JanetAnne

The odd thing is that the condition of the boat you start with seems to be somewhat irrelevant when it comes to woodie restoration. Whether a plank is rotten at the end or along half its length you are still replacing the plank! Which boats get restored is purely down to luck. There have been many deserving cases out there sadly broken up in the last couple of years because they didnt find someone with the time to rescue them and its all about time. The carnage at Wayford and the dozen or more recently broken up at Martham are just the latest to be lost. There are very few boats looking like this... that make it to this... (yes its the same part albeit 3 years later!!), without going through a lot of this... I guess the key to restoration is sheer bloody - mindedness!

Ah... such sad news Islander (though I had thought you would probably know) We had looked at her with every intention to buy and would have gladly taken her on but the vendor had some wildly extreme ideas as to her worth and so there was no deal to be done. She was the last surviving woodie from Newson Boats fleet as well as the last of her class. They were a beautifully built boat as a couple of piccys of one of her sister ships when new will testify.

Careful now or they may not be the only ones skating on thin ice! I am off to make JA's front floorboards tomorrow. Need a boaty fix after three days of cooking and festive films. What with 24/7 eBay and on line chandler's I need to go and do something else whilst I still have a few quid left for diesel.

You two are as bored as I am aren't you!

During a very recent conversation with a fellow wooden boat owner I was asked what had happened to Falling Leaves. She was moored on Thorpe Island till a few years ago when she was moved and hawked around ebay but I had to confess that I had no idea what had become of her since. 'You must know, you are in touch with so many wooden boat owners' etc etc. So, in hope of reclaiming a slither of credibility (dont say it Griff...) I am turning to the oracle, aka NBN. Does anyone know what happened to Falling Leaves in the last few years? Here's a piccy I took of her last time I saw her in 2013 and an image I suspect you will all be more familiar with. This one taken in 2011

I would find it very hard to believe that any bottle of wine would survive 8 or 9 days amongst this lot let alone years!

Yikes! They'll be telling us they are human next

Peter, you'd cry if you knew what I have seen one of those go for recently! Many transits came with low compression heads and so to increase power people used to nick the manifold and Weber from the 2000E Corsair. This made the engine slower because it couldn't burn the fuel it was now receiving resulting in quite a volatile exhaust gas and the occasional explosion! Of course the placebo effect made it much quicker and with some decent go faster stripes it could just manage to crawl back up to the speed it had before the conversion was started

I find cooking, cleaning, repairing the washing machine etc is all worth brownie points to spend when spreading car parts all over the table or wanting boating time. And when you own a wooden boat you do need plenty of boaty time to keep the bloody thing afloat!

He may be able to work my phone but he cant work his brake pedal. The reason his car was here was because he ran into the back of a nice shiny new mini the day before! Seems our old skool skills are still needed after all

Still happens here.... just had the grandsons fiesta spread all over the place. Gotta keep your hand in where you can! Funny thing is I built the whole thing from feel (like many of us on here can) but then had to hand my phone to said grandson to do something for me because I cant work it...

Agreed. We try to map on the conservative side, well as far as the lambda will allow us. Its an aftermarket ecu on this one so there is always a bit of dialing in to do and we have a flat spot to iron out along the way. At the end of the day all we are doing is what we used to do with a colour tune and induction pipe. Sadly, setting up common rail by ear like we used to do carbs just doesnt cut it anymore

Gotta get the mapping sorted on a rolling road but its a ST170 base and now turbo'd so should be up there. Its very quiet to drive though after that V4!

Its a 2.0 Zetec as found in Mondeo's, Focus's, and good old Capri's lol

Not sure my reactions are up to the understeer of an Essex V6 these days... ... so I popped in one of these with a nice 5 speed.

That was the home for a spectacular (lol) 2000V4 GT until this year.

Oops, where's the piccy

It was in the Zodiac as pictured. I was very lucky to be involved in Historic Touring Cars for a few years until recently. Here's one I am currently playing with..

Or how about these? in this. In the days before my current 4mph lifestyle!

Tyres eh? Have I even mentioned the Austin Allegro panda car currently residing in my workshop? It came with a collection of paperwork including a copy of this advert for Uniroyals... Mine is not the car in the picture....

Excellent!

I have two pairs of trainers, one for work and one for best. Thats it, just two pairs of trainers. Then again I own a wooden broads cruiser, I am lucky to have any shoes at all

Dont listen to him peeps he's clearly not using a proper calendar We meet OBYS Thursday and cruise Friday. Saturday is show day!

By the way, I had the chance to return Chloe Jane (now back in my ownership) to the broads last week. A damp and misty Monday greeted us at Windsor a few days ago where she was carefully loaded and secured for her return journey to familiar waters.

The survival rate of Martham Judith's is actually pretty good. With Maggie Jane, Judith M and Judy all going strong with their original raised decks and Judith Windmill and the two still in hire representing the later modified versions I reckon thats 6 still in existance, all of which will be afloat next season.