Polly

Mine too since the 'unpleasantness' during the 3RR . Day boats had pulled the marker out of position, leaving it too near the bank. We set up to gybe round it as another came through and got in the way. The guard ship team were shouting at them to back off and change course, but no joy. Then as we finally cleared to gybe a gust grabbed the main, jammed the sheet between the tiller and the coaming and piled us nose first into the bank...hard! I gather a number of others also hit the bank, had it been a 'pass to starboard' marker we would have been fine. We changed our rigging after that. The spectators loved it of course

Maybe it was the sailing club experimenting with noise cancelling to remove the sound of halyards rattling?

Well done indeed.

I haven't noticed any such to be honest.

A colleague moved to another school and hated it, especially the whiff of the sanctimonious that hovered over the establishment. How happy he was when a project to learn the old names of the towns roads was summarily abandoned when he announced that a road in the red light district was formerly known as Grope C... Lane.

I had a parent ranting at me in the school entrance hall because I had pulled her daughter up for bullying. 'I want an apology' she fumed. To the dismay of some colleagues hovering behind her 'in case' I said, 'I am sorry Mrs X that our standards of behaviour are too high for you' 'Right, good' she muttered and stomped off. End of episode, but I have often wondered how far she got before working out what I had actually said.

We had our usual flag roll with us on hired Bootlegger. We didn't fly the red ensign but we did use our signal flag bunting to dress overall. The big NBN flag was flown from the shrouds and we used more signal flags to name the tent 'Iain's Bar'

I understand a lot of the boats on site were crushed?

How true

Dunno, it sure didn't look that way over the last few days of August......very quiet in the south, busy busy ooop north. And Upton moorings and White Horse pretty busy Bank Holiday Monday.

Colin, you will probably find a greater amount of levity on here, and very nice too.

I introduced James to Morph, what joy!

Every year, I check firing mechanisms, weigh the co2 cartridges and blow up our Lifejackets, leaving them to check they don't deflate.

The chandlery in Wroxham would be an option. They carry the spares and will service the ljs

I think pub moorings are fair enough if reserved, they pay maintenance and maybe even someone like Gus to help people in; having so invested, surely they have the right to say that the moorings are for their customers? Public moorings are different of course.

Looks like you are well set then. I got so frustrated with my first attempt it went in the skip!

Hawke House Marine have some good 'how to' leaflets to go with their vinyl, but tho be honest, and having done this job on Rondonay, I would gladly pay a pro to to the tricky bits.

It certainly does thanks Geoffrey

Hope you like it Chris, being a 'Roman fleuve', flowing narrative, it can be the start of a journey with his characters through the following books. I have read them all about three times now!

I love kedgeree, but worry about reheating rice, so it's never a breakfast now, but makes an awesome lunch. Like the fish boil and leave advice too.

I had an interesting conversation re. Covers recently. We have a Jeckells £1000 winter cover, but it only reaches the toe rail. We were therefore advised on the best weight of tarp to cover Brilliant ashore, providing better protection than the cover we inherited with the boat. If she were afloat it would be a different equation of course, but we always take her out. So I guess my thinking would be to try a good tarp this winter, then decide on the basis of that experience.

I think it's all about avoiding duplication, if their focus was in an area such as Oulton Broad, and they train and affiliate to RNLI/HM Coastguard properly, then maybe that is their niche? One point for the uninformed(me) are ther providing their services free?

Boards are definitely the way to go, sticking vinyl to the fibreglass encourages mould and is a really horrible job! Where there are joins between boards, it should look fine, but you could go the extra mile and use piping cord covered with a non foamed version of the vinyl, fix the seam allowance of this to the back edge of one board and snuggle the next up to it. The industrial grade Velcro is a great idea.

Who won?

We had a 'confessional' at the Birthday Meet, and a Blue Fender Award went to the story where the greatest chaos was caused. By common consent it went to Warp and Jessica for a moment with a lost mudweight line and a Good Samaritan dinghy. Griff may recall the incident? We plan to award again at the Spring Meet, so get search your consciences if you are coming!