ChrisB

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.

I have a very large hedged garden with large plantings of shrubbery. I over the last 3 years or so have scrapped my 2 stroke power tools and bought professional quality rechargeable. They are not cheap my hedge cutter was £475, Charger £120 and battery £175 but worth every penny, you pick it up in spring and it works. I now have a chain saw, strimmer and pruner as well all on rechargable, interchangable battery. And the reduction in noise is wonderful. If I did not have so much grass I would love to go electic for mowing.

You mention a Japanese saw, I watched a fasinating documentary on Japanese wood working. It seems many tools that we would push like a plane they would pull. It showed a "Planing Competition" in fact it looked like they were working on masts as the wood was very long and round. The craftsman walked backwards dragging his plane which was two handed but much larger than our spokeshave and another held up the cigarette paper thin shaving that came off as one continuous piece more like the swarf off a lathe cutting mild steel when you have speed and feed spot on. I wonder what the Japanese Craftmen who learn their skills over many many years and have a status like that of surgeons in their society would think of the De Walt and Makita power tool competitions so beloved in parts of the US.

Perhaps not if you were looking for a sheltered landfall in a SW blow and aiming for Bremerhavn having discounted the Staande Mast for speed on passage to Keil. This is an easy do in a boat like that is being discussed for a Baltic holiday. Remember also in a blow your cruising speed could be well under half that in benign conditions.

I love the wildness of the Pennine moors, the timeless certainty of the moorland farm/ homestead. Except for the wind, the call of the Red Grouse and in summer the haunting call of the Curlew, to walk free through the purple heather in approaching Autumn. But M62!

I guess that is the difference between being 38 and 68! But the following being as second nature to me as driving to the supermarket makes me feel safe, reading the lights and marks into harbour in the dark does the same. And my Reeds has been my very best friend for over 40 years, can't turn my back on it now.m

Robin, You are obviously very set on this. May I offer a piece of advice? As you reside in London why not join The Little Ship Club. They are just off Upper Thames Street EC4 you will meet all sorts there and they have some wonderful speakers from time to time. Also when you wish to go "back to the smoke" their accommodation is very reasonable for London. They run all types of courses and if you want to go foreign you should really be able to navigate with paper chart, parallel rules, and protractor and transfer your electronic data to paper. At sea, unless you are truely "Blue Water" and especially around our crowded coastline you need to know where you are at all times and should those electronics go down!!!!! Which Ss law says they will probably in a North Sea Haar you are not lost. And in any case knowing how to navigate traditionally is very satisfying.

You remind me of the Elephants Graveyard that was inland from San Diego. It was full of abandoned dreams of sailing away. There were a number of given up restorations but most were Ferro home construction. The trouble with the ferro craze of the 70s was the hull was all uncosted own labour. A couple would have a dream of escape and decide on a 30ft design. Unfortunately they then realised it was only a few dollars more to go up 50% and build a 45 footer. But then came the problem the fit out costs had not gone up 50% it was more like 300 to 400%, the dream was now a nightmare and the storage costs mounting so they walked away, as in the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. "A sadder and a wiser man he woke the morrow dawn"

As usual I do not wish to cause some heated debate but let me say this: I was brought up in Chorley Wood that straddles Bucks and Herts. In the 50s 60s and 70s it was a wonderful rural area all be it connected to london by the Metropolitan line. In the 80s the M25 cut through between Chorley Wood and Rickmandworth and changed the area to what is really a Greater London Suburb. For most of my married life I lived high on top of The Chilterns at Bledlow Ridge. Again it was wonderfully rural until the M40 was pushed through from High Wycome to Birmingham. With it came development, Thame to name one small town change completely. I am not saying that we did not need these roads but Nothing and I mean Nothing changes an area like high speed conecting roads and the danger with an area like Norfolk is you change forever what visitors come to the area to enjoy.