Oddfellow

One of the big problems with smartphones is their colour rendering, particularly in HDR mode which tends to over-saturate the colours into something that is demanded by Instagrammers but looks unnatural.

Is it known who the vendor is?

Blame isn't the issue. It's getting it right so that the customer isn't inconvenienced and the yard incurs no further cost. If everybody does their job, there should be no mistakes. I would never have written that we wouldn't rectify errors; that's wrong. But there will be instances of wild mooring and so on that make instant rectification a challenge. The ONLY two times I think we got bedding issues was once at Horning when the whole mattress had been removed for airing and forgotten. It was a fold-down bed, so it being missing was unseen and ity was a returning customer, so they knew how the bed worked and wasn't shown on the handover. The other time was in February a couple of years ago: we went to Surlingham Ferry for the night and totally forgot our own bedding for the boat. That was bloody cold......

It's hard to get it right when people don't comply with your simple request to provide easy information ahead of time so that mistakes are not made. But, to err is human, so where's the hardship in just checking it over? Your analogy says the same thing as I have too: someone would have checked the sink to establish whether it did or did not leak.....

Don't feed it to seals then..... I am unaware of blue being a problem for toilet seals. At Freedom, we used less and less blue over the years, opting for a bio-friendly product most of the time. OneChem. Because we pumped out every week, it wasn't a big issue, but it isn't as good on odours as blue, but our blue planet does need saving.

It is definitely the sump pump. Sometimes, these have a valve on the pipework below. Often times these things rattle too.

They should always put a flush of water into the pump-out to wash the blue in. Also, there should not be a U bend in your pump-out hose. Maybe a slight low point, but not a bend. Putting it into the loo bowl directly is best, but have you ever tried to get that blue stain out of a carpet?

Whilst you might take umbridge at the capitals, let me be very clear. in 14 years of running a boat yard, the number of customers who even understood why we needed to know how many double and single sets of bedding they required could be as low as 5% in any given season. Most expected us to guess or just fill the boat with as much bedding as we could stuff in, having no regard for the fact that many beds could be singles or doubles and that we has ZERO idea whether Heather White was married to Andrew White or whether they were brother and sister or whether one snored horribly and was banished to the opposite end of the vessel. It was a constant battle with customers to get this information and whilst mistakes were rare (on our part) the battle was to get customers to understand. The other thing that was prevalent throughout was the fact that most customers read sweet fanny adams, so the fact that this drew your attention goes to show it worked.

There's four main possibilities for the loss of water in the header tank 1) it's being boiled off 2) there's a leak in the water circuit 3) Headgasket has gone. 4) You had an air lock that's cleared and the water has replaced the air. Check the temperature of the hoses when running at normal temperature. If the engine circ pump is on it's way out, it's quite possible that it dosen't have the guts to circulate the water fully though the system. If your calorifier is T-ed off the circuit, the T will create a restriction that a poor circ pump might not be able to push though.

Dealing with family-run yards can often lead to mixed reports. The public are hiring the assets of that family and that family know the cost of maintaining that asset. I know that some people found us (me in particular) to be a little difficult (which became more prevalent as I became more and more disenchanted with the public). But, there was always a reason for me being "offish" and it was always in response to the attitudes of the those I was dealing with. I have heard stories about virtually every other yard from customers. I can believe most because humans carry a lot of mental burden and putting on a smile when inside you are crying, screaming, shouting, rioting or committing mental homicide, isn't always easy.

Indeed. It used to be worse than the A14.....

There is very little feel to a hydraulic system, and not a great deal to a cable and pulley one either as the cables aren't nearly taught enough to provide haptic feedback like a Morse rack and pinion or a rotary cable. Hydraulic is also VERY expensive. But it requires no maintenance unless there's a leak and should last years. As for photos, sorry, they aren't to hand but mostly like the ones at 11 and 12 oclock on your photo. Personally, I would not install a cable and pulley system at all unless you're trying to take a vessel back to original fittings.

Even at legal speeds they are bad. More complaints going past the yard about these than pretty-much anything else.

Yep, those Brooms are bloody awful.

It is what you make of it. Many's the time I've been afloat over winter and if it's peace and quiet you want (which you will NOT get in Spring or Summer) it's perfect. Yes, short days, but no shorter than being at home. Take a heater, get a shorepower lead and plug in overnight as you're guaranteed to be able to moor by a leccy post.

I don't think that's the case. There were bookings for last November and there were a good few boats out: i photographed a number of them. What killed November hiring in 2020 was the second lockdown. Holidays that had already started were permitted to continue to the end but none that were due to start could commence. This a Woods' boat heading back on the 7th November and I know Woods also has at least one other boat out which was due back on the 14th having booked a 2 week break. I have some shots of a Bridgecraft boat returning to base on the 7th Novemeber also. Demand was there; legality wasn't.

I have a few of these kicking around.

Each yard will have it's own schedules to work to. There's a significant amount of work to do on a returning boat for a turn around, even assuming that there are no faults to repair and with a large fleet, that takes a lot of time and a lot of staff. Be assured that most of the handover staff will also be those who prepare boats, so if they're handing over boats early, they aren't preparing boats. In my experience, most yards work to a 3/4pm take over. Freedom always used to do a 2pm for short breaks, 4pm for weeks or longer and if the holiday was in GMT, 2pm across the board to ensure customers had enough light to get away from the yard and find a mooring before sunset.

I knew Richard and Fiona were looking for such a boat earlier in the year. I wish them well with this.

I can't see a new boat on Pacific's page?

It's been through a few landlords since I was last in there. I boycotted the place under on landlord who was an ungrateful ****** and haven't found myself wanting to return. I know its under different management now (I thought Roy from the Maltsters had it? but it seems not not.). Anyway, an optional (but not really) service charge would put me off going near it. I hate hidden charges and a pub meal is the last place I would accept such a thing.

When I ran Freedom, we had Richard at Snuggtopz do a great deal of our work. Highly recommended.

Are you sure? A square bit of fabric that's less than one square metre with four press studs? That's going some. It's probably one of the simplest jobs they've been asked to do in weeks.....

I don't think there's much strength in a slight curve like this: It's not an arch and there's no real weight up there, so I doubt that compression strength will play much of a part but I am no expert in structural engineering. It will likely be mostly for shedding water and you'll see subtle curves on virtually every boat roof for this purpose. The topliner was a unique design. I'm not too sure, but I don't think the roof is structurally part of the boat. Strength is derived from that wide lip all the way around the edge and I see from your photo that there's a drain hole in the corner (I bet that get's clogged) rather than scuppers along the ridge.

I ought to clarify my statement a bit. ANY load bearing deck and large expanse area will be created in this way. For large heavy loaded areas, you would generally increase the thickness of lamination to better deal with the stresses of the weight. It's also important to realise that building in shapes into such areas rather than have them just flat. The same physics of rigidity of right angles and so on apply throughout. So, for instance, a dual rolling sunroof is likely to have recessed in the roof moulding areas for the runners. These, of course, allow the roof line to look good but also provide additional strength.