JennyMorgan

Back on track! Oulton Broad cruiser racing today:

1979 and radios on yachts were probably still in a minority let alone compulsory for all.

Some things never change. For example this week is, as I've said, is Oulton Week. One hugely expensive boat has lay at her moorings all summer, she will probably only race this week before being laid up for the winter. Her owner is on holiday. It was no different on the South Coast back in the 1970's. Cowes Week, Henley regatta, Ascot, all part of 'the season', social/sporting must attend events. I never ceased to be amazed at the lack of experience of some owners. Nearer home watching the antics of some of the big boats coming through the Lock at Oulton Broad can be highly entertaining, if you can tolerate the scream of tortured bow thrusters and crunched gel!

Good heavens, just how many partners does a girl need in this day and age??!!

The Hurley 22 is an exceptional sea-boat for its size and being short drops into troughs quite readily rather than fighting the waves. The Cowes lifeboat lay alongside of us for ten minutes or so before departing with the comment 'you obviously know what you are doing'! It wasn't until a day or two later when we went ashore in the trots at Cowes that we realised that a tragedy had occurred. Until then we had just regarded it as an exciting experience. There were people wandering around Cowes in an absolute daze. A cousin of mine had had a really rough time of it in a competitor boat. We weren't racing thus were reefed and certainly weren't pushing it although we were still sailing to windward and didn't feel a need to heave-too , after all it was a sailing school boat and I was supposed to be teaching seamanship!

Poor old you, I have a daughter with the same problem but but more generally triggered by cats, I sympathise.

It was pretty rough this morning! I was out shadowing the Fastnet aboard a Hurley 22 in 1979, that really was rough. Oulton Broad has never been like that!

They can be tinted in situ simply by using tinted film. I have photographed a number of such installations in both cars and conservatories and very nice some of 'em have looked, especially the gold tint. Still wouldn't buy or hire a boat with tinted windows though!

I suppose that I will get used to them but the miserable old git in me doesn't like them one iota. Spot on comment.

Good first post, BB, more of the same please! Don't mention dog allergies to often though!

Just how it should be!

Be warned, Oulton Week starts this weekend! Loads of boats, without engines!

https://www.edp24.co.uk/motoring/norfolk-and-suffolk-railway-lines-closing-for-upgrade-february-2020-1-6218265 We can only hope!

Clive, Scottish Navy ensigns available here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SCOTTISH-RED-ENSIGN-FLAG-SCOTTISH-MILITARY-FLAGS-Size-5x3-Feet/272001758038?hash=item3f54917356:g:ATwAAOSw0HVWC73g

Must be that unhealthy leer that lady sheep have to endure!

Clive, you could also fly this flag at the blunt end: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Ensign#/media/File:Scottish_Red_Ensign.svg

Flogging or doing the washing up for a week! Actually I believe that you could be fined several thousand pounds. Far cheaper to buy a plain and simple Red Ensign, far smarter too. Red is such a nice colour!

For folk expecting the comforts of home and the space of a king sized bed then yes, probably cramped but then it is a boat after all!

It was really low on Oulton Broad yesterday!

Paul, a piece of glass is good and easily replaced when it becomes blunt!

Short of a mechanical failure I fail to understand why someone would run aground on Breydon! It isn't as though the channel isn't well marked!

Awww, Mr Nog, can you now look at that picture without being drawn drawn to them, both port and starboard?

Lots of truth in that book! The incident concerning the policeman and the hose pipe at Beccles concerned my dear father and Charlie Day. the Lowestoft garage owner. Jack Hunt, I remember him well, we drove his launch from Coldham to Surlingham with Jack sleeping it off in the cabin, he'd been on the gin courtesy of Ivan Darby from the Commodore at Oulton Broad. Don't suppose Rangers drink gin, at least not when on duty. Different relationship back then.

Well formed pair of Swans

The wind, according to the lady's dress, is port to starboard thus the windmill is backing the wind!