ChrisB

It is just the weather as Vaughan says for Blue Green Algae. Remember it is highly toxic to dogs. It goes without saying humans stay out and was hands after lifting mud weights. For anyone who is new it looks like this colour on top of the water and can be streaked as though it was oil.

I have just looked up the NMM. Cornwall page. They say that Tods Brochure was over-optimistic. I say that The Advertising Standards Legislation was a good thing. I quote:- "Stronger than steel", "will not absorb water", and that damage could be "easily repaired without special skill or tools".

W.J Tod of Weymouth produced the first sailing dinghy in the UK. The National Maritime Museum in Cornwall have one from 1951. Please see my other post re Halmatic. This is the Tod boat9

It seems like the next phase, in sail boats anyway is already underway. This is where a chassis is fabricated in stainless steel and encapsulated in either GRP or composite if not cost sensitive. Chain plates, wnches, engine, in fact all the workings are bolted direct to the chassis so the hull and superstructure are non structural and are there to keep the water out allowing a very light layup.

I learnt to sail at Itchenor sailing school and the bottoms/soles of most of their boats were semi-transparent. I had forgotten that, it was quite common in early mid 60s, thanks Peter.

GRP actually predates this by ten years Tods produced a 12' dinghy in 1951 the next year a cooperation by Uffa Fox and Patrick de Laszlo ( founder of Halmatic) produced a Flying 20. In 1954 Halmatic produced the 48' TSMY Perpetua. Perpetua was produced at Halmatic's expense to prove to the Admiralty that GRP was able to withstand the torque and vibration of diesel engines. Early GRP boats were seriously over-engineered with very heavy layup. Various oil crisis and the high degree of cost control applied by todays mass producers in the USA, Poland, France, Spain and Germany lead me to think the their lifespan will be considerably shorter than those produced in the late 60s early 70s when we also had big producers like Westerly, who produced 2500+ Centaur most of which are still sailing.

I think it was more attractive when you owned it.

Cant think of any others with a gallery encircling so I say Berney as well. Having said that not seen it for years.

It aint horses or weight with displacement it is waterline length that counts. Your Hull Speed is 1.34 × square root of LWL = SPEED IN KNOTS. All imperial so waterline in feet. Look how Trixie is digging in BA would not do so until a much higher speed

Going back a number of years my wife and I had an early spring holiday In Lanzarote. We decided to go back in October so I never changed back any money. Unfortunately business got in the way and we did not go back. Years later when we were moving from Bucks to Norfolk I found a wallet with £250 in worthless pesetas. What you have never missed etc.

I have heard that these are not too healthy an option for duck and geese. In fact I have seen them prove fatal on the saltmarsh.

Thanks Paul, Hit the news button and you will get the whole story.

The Old Girl has come from the Orwell to The Broads. Yet again I am on my Samsung Phone so can't link. Google Nancy Blackett Trust and go to News. If someone can do a link, it is an interesting read.

Des MacCarthy is the epitomy of NFN. Lovely guy and his asparagus is always some of the first around here and he over charges massively for it. I say the epitomy of NFN because he is quite frankly as mad as a box load of frogs. A lot written of Ancestral Home but I think his father and mother bought it post WWII. Not sure if the family is Norfolk through and through.

Unique as Abbot is RC and Bishop is Anglican. I think.

Given the long days I would think so but there will be little time for sight seeing. Distance wise it is, I guess about 30 miles so 7 to 8 hours allowing getting stuck behind dawdlers but then you have nine locks and that is the unknown quantity. I would plan one hour per lock and when you sail straight though it is a bonus. Marlow is good mooring and good shopping, Waitrose very short walk. It could be a good stop on your voyage.

Peaty areas are also known for distilling non QC hard liquor another damager of brain cells.

It is a very beautiful route, I especially like it though the Chilterns where I lived most of my life Cookham to Henley through Marlow, Hurley and Hambleden is absolutely stunning.

Kris craft are very good, but remember Polly, it is not distance that counts on The River Thames it is the number of locks and the time it takes to get through them. I have taken two hours to get through Hamble lock near Henley. There are a lot of locks Twix Datchet and Henley and that week a lot of queuing.

They are talking rot. Bread is terrible for Duck. Their meat is far too dark for bread sauce. Bread sauce with chicken or Turkey never duck. I am with Ray a Grand Marnier sauce, or better still if you can get it Van de Hum.

A very respected Broadland Yard owner once warned me off water ballast because the water is not clean and goes stagnated very quickly. To demonstrate he took me aboard a Macgregor 26 he was working on and it was very whiffy. I was actually in correspondence with Swallow when my wife fell ill for the last time about sealed ballast tanks that I could fill with a hose and add a cup of bleach to overcome the problem.

Copying the lifting cabin of river cruisers could provide an answer. There is no reason why a River Launch based on a sailer could not be developed. Cornish Crabbers do it with their "Clam Series". Another way would be to provide full standing headroom to just a narrow section on the centre line utilising the deepest part of the hull. Or if you are young fit and flexible give up standing headroom.

Good job I did not, he would have got kicked for nothing he had done. Seriously I climbed the wall. But I also took some very strong beer that I drank when it was bad. I knew then that I could not drive out to buy fags.

I am 69, you think I was not addicted, 40 Senior Service untipped. Firm believer in go Cold Turkey. I went fly fishing in Sutherland 30 miles from anywhere for a week with patches for three days.