JennyMorgan

Not this year I haven't but when I do then I tend to avoid obvious contact points! Boating as a contact sport can be expensive.

Rick, may 2018 see your hopes and plans reach fruition.

The Pleasureboat reports record Christmas takings over the bar! Will you be aboard for New Years Eve and Day? Have a good one and may 2018 bring you all that you want and need.

Mr Weston does seem to thrive on drawing attention to himself. 300 collisions in only 4 years, I haven't managed anything near that in over 60 years on the Broads!

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/environment/continuous-cruiser-miles-weston-norfolk-broads-1-5334228 I have long enjoyed the books of Roger Pilkington. His Small Boat through various waterways series of books is well worth seeking out. Perhaps Miles Weston will follow in his footsteps as a writer.

Quants are quite useful too! Watching some of the three story bling boats, complete with twin screws and bow thrusters, coming through the lock at Oulton Broad can be morbidly entertaining. The roar of the bow thruster alone being something not easily forgotten. Seemingly greater reliance is placed on the thruster than either the twin engines or the twin rudders. Learning to walk before running might be a wise option when it comes to buying a boat! Start with a rowing boat. In fairness, though, the helmsman probably learned a great deal and he did manage to turn her. The quantity of fenders . . . . . . . . wow!

A week earlier next year? Gorgeous morning at the moment, time to get out there with my camera, only I've got the toilet door to rehang! Two year old hooligan managed to do what no adult has managed in over forty years, bless him!!

DIY about £10.00 with cheap anti fouling paint from Jeckells at Oulton Broad. I do mine every other year.

Crackers!

Happy Christmas from Lowestoft. Rack the volume right up!

It happened, well, it started but was not successfully finished. A lot of hard work and good intentions but boats is boats, not houses. http://www.lowestoftjournal.co.uk/news/look-at-doris-now-1-848774

I'm not so sure that he invented the pesky blighters, more that back in Bill's time it was widely thought that something would happen, just that no one knew what. Bill, bless his memory, predicted a malady as the odds were on that one would develop sooner or later. Such thoughts prevailed amongst anglers with the advent of g.r.p. fishing rods, some expert reckoned forty years maximum before some as yet discovered lurgy struck. Whoever that was was wrong as far as fishing rods were concerned but not far off the mark with boats and the then unknown osmosis.

Only men of, or over a certain age, would know that one!

Doris once went to Cowes Week on the Isle of Wight. An eventful life, rumoured to have been a 'Royal Knocking Ship' at one time, now something of a wreck.

No, but prey tell us more!

She should go faster in reverse now! Nice dry bilges.

Let's put it another way, could he? http://www.broads.org.uk/wiki/index.php5?title=Boat_Details&BoatId=6212 Me thinks that I fell for it, nice one!!

Pesky little blighters, allegedly very partial to grp impregnated with diesel diluted by bilge water.

But did he?

Thanks for all the Christmas greetings, and the same to you all.

Gribble damage can be eyewatering, even to oak, teak or greenheart. Witness greenheart or oak piles drawn from the mud. I had a Torbay Mosquito sailing dinghy. The spruce planking, even in a forty year old boat, was perfectly sound. The hardwood keel was riddled with gribble damage.

I suspect that I am not alone in having seen the structural damage done to boats on the Broads by 'experts', more often than not by house builders or joiners who think that the skills required for houses are more than adequate for boats. I can think of one quite famous houseboat that is testament to that!

However 'gribble' worms are a very real threat to wooden hulls, especially in shallow water, I kid you not.

Is that a euphemism?

Perhaps it's a real pleasure wherry?