JawsOrca

Hi Iain... It sure is.. although these are the little jobs where it can take an hour to do a little bit of trim but when that's done we don't need to go near that bit again, so it's nice! I done a project plan in the week too just to help me relax a bit more.. Although it's hard for Dave to tell me how much time he needs but I'm estimating we have about 250 hours left (So 25 days) so we should be hitting somewhere around mid January which isn't too bad it leaves a couple of months spare still (For dave's vaugeness) we are hoping to transport up in march. (But money could be a problem as I estimate something like £3.5k (Plus £1k for transport, BSC, Survey).. that's a lot of money to find in a few weeks!. We had more visitors today and more comments along the lines of.. "it's stunning", "It looks better my house" (I like that one!), "You so and so's certainly are very skilled".

So I have a little confession.. the window in the kitchen area sprang quite a leak in the week..and I've been fighting to get it sealed.. although it took me a few evenings to work out where.. I eventually found out that it as the down part of the window frame where it meets the bottom.. Once I found out.. during the dry evenings and all yesterday.. filled it with creaping crack sealant (that goodness for that product)... thankfully this morning it was all dry in there (although I'll still carry on with the sealant for a bit to make sure). So once the leak was sealed we put the kitchen cabinets back together (I coated the edges with PVA glue as its chipboard, which shouldn't be used in a boat but it "should" be dry in there really, (we have in the houseboat and you see them in hireboats and they last.. if they don't then we will rip out later but as mentioned before this type of kitchen looks good and is quick to install. Perfect.. Other than this we have been doing lots of finishing jobs; - Lighting is now all in and tested and working (apart from the last LED rope lights). - All bulkhead work in the front cabin is made up.. they just need varnishing and clear epoxy and nailing up, then trimmed. - Wardrobe door has been started.. it will need trimming. - I cleaned the window frames and windows with a blade to make them clean - Vents put on on the UFO vents on the front cabin. - Toilet door frame trimmed with material. - Swapped over the fuel tank as the one we brought didnt have a inspection panel needed for the heater pickup and was too small for the fuel sender to work. - Swapped over the fuel filler as the one on there was too big for fuel hose (thankfully we had one in the toolbox .. like you do!). - Installed Gas hose on gas bottle and recessed lifting ring on the hatch. - Installed latch and lock on the engine bay hatch so the engine bay is now secure (I can sleep better! - Although the boat is heavily alarmed so people one get far without waking the hole marina up!) - Installed engine and loo seacocks and associated plumbing (so I can sleep better now on a high tide!). - Plumbed in calorfier to the engine. - Finish cold water tank system (just needs the vent). - Finished running heater ducting. No pictures though as these little jobs aren't very interesting although it's nice to be ticking them off.. plenty to still to do though! (But rewarding to tick them off!!).

I couldn't resist for £4! (I cashed in my clubcard vouchers before tesco go bust.. (They are doing a double the vouchers at the moment!)) ... I've brought for a number of reasons not only for a plotter although I'll put navironics on it and see what its like ... looks good though...

Strangely it does taste better with Norfolk honey.. not sure why?! could be mind over matter though

I'll give it a go.. I like cooking Chinese food lately but this is my favorite.. it's quick and easy on a boat stove and tastes lovely... 2 chicken breast (about 260g each) 2cm chunk of fresh ginger (peeled) 6 spring onions 3 cloves of garlic (peeled) 1/2 fresh chilli 6 tablespoon of LIGHT soy sauce 6 tablespoons of water 1 tablespoon of Norfolk honey 2 nest of egg noodles Groundnut oil (important! - in all supermarkets though) Cut chicken into thin strips. Add about 2 teaspoons of oil into the wok (or deep frying pan) and fry until brown. Once chicken is cooked, remove from the wok and put aside in a bowl. Cut 3 spring onions into circles, cut the ginger and garlic into small chunks. Add 1 tablespoon of oil to the wok if required and fry the circle cut spring onion, garlic and ginger in the wok gently (so don't burn them) until start to go soft and smells lovely. Add the chicken to the wok. Add the water, soy and honey mix. Add your egg noodles to a pot of boiling water about now and gently simmer Cover and cook until sauce reduces but be careful not to burn. (add more honey to make it sweeter). Serve on top of cooked egg noodles (or could do with chips or pasta). sprinkle with chopped (remaining 3) spring onions and chopped chilli.

Keep the updates coming.. I love reading these holiday tales Hope you have/had a brilliant time

Hi Mark.. I don't think we have many visitors to the broads of the can't be bothered brigade these days.. I think the majority would welcome affordable training, although I as mentioned boating is expensive and I don't think its wise to add additional mandatory costs into what is an expensive activity. As also mentioned above I think RYA training (the closest comparison) is excessive in my opinion £200/£300 a course and as you say a few hours for a quarter of this would be brilliant... I'm certainly all for that! I also agree that perhaps there should a home based pre-hire training (I remember being surprised when I first hired not to have much) but again I don't think the yards would get away with making that mandatory as it may put certain people off and therefore reduce income for the broads. (as I mentioned before I think the reduction of the hirefleet will eventually have a negative effect on the broads and make it far too expensive for anyone to use just like the Thames). Perhaps Clive or Andy could advise

(or just use a colmans mix! Sorry Dad but at least its using local produce then lol)

(The picture of opal gem needs to go into our calendar lol)..

