ChrisB

There was a video, I think on you tube of a Drascombe motoring off a beach through horrible steep breaking surf. A couple of times big waves tried to turn it which would most likely have rolled it but it made it through to the calm beyond. Must try to find it.

Just spoke to my son, pouring on Bucks, Oxon borders.

Just spoke to my son, pouring on Bucks and Oxon borders

Just to go off topic Peter, do you know if Honor Marine (Rochdale) are still going? I know that they wanted to start their very belated retirement and were looking for a buyer but had no luck. I was impressed with the Devon range when I last went to Beale but that was 2007, just before I relocated to Norfolk.

SNAP! My long gravel drive is part of the Paston Way. At my house it turns to grass for about another 80 metres then goes across the fields. I have put up signs and even told the Parish Council that I will stop maintenance and mowing. Short of CCTV what can I do? Trouble was I lost vigilance when Judith was so very ill at home and am now paying for it.

Seriously nice room, sort of place that important jobs get done.

An Ornithophobian!

Does it also cover parking your car there? I sometimes go down there to eat my sandwich when I am having a drive that way. To put it in perspective Lymington Marina (one I know well) is £3.85 WEEKDAYS £4.00 WEEKENDS. per metre. So a 9metre or 30footer is £36 a 50ft would be £60 per night and Lymington is middle of the road price wise on the South Coast.

Not to be taken lightly. Welcome to Melbourne.....

Loads on the boat, making horrible black spots on my cream cockpit upholstery, absolute murder to get off. However we should not complain, I had a WhatsApp Comms this morning from my youngest son, he and his fiance were jogging by the river in Melbourne and had to turn back because there were a couple of Eastern Brown Snakes basking on the path. The saying goes " if one gets you, go and have a smoke you won't finish your ciggy"

I am not a marine engineer but I am a Mechanical Engineer. To my mind I cant see a lot of difference. If properly designed and balanced revs should do no harm. As for long Vs short stroke surely the bores will suffer more in a long stroke as piston velocity must be higher. That is per revolution it has further to travel.

The word "yacht" is used for any recreational boat. Naturally it needs to be a bit bigger than my twenty footer, I would not call it a yacht. I think the bit about sails is mostly to do with the UK, the word comes from the Dutch "jacht" which was a fast sail boat and has stuck for saily ones. Motor boats were traditionally classed as TSDY or SSDY. Twin Screw Diesel Yacht or Single Screw but this description seems to have gone out of fashion and been shortened to yacht, shame I liked the sort of ad that said " Gentlemans TSDY "

With regards to your intended mooring which I agree has excellent facilities, I think it is a location where you must have transport. A mile or two walk is not a problem and keeps you fit but it is no fun carrying 15 kilo of shopping or a new microwave if yours turns it's toes up or indeed in rainy mid winter when it is dark at 16.00. Is car parking included in the residential mooring charges?

I think it is a great facility.

The last time we had all that silly no fuel business you could still get leaded fairly easily. I never had a problem I used my wife's Mercedes 190E. It could run on both so I went to the head of the line and filled with leaded.

When all the family were here supporting me in Judith's last days I bought four Aberdeen Angus fillets which must have been about a kilo and paid £48 and a few pence. As for cars nothing worse than having low power in mountains. I worked in Mannedorf and Zug for weeks here and there and soon gave up hiring base models.

As a piece of real estate, potentially it must be worth a fortune to someone like Holiday Inn Express.

There is also a nature science flaw in wind generation, probably not so much around our sceptred isle but certainly true of continental land based farms. That is high atmospheric pressure in summer months means hot weather = lots of air conditioning. High atmospheric pressure in winter months means cold weather = lots of heating But high atmosperic pressure is accompanied by light or calm winds.

Absolutely!

I meant to add but edit time ran out that if road travel can break two very important milestones the takeup of electrics will be huge. The UK is very different from other countries where E travel has taken off. They are either very small or vast like the US. The US loved the car in the 50s and part of the 60s, folk travelled vast distances, but jet travel took over and the car is a local tool hence vehicles like the leaf sell reall well. In this country we still like our car for holidays, business and distance. Assuming that there is infastructure in place the two milestones to pass are 300 miles that is say London to Penzance and 400 miles london to Edinburgh. If this happens then the technology will filter into other area. A relation has an electric scrambler motor cycle I think it is a KSR an he loves it.

Who can tell where technology will be in 2040. 23 years ago it was 1994. Windows 95 was coming, who had or could even afford a digital camera? Phones had only recently been made to fit the pocket and could make a phone call, that is all. There are a lot of boats already offering a hybrid means of propulsion but going forwards my money says Hydrogen and solid Oxide Fuel Cells have a lot of potential. As a half way house Propane fed fuel cells could also have a place. As for The Broads, given the right infastructure and considering the very small distances in an enclosed waterway pure plug in electrics would be OK given the advances in battery technology now being seen on our roads and inproving year on year.

In a boat that size nothing less than a washing machine, Dryer, and dishwasher would do. If they can fit them to narrow boats they must be able to fit them. Unless the pounding wrecks them. I am sure that I have seen a laundry in a Grand Banks.

On the subject of power some of these large leisure vessels run 24 or even 48 volt systems, I guess to crank their large engines, but I don't know. I have seen a large boat running batteries in series and parallel to achieve this but I was always under the impression that lithium batteries had to be built to a voltage ie you can have them in parallel but they must not be wired in series. I must have read it somewhere because I have thought that to be so for a long while. We need Richard, or another Electrical Engineer.

Castrol R is a natural veg oil in fact it is modified castor oil. If you go to places like the Goodwood revival races and watch the Mk1 Lotus Cortinas, A35s, Mini Cooper S and the like you can still get that magic smell. Those were the days when you could buy 105 Octane.

We used to put a drop of Castrol R in the tank of our Spitfires and Sprites in the 60s to leave the aroma as you roared off from the Pub!!!! As everyone did back then! Better than a parfum de Paris.