NeilB

Hard work against the tide, enough to give you a stroke....

I've started to get my leg over a bit more recently. Initially with my old bike and now by nicking my sons new bike as he hardly ever uses it. Picture below is of the old one back in summer, it had been a long time since I last rode so I had to stop at my local to recover !!

Just need Broom's to buy an Admiral for their hire fleet now!

Quite a common practice on steel hulled commercial vessels, just weld a plate on afterwards !

We have a Swedish ritual every Friday afternoon called "Fika" which basically means coffee. But of course with coffee you need to have some cake as well so we all take turns providing something. These range from homemade efforts to whatever the local Sainsbury's has left at 2pm on a Friday afternoon! The effort they make in Sweden is pretty impressive and also includes cheese, crackers and lingonberry jam as below.

The yard I worked at had a team of people who's job it was to wash the exterior of every boat. From the roof to the waterline including all windows. I'm not sure there's many yards who do this now which is why there's a few grubby boats out there. Before we had a dedicated team everyone used to muck in once their initial jobs were completed. It was very rare every boat was not ready by 2 pm.

Hi Griff Thought I'd add these here as I'm sure you will recognise them. As you can see we had to show them how to control their vessel !!

I've always liked the Bridge, when we had big family holidays in the late 70's / early 80's it was always the venue for our last night bash.

I was just about to post the same link ! The last contacts I have for spares are quite old so no idea if they are still valid: Emilsson Motor Knipplagatan 8. 41474. Göteborg Sweden. Tel. 0046 31 428095. Another more local one was: American Marine Imports Unit 4 Waterloo Park Bidford on Avon B50 4JG 01789 491643 / 491673 These were last produced in 1979 and the model was called a 450 so your 400 maybe even older.

Please do. I worked at Kris Cruisers for 10 years so it's my old stamping ground.

That front screen looks like it was lifted from a Seamaster Cub day boat !

I was about to check under my colleagues chair to see if this would be possible at my work. I'll leave it for later though as she's still sitting in it !!! I've lots track of the amount of pranks we used to pull when I worked on the Thames. Whenever a member of staff took a boat out for a few days we would leave a few surprises for them like alarm clocks hidden in the bilge set for 3am. One guy was football mad so we kept track of his progress and managed to locate him just as his teams match started on TV. We then hid outside and kept changing channels on the TV with one of the spare remotes.

Very sad news, 2016 has been a bad year for music and entertainment. I'm going to light these for him now...

I've not done anywhere near the amount of trial runs Vaughan has, whatever 10 years worth adds up to. We did have a checklist which covered the main subjects, we didn't read from it as such and mainly used it ensure we remembered everything. Every boat and customer is different so it was useful in this way. Towards the end of my time we were discussing being qualified to NYA Inland Helmsman Instructor level and I believe this did happen. We always tried to impress on them to slow down, take their time and never sent anyone out unless we were confident with their abilities. I don't recall we had many incidents, most were genuine accidents with the occasional idiot thrown in. Sometimes the idiots can be difficult to identify until it's too late. We also had lots of overseas visitors but I can only recall one German couple being unable to speak a word of English. Lots of finger pointing, couple of drawings with the diagrams in the handbook and off we went. After they carried out a few manoeuvres safely without any assistance it was obvious they were experienced and off they went. As for children we often offered to "test" their buoyancy aids if they misbehaved ! Being close to London we had a fair amount of Stag and Hen parties but I cannot recall many issues. They were all given a polite but firm warning from the owner prior to the trial run and we used to flip a coin to see who did the trial run on boats with Hen parties

I've been to Sweden several times and always enjoy it. Seriously considered taking a job there several years ago but my wife does not like the cold! Beer is about £8 to £10 in some places!!

One of our dealers is a dealer, think they've sold a few including one to Bear Grylls. The engine driving the hydraulics is a tad noisy though!

They've been working on this for ages, nice to know it's finished as probably visiting Fairline soon. Won't help for our Broads trip in August though as we have to swing through Bushey to collect my mum.

I've got 2 black cats so can we please double the casks of ale to 4 and the amount of virgins to 14 ??

That guys been roasting his chestnuts there since 2004!

Does sound very unusual behaviour for Brooms, as Alan said maybe an external broker as there were some on the stand. The Senior 31 is an original boat but it's a bit like Triggers broom ! It did have the original 2 x AQD21's for a while but they were in a sorry state and were changed for a single D3 before arriving at the show. The Guinness bar is along the back wall not far from the pool area.

Oops, I've been caught out ! This was shortly before she broke up with Lewis Hamilton, Robert Braithwaite was suggesting she bought him a Sunseeker and at the time we all wondered why she looked a bit upset. This year it's some guy called Hugh Bonneville from Downton Abbey and some hunky boy band - I probably won't bother this year !! http://www.mby.com/news/hugh-bonneville-sunseeker-london-boat-show-50466

We had good times at Earls Court but it was past it's sell by date and was a complete pain for us to exhibit in, Excel is much, much better. The only downside is the lack of restaurants within walking distance of the onsite hotels, around Earls Court there were loads. Southampton is our main show so it's mainly dealers on our stand at London. I'm there tomorrow and Friday morning for setting up and back down the last weekend. We are situated right by the Sunseeker Champagne bar selling Volvo pod drives and lots of horse power . We haven't got much room but can probably store a few coats if I'm around on those days. As for food the Guinness bar used to do pasties - err, apparently

Yes, it was part of an office development and that looks like the location. Vaughan will know for sure but I think having a boatyard in that location was a prerequisite to obtaining planning permission for the offices. The moored some boats on the bank outside the basin as well, but not many.

I saw it last weekend, I was a bit dubious as the basic plot is similar to the original. I thought it was excellent and cannot wait until the next instalment. 2 of my kids were leaning forwards in their seats with open mouths so I'm pretty sure they enjoyed it to! As for the Lego be careful, bloody painfull stepping on small parts when visiting to loo at 3am!!