Thanks for the insight Kev! Certainly something to look forward too!

and welcome from me .. hope you have a brilliant week

I think it's a bad idea to have a mandatory cevni type thing for the broads. I think hiring a boat is now very expensive and I suspect this would put a lot of people off. In all fairness most of the broads isn't too dangerous and the tuition from the yards, on the whole, appears to work because not many people die and not many boats sink.. touch wood.. I understand the need on the french canals which are huge and there's lots of commercial traffic.. However I can see a market for the norfolk yards having a "Learn to skipper" (similar to the learn to sail courses) considering how expensive RYA courses are and the cost of some of these posh new hireboats. Although it would need to be a lot less than the RYA courses and it would need to be voluntary...

Chris.. you may want to try the "Navtronics" app.. it's a marine chart instead of an OS map.. although for the broads I understand it just shows a blue line (It's a little expensive at around 20 quid). (Looks like you have some lovely weather there.. very envious!)

I guess it's probably the case that more lines the better.. Plus lines on hireboats are generally too short to do decent spring lines.. we always do a spring line as it stops the boat moving around... The chaps at reedham do like to keep the boats together, hence I suspect they ask you to tie close to the nearest post (although I normally ignore that and do a decent spring for the safety of the boat and my own piece of mind).

Mark as above. It's too hard to tell the weight and I believe the weights on the manufacturers websites will be completely empty and probably less the engine. Best advice is to quickly run it to a weighbridge and see.. (try and google weighbridge near your postcode.. some councils also have them or there maybe another public one).. as you say it's better to do it before the police stop you and march you off there. Good luck.. fingers crossed!

Whatever the history it does sound to me like something a tourist agency should be doing..i.e the Broads authority? and they should be doing well.. I doubt us few on these forums really represent the full range of broads users.. but anything to help small businesses is all good in my book.

Thanks Robin... I like old things like that.. way before my time though lol our first time up was 99!

I noticed a plaque somewhere which had the broads awards as this forum? did this forum used to do this?

Hi Steve, Sandersons have a fuel pump from what I remember although have never fuelled up there.. If not try reedham marina.. although I doubt will be cheap .. There's no such thing as red diesel anymore Although the red dye is impossible to remove so you will probably find that when you fuel up you will be given a red dyed (white diesel) fuel for normal road prices.. but you still have to pay the tax I'm afraid (It is worth looking around though as some places can be a difference of 10p.. mum and dad use brooms and the place next door to the new inn at horning both are cheap).. (You maybe thinking of heating oil which is tax free diesel (so the old red prices) although that shouldn't be used for propulsion.. it's only for heating (a couple of road garages do sell it, although you need to prove its only for heating... we must get a diesel fired heater on our houseboat...).

Hi Steve, it's best to top to leave the boat with the tanks topped right to top as suggested.. couple of reasons; means you don't have to stress when you pick the boat up and as suggested if you have a metal tank they do condensate and cause the diesel bug (I've know friends who have had to strip injector pumps down to clean up after this it's not fun ). Brooms is probably the closest to you there?! (or reedham?). Certainly attendant service everywhere.. someone will often be there to help you moor up before you now it... We normally find if you pay by cash they often round the price down to the nearest note Don't forget to winterise the boat before you leave her too (So drain water out the engine etc).

lol 5 meters of colour changing too lol that was Richardsons/Sheerline "Kingfisher" that gave me that inspiration...

lol thanks Iain. We still have 15 meters of LED rope lighting to go in.. gulp.. but I think its nice to have lots of different lighting options. It feels like we have turned a corner although theres still a scary about of work (and money) to do We are aiming of bring her up in march though... we have to do the odd little bit up there depending on how we get on

Hi Doug.. looks like an expensive five moments! Keep the updates coming... I love watching others doing timber work (One day we will get one!)...

Aww thanks Grace.. Hopefully the first night aboard will be a wild mooring on the ant. I'm not too sure how it will feel! probably nerve racking hoping everyone hangs together lol.. she will feel very comfortable I think though We will feel proud of her though considering we really are professionals at this (although would we both love to ) we are already (although that headlining has really turned the corner!). Hopefully these are colds! It's me that always gets that manflu although I have a long commute and easy surrender to it! Thanks Again Maxwellian, Yes the corners will have a nice chunky L shaped moulding from oak, theres a door frame going in between the front cabin and kitchen/dinette so that should trip that area of nicely... there will be a delay in doing this as we will need to get the floor down first which is teak and holly and will cost a fortune! so we need to get on with some other bits first.

Thanks guys .. it's starting to feel achievable although still along way to go