grendel

well I have constructed a seat piece from 1/2" ply, it took a bit of fettling to get just right, but its there now, 3 angles between front and sides, then trim down until its a flush fit, some battens have been trimmed to the correct angles, next to trim them to size.

its plain (plane) that is just for display purposes

i can duck, i learnt how when out with Pauline and Phil. every time we turned a corner

actually the tube i have for the mast is steel, thin and light, but strong.

dont worry, I also have to figure a rudder into the equation yet. I am thinking maybe a lee board that can be strapped to the side of the boat, sort of hooked over a gunwhale, or at worst just fit a shallow keel down the centre of the boat, i dont want to make it so heavy I cant load it onto the roof of the car.

well a quick trip to the local chandlers, (ooh how much could be spent) as I got a manual inflate lifejacket for £3 at the boot fair this morning that was missing the gas bottle, anyway the guy at the chandlry inspected it and passed it as fit as long as it holds air (great service), a couple of other bits including a cleat for the main yard, we talked sails and he recommended getting some blue tarp and trying out various options before deciding on a pucker sail, so we will see what we shall see, just a boom to sort out now.

so last night i started constructing a front seat / mast support, this morning when I awoke I looked out of the window and realised I have what must be a 8 foot aluminium pole in the back garden, hmm 2 +2 i have a mast, just a boom to find, some rigging and a sail. I guess I will need some kind of pulley at the top.

I've got a little work to do to make things easier, a forward seat (on which a castor or a couple of castors will be mounted to support the front while i use the handles to move it round).

on the cards already if I can find the bits.

yes I have joined the ranks of wooden boat owners, now dont start worrying, I will still be hiring as its only a little pram dinghy, it came complete with a seagull featherlite outboard, so will enable me to potter around those areas that would otherwise not be accessible, one of the sides needs reattaching to the seat, but its transportable on top of my car, and storeable in the garden.

be warned that the mud weight can and will take a good hold, if you are struggling to lift it, just reverse away from the weight, and it will pull free of the mud, you might even want to leave it just below the water surface for a short way to wash the 'orrible black mud off it

tides, only really worry overly about these if going down south, stern mooring at oulton broad, watch out ror the rubbing strip as the tide goes out, if you put a spring on the ropes should be ok - eg moor using the ropes from the other side of the boat, or run the stern rope forward and the bow rope back. so they cross. most boats will have 4 mooring lines - 2 on each side - and a mudweight, there may be extra in a locker, along with the rhond anchors, dont worry overly about a dinghy

find a pal with a thicknesser and plane it to size yourself, I would offer assistance, but I am down in kent

many years ago I was in the double glazed window industry, and we had an architect ask for doors half as big again as the maximum size, we of course complied after explaining the mechanism would be heavy to operate due to the additional weight of the glass, (they came in at 750 kg per door) after we had fitted it he complained we hadnt fitted security blocks to stop intruders lifting them off their tracks.The patio door was located in an enclosed courtyard, with the one wall that could have been climbed over being above the swimming pool in the middle, we did laugh.

that would be because of the green camoflage MM

As i am sure do the majority of boaters - or at least as they would like to do, I dont suppose any of us can say we have never messed up, and its usually at just the wrong moment. but we should all at least try and respect other boats, and remember its never a bad thing to ask for assistance.

I think the best bet is to phone the bridge pilots on those bridges that have them, and for great Yarmouth the yacht station rangers, who will know what the water levels are doing. I tend to go one better and hire from Martham boats, whose boats will pass Potter heigham most of the time (with their staff as bridge pilots) if the boat can pass Potter heigham, it will certainly pass all the other bridges, I went through Wroxham bridge in may 4 times, with clearances up to 18" all round, even at worst I had a good clear 6"

I think like any company, you can find a good kwik fit garage (occasionally) its all down to the staff. I once had a car written off as cat d- structural damage (needing a visit to the dvla engineering centre to recertify the work), it was a 5mph or less impact and entailed replacing the bonnet and numberplate - (tiny dent in bonnet, broken grill and broken numberplate)- even the insurance rep said he couldnt understand why it had been cat d - he said it should have been a c - beyond economical repair as to do a professional job with a new bonnet and spray job was more than the value of the car. the engineer at the dvla test centre just shook his head and said that it had just been a waste of his time, as it shouldnt have been cat d'd. nonetheless I bought the car back off them and replaced the bonnet from a scrap yard, £40 for the bonnet and about another £20 for the numberplate

Robin, pretty much any car will slip on manhole covers, even my beast of a volvo does it if you hit a manhole cover under braking you will slide on it no matter what the tyre, its just a question of how much, better to read the road and take a line to avoid them. motorcyclists bane are manholes, you learn to spot them . for the leak around the brake reservoir cap, my volvo had that, a new cap sorted it.or it might just need a new rubber seal, they go hard with time.

most of the cars I have bought with dents have had folds and creases in the dents, stuff that wont just pop out as the metal has been deformed.

little dinks are great- even slightly bigger ones, i have had a couple of category c's that I have bought, one had a small dent in the rear wing, it was a great car and the dent didnt stop it being a good runner (it would have been an impossible expensive repair as the rear wing on an estate is part of the body shell, so not on a replaceable panel, though why they didnt just fill it with filler and a dusting of paint over I dont know. the cat c really brings the price down, but if you know what you are looking at they can be great cars (just be careful not to pick one with any major structural damage- though that shouldnt be a cat c anyway.

is that further along after it drops to single carriageway

yes compare leasing to buying a second hand car and running it, and the maths just isnt there, the leasing accounts for all the depreciation on the car, and as you say buying second hand you avoid all that anyway. back in the 1970's my dad won a Vauxhall Viva in a kellogs cornflakes competition (K reg?) He sold it for a loss on the new price for around £2000 and paid off his mortgage, so one of our neighbours got a cheap Vauxhall as new for less than the normal cost and we got our mortgage paid off (at the time my dad didnt drive - working on the railways he got all his tickets cheap (plus so many a year free) anyway.

Alan, there was a time when I thought nothing of swapping out an engine in the evening after arriving home from work, prior to heading back to work the next morning, I have even re-built the odd engine a time or two, but like you I stick to the simpler jobs nowadays - like replacing the suspension or steering components, also these volvo engines seem to last a lot longer than the renault based engines in the old 340's, they only seemed to be good for around 150,000 miles.

Robin, it looks like the old road is still there, even with a nice hard standing parking area at the end.