motoring cones whatsoever. This would indicate that there's definitely no requirement to fly them, although as far as I'm aware there's no byelaw that specifically prohibits them, so if somebody wanted to then they could.

If she is a ferrocement hull, then scrapping her will be a long, hard job. Good luck with the raising efforts. From the looks of it she isn't as far down as Caravelle, and hopefully there's a lot less water coming in, so you shouldn't need the 11 cubic metres per minute we got to get Caravelle up (we'd have done it with 6 or 7 on the day, but you can never have too many pumps). If anyone needs a survey, I can and will do ferrocement.

Of course, under Broads Byelaws (which specifically supercede ColRegs in areas under the control of the Broads Authority) a motoring cone (or anchor ball for that matter) is optional - you can fly one if you like, but you're not required to.

That is the one I was thinking of where the owner lived aboard. I hope he's ok.

Caravelle III has an aft well with a door to the cabin and cutout in the transom (which was covered over with plywood as part of our attempts to seal her up for pumping out). When we left her after raising her we had stapled black polythene over the rear well to keep the rain out, although the last post Gary left on the other forum mentioned working on the aft cabin so he may have removed that. From memory the wooden top further down the moorings had no aft well or door (I think it was based on a Bourne 40 hull), so what might be good news for Gary might mean that somebody has lost their home. I spoke to the owner when I first went over to assess the feasibility of raising Caravelle, he seemed like a nice enough chap. If it is his boat that's gone down, I hope he got off ok.

I really hope it isn't Caravelle III that's gone down again, but I have a horrible feeling that it might be. Gary the new owner was doing the restoration with her on her mooring. I hope even more that it wasn't the wooden top cruiser a bit further along that's gone down, as the owner was/is a liveaboard. I was heavily involved with both attempts to raise Caravelle III, and it was bloody hard work. If she has gone down again, I really couldn't spare the time to raise her again as a favour, now I'm trying to run my own surveying business.

It's no good having huge engines if you can't afford to fuel them. Hundreds of gallons of petrol an hour makes for a very expensive to use boat, not to mention that a lot of those boats had aircraft engines that want to run on very high octane aviation spirit, rather than normal petrol.

Believe me, I know the trials and tribulations of being a landlord, as we've still got a house in South Shields that we haven't been able to sell (it's been on the market since Oct 2008 and had precisely 1 viewing, which didn't result in an offer). We don't seem to have had much luck with tenants - one managed to get out of leaving a deposit thanks to South Tyneside Council (long story) and left owing about a grand in back rent and damage, the latest one left so much stuff (including furniture) that after the local charity shop had had their pick it still cost us around £300 to get the place empty and clean enough to have a chance of renting it out again. Rightmove is great, and makes looking for property a lot easier than it used to be, but equally there's a lot of stuff that never gets on there, and I figure it's worth asking around to see what turns up.