JawsOrca

To be fair though that joke did get the situation mentioned in parliament, although the MP's were clearly far too stupid to spot the joke.. but I certainly don't miss having that thought at the back of my mind but if she does blow at least you won't know and joking about it seems a bit of a two fingers up to the situation which no one has any control over anyway. We had a wonder and lunch in gorleston today and didn't spot anything different, I thought it had all been sorted. I feel the papers are enjoying something to talk about, EDP and EADT actually have something useful to report for once! The Yarmouth mercury is doing a BBC style Live updates: https://www.greatyarmouthmercury.co.uk/news/23306506.great-yarmouth-bomb-live-updates-ahead-explosion/

It's quite interesting looking at the BA's monthly expenditure: https://www.broads-authority.gov.uk/about-us/spending/monthly-spending Just in 2 weeks december there's like 40k of professional services. 74k deposit for a vessel. Does make you wonder what on earth are they doing and are they really spending money wisely.. I guess no one actually questions and audits their spending.

I couldn't replicate it.. not sure what's happening put it down to: PICNIC

I dunno I feel it's probably better use of tax payers money to put a dam each side of it therefore it can't sink any further..

I've never understood why that's open to road traffic, certainly when it's sinking and In most national parks that would just be a pedestrian only bridge

That listing is only the moulds. Orca certainly cost 10K plus to fit out from a hull and it's far cheaper and more logical to buy something you like first even if you are buying the hull for nothing. Don't forget too most of the value of a motor boat is in it's engine and running gear, the rest is just decoration (But if badly done will affect the ability to sell it on).

Don't mention bumping and sore heads around pops please...

Looks very smart, Love the hull window. Is it me too or is the hull grey too? (That's cool too if so).

You are meant to be taking it easy and not spending my inheritance..Geez see I even send you to a whiskey shop to get drunk all the time. Glad you enjoying your retirement, but slow down! We are coming up to the end of our second year in Suffolk and the first in our own house.. Time flies!

Thanks Guys, The idea is certainly to get all the old varnish off and I know what you mean for sure, I just got to do it. I'm using an old proper boat scraper that was passed down from an old boat builder and does the trick, I do need to get a triangle scraper for the detailed bit but I trod on one when I was a kid and can still feel the pain whenever I look at one so I want to leave it to a bit later! Yesterday I just wanted to get as much off as possible as it was the last of summer and the rain arrived today so I'm not sure how much more is going to get done this year considering Orca is coming out next week too for work.. bloody boats! I would love the roves to be shinning too, how do I do that? (funny I was thinking about that in care when out shopping today.. I can use polish before varnishing as the varnish wont stick then will it?

You would need to support the keel and ensure there's no one point of contact on the hull, it's not easy to do safely without knowing the profile. It feels like yacht legs and a slipway that dry's fully is what you need.

Cheers Dave, I'm pretty pleased that it wasn't too bad and it's come up pretty good... My back is killing me though already!

Phrew not that long.. I normally like going "out" saturdays as I don't leave home all week but todays weather forecast was looking nice, compared to sunday, so decided to spend on day on Surprise. I ordered the cheapest heat gun thing from Amazon as the yellow one from daves work just wasn't worth buying, I think the one I ordered was like £15 but it arrived and seemed well up to the job. So the idea was to have a day trying not to set the boat on fire, it was a plug in the wall one and yup first go it was a lot lot better. I'm not going to check the electric smart meter though but I got about 2/3rds done of the planks inside the boat. I must admit the wood is lovely and despite hating Dave (JanetAnne) when he said I have to do it, I'm pleased to get going, I know she will look amazing and it won't take too long I think to get this done, probably a couple weekends. My back kills though as we can't get inside so it was all day of crooked back to get it done.. It's certainly worth it though to watch the grain of the wood reappear. The pictures don't quite show the quality of the wood there but trust me it's lovely old mahogany! Other dave, did some gardening for me as he didnt get on with the heat gun, you needed a knack as it easily stuck back to itself. He also tackled the road trailer we brought the other week and its coming together. I did think of moving surprise under the shed he's made but the launching trolley the boats on really isn't supporting her that well so I think we will get the trailer together and then put on her on there and then put her down the end. He also took out the back seat so I could get the heat gun in, it took a bit of persuasion as hidden screws, but no damage and it will go back in with no problems :) Tomorrows weather looks wet so no work tomorrow.

You could try Yacht legs (http://coxeng.co.uk/cruising/installing-yacht-legs/) but I'd suggest having a good google before to understand how to do it (and it would really be better to bolt through and then tie them together when the tides out. You could also try and scaffolding cradle athough thats probably easier to make up when shes out so you can get the profile (seen a few where the poles go through - (Lived beside a yacht club and some had no fear!). Obviously a scrubbing dock where you can lean up against something is better although I've still seen many go over from doing that (where the keel slides out and over they go). Needless to say be careful working underneath when doing any of this, it is of course a lot safer to lift out and chock up.

Why don't we all just agree it's the "Broads National Park"

:) she's hard work but we will get there :) We brought her from Burnham overy which is the next little village just over from wells and it seems to be the home base for all of these now and there is a boatyard dedicated to them. Every year they do racing just for the clinker dinghies, we have been invited already but I think I will need plenty of practice on barton broads first, although will probably go take a look at next years race.

Yeah that's rubbish, our old Broom with 2x6litre engines wouldn't even do that, certainly on tick over. I'd suggest you pass the yard a link to this forum and get them to look again. Trading standards is probably worth a look too.

Our boats a litre an hour. Do you know where you went?

How long is this going to take? A couple of jobs I wanted to try to tackle today, Template the ribs for replacements, Sadly my mobile was flat this morning and it wasn't the easiest thing to do so sadly didn't get any pictures but it involved; cardboard, scissors. The basic plan was roughly cut some cardboard into the hull shape to be able to get it against the beam to draw around. Surprisingly it wasn't too difficult and mission accomplished. I will take some more pics when we get onto the next step. Once I had calmed back down from doing that template.. Dave brought home a hot air gun from work, it was a posh yellow american one which has a battery and I guess you need a mortgage to own one. The other dave suggested using a heat gun to remove the varnish so wanted to give it go. Good news thankfully it worked although it's only a little bit faster than scratching it with the scraper and the batteries were going flat pretty quick. I don't think it's worth getting a mortgage to buy one so I just brought a cheap plug in the wall one from amazon (I'll get a mortgage then for the electric). But geez it's going to be a slow tasks but the wood grain underneath looks lovely so I guess eventually, if ww3 doesn't happen it would be worth it, fingers crossed. Whilst I was moaning about not getting anywhere (To be slightly fair, I had my flu and covid jabs yesterday so my body is hurting a little today), Dave started gently peeling off the deck wood trims so we can tackle regluing some delamination of the ply decks. Sadly someone had tried before and a mixture of sealant and epoxy glue was used and different nails and screws but he did a good job and got it off. We managed to clean up the delamination and I brought some slightly cheaper epoxy direct from a manufacture, I learned a long time ago there is nothing special about west system, so this was Epodex from Germany, seems ok, time will tell.. I also brought some 18 gauge syringes so we can get right into the ply, to be honest the plan went really well, I only bent one syringe, annoyingly we didn't quite have enough clamps and struggled slightly to clamp down so not sure how successful it will be. I do remember that stall clamps are used on boat building so will probably grab some from toolstation. More pictures next time...

Puppy's look very happy indeed. I think our new kittens are just confusing my dad there. Anyone have any numbers for care homes?

We lost our lad who adopted use from the houseboats (he kept coming to our boat, his owner moved away and let it be) he was in his twenties.. it was dreadful to say the least and I couldn't not have any so I messaged around and a local rescue had a litter of three rescued from rubbish :( the was jumping all over us and I couldnt split them so we took all three, in doing so helped them trap and rescue another 5. But they are all so lovely and they love playing together, thankfully they are simular temperaments at present (they are now 5 months), Harry is soppy but full of energy, Jax is a big boy but he's a bit of a wimp, and little Lulu has struggled with cat flu and is a lot smaller but she's my little princess :)

Brilliant write up Helen, it looks like you have a lovely holiday with proper wooden boat drips to help store the memories! We saw you at How hill on the sunday I think, we wandered down to have a wonder and you was motoring up, lots of smiles! Well done on Pozzick, he's lovely, hopefully he settles in easily. We've not spent much time on the rivers this year as we took on 3 rescue kittens in may (we took the full litter as we couldn't split them but they are adorable still and so funny to watch). Hopefully next year it will be full of boating for us and I'd love to spend some time with waterrail as she is certainly one of the best boats on the broads!

Last weekend Admittedly no update last weekend, but it was a bit of a shopping weekend. We ran to our nearest chandlery which is Jeckles in Oulton Broad (I think). £40 for a pot of epifanes varnish, hmm (Foxes in Ipswich would have been cheaper) but is what it is. Sunday to be honest was a gardening day as the garden really needed some time, sadly it was a bit of cutting back dead plants from the hot weather but is what it is. Today I've been messaging Janet Anne's custodian as I know they are the NBN boat builder experts and I really wanted to pick their brains! I had meant to call midweek but our little kitten went to the vets for neutering and has been stressful! We did arrange for a visit yesterday too but it finally rained last night so we put it back to today. Dave popped to wickes last night on the way home to grab some building bits, he's building a shed at the end of the garden for Surprise to go to, so whilst he was playing with that and trying to get a roof on the shed I thought I'd do some sanding on Surpise whilst waiting for the Janet Annes crew. Honestly after 5 odd hours all I did was scratch it!! Thankfully Janetannes crew arrived and rescued me! Honestly really nice to see Dave and his lovely assistant again, nattered for hours and they both clearly gave me a ton of tips which I will try to go through as we do. First job will be to replace the 5 damaged ribs on the port side (there are quite a few damaged ribs but Dave's advice to start there and see how we go). I need to do a pattern (from the starboard side) of the ribs which I'll definitely do and make a jig from that, which we will do and then back to Dave for the next steps. I am very very much looking forward to learning this stuff though as it's something always wanted to do. Somewhat annoyingly ( ) dave said we will need to remove all the varnish as he knows how picky I am about the finish and I won't be happy if it's not perfect which is certainly true, I hoped I could but certainly inside it's so blistered and it would be wrong to not have it as best as we can, so I'll try the heatgun fingers crossed! Will post more as we go for now, huge thanks to @JanetAnnefor stopping by and the advice and the onward help and patience :) (She will defo attend the Woodern boat show next year in beccles though and I'll get her propped up as discussed too)

Looks good pops, you've both worked very hard on it! The suffolk plant centre at wickham market (suffolk) has it's half price sale on at mo. We went today and brought home a car full.