JanetAnne

Seeing as none of us have seen the risk assessments or health and safety reports for the event it is quite hard to be accurate in any assumptions being offered. For all we know the organisers have spent the entire budget on 8 miles of luminous yellow tape to be used to form a swimming lane and held in place along the river by 120 canoeists wearing pink panda costumes! The point is we don't know what their plan is for the event. You can't put up a bloody gazebo at Beccles without a risk assessment these days. I guess that with over two hundred swims organised this year they have an inkling as to what's needed?

Well participants of last nights quiz were whisked through six decades of memories answering questions on everything from Dixon of Dock Green to Spitting Image. They proved they know more about Smash potato than politics along the way and remembered being asked to 'bath with a friend' during the 1976 drought year! They also managed to identify 15 out of 26 James Bond films against the clock in under a minute! Mike was victorious at the finishing post with a small margin over the chasing pack and is in the chair for next week.

on my way!!

So now it's novice hirers eh? Maybe we should stop them helming past moorings in case someone falls off a boat in front of them and they run them over. How about the water skiiers on the Waveney and Yare, highly dangerous as well obviously. Horning regatta will have to be cancelled as well. It's the novice hirers you see. What about the three rivers? Who on earth would allow a race like that to take place when there are novices out and about on the network. It's madness you know!!! Maybe we should stop the novices completely. They could be spoiling your enjoyment of your boat after all. Sometimes I wonder.... Oh by the way, don't dare to capsize your sailing dinghy during one of these events, you could be deemed a swimmer and you won't know what hit you! Alternatively you could always have rescue boats/support vessels policing such events and advising boaters accordingly as happens at Horning and 3RR. 181,384 people were injured on our roads in 2016 (1792 fatally) yet we think nothing of travelling to work, shopping, the boat or whatever. What I find a shame is that this forum couldn't have put it's collective minds together and come up with a way to make such an event work rather than putting so much effort into stopping it. And finally I apologise for the above. Today has not been a good day.

I think the idea is to swim rather than walk

Well I hope they do manage to pull it off and having been a regular swimmer in the broads for many years I am sat here considering whether to enter! My biggest concerns are not so much being mistaