grendel

Now en route, transfer at stratford was easier than i had feared, and trains are running on time.

I prefer the sleeping bag , I know exactly how to regulate my temperature in that.

Well travel day is upon me (Broad Ambition generally crews up at least partially the day before the rest as she has to cruise round to meet the others), as it was obvious that the car wouldnt be available before the trip up, I booked a train ticket for the trip to wroxham, this means that about half the stuff I normally take wont be going with me, I have managed to pack everything into one holdall type sports bag (with wheels thank goodness) though it did mean vacuum packing my sleeping bag and clothes to squish them into the space better - this doesnt make them any lighter. with the rest of the bits I need packed into a rucksack, what isnt packed will be worn. in about an hour i will leave for the station, wheeling and carrying my bits for the 1 mile walk to the station, it says its a 20 minute walk, so I will allow more due to the luggage and breaks probably being required. logistically being without the car hasnt changed a lot, other than luggage restraints, the trip will take about the same time as driving and the train fare (cheaper by taking a slightly later train), will come in about the same as fuel would have cost in the car.( £60 in total for both ways). I get the impression that Broad Ambition will primarily be crewed up by those travelling by rail this year. (with only our skipper having driven to Norfolk. (the latest news on the car is that finally DHL have admitted they wrongly delivered it and that the part is now irretrievably lost, so at least we can move forward with alternative arrangements now.)

fix the lids under a shelf and use them for storing nails and screws etc.

I once had the unenviable task of going into a live grid substation, and updating the drawings to what was there- 30 years of wiring upgrades, none of which were recorded, made more difficult because though the wires had numbers on ferrules around the cable, these were often rotated out of sight, and being live i wasnt allowed to touch them to rotate the ferrules back. anyway 3 weeks on site with a drawing board and the old drawings to mark up and I eventually got it done- many thousands of wires.

most hire boats will site the weed filter access above the water line for the very reason that hirers probably wont know to turn off the seacocks, so they design out the risk.

I am pretty certain there is a no turning past this point as you get to the pilot mooring section, because I always wondered how you would turn if you were moored up there.

3 sleeps and then I should be aboard Broad Ambition.

they also provide a hazard when accessing the side deck, which could be an issue on a hire boat

and to compare to the real thing

next to figure how to make it stay put- I do have some small neodidium magnets that may be handy for that.

The rolled up canopy was nowhere near easy, and it's still not lying as flat as I would like, basically I used full curved rails where they would be seen, and the rest are just 1" lengths glued at the ends, glazing plastic added then rolled up ( not easy where the curved rails are).

just went out today and bought a box or #15, and a pack each of 15A, 10, 10A, (Large and small straight and curved) (for #3 handle, the blade and handle in view is a #4 handle with a #25 blade super strong chopping blade.

Waterproofing the canopy under way using a clear coat, this has darkened the canopy slightly, which I think looks closer to the colour

my even earlier transit had vertically split mirrors, 2 mirrors in 1 that were very good as one side gave a wider view while the other gave a good close view down the side of the van. I suspect that these were a dormobile sourced part as my transit was a dormobile conversion to a parcel van. when I had the windscreen break, dormobile had the last 2 replacements in the country (and fortunately were only in folkestone), - they even had a team come out and fit it for me.

they look like the mirrors I had on my old bedford camper van many years ago. certainly some type of van mirror- or lorry

I must tender my apologies for this evening as I am otherwise engaged (and for next week as its lads week) I have to go show astronomical sights to kids and parents at one of the local schools.

I seem to recall they were preparing an old juliette hull as a former for a glassfibre mould for a new boat, so maybe its a half and half, glassfibre hull with wood fitout.

update on the car, DHL are still struggling to find where they delivered my ABS pump to, and recover it, (they did manage to ascertain it was signed for at 8.30pm (I wonder how many businesses are open at 8.30pm) the person that signed for it is unknown to the garage it was supposedly delivered to (the garage of origin as apparently they had been unable to deliver it at its destination) so the latest news is they have the driver who delivered it going to pick it up again, then it still has to go away and be repaired, returned by DHL (god forbid) and fitted to the car. in anticipation that it will actually be found and fixed, I have given up and transferred to plan B for lads week- train ticket is booked- as quick as driving and as cheap as the fuel, so no problem there. its high speed train as far as norwich, then the short hop to hoveton & wroxham. with any luck the car might be fixed by the time i return. (not holding my breath)

ah you will be headiing south at the same time as us, yes we do south and North, though I think we are headed back north tuesday

Brinks, and only 6 per boat

ooh thats brave, going out on the week of lads week, watch out for us, we will be on Broad Ambition and two Symphonies

Tradition, its the way its always been done.

Griff, you have the gist of the problem in that it would be way too thick, I did consider this, but really i knew it wasnt the solution, I also considered cloth, but that would make it difficult to handle, I am still not sure how I will handle the rolled up version, as part of that consists of the clear windows, I do have some thin sheets of clear plastic for the windows on the rest of the boat, so it may take a couple of goes for the rolled canopy. as an example if the material was just 1mm thick, that would be the same as having the real canopy 1/2" thick, so you would be looking for something around 0.25mm thick (the card I have is 0.28mm, so just about perfect)

I will seal the cardboard with a varnish or lacquer, as for the rolled back canopy, I feel that I will just make a second version in the rolled up format, so you use one or the other, making a canopy that could be rolled up would i feel just leave it vulnerable to damage and almost impossible to deploy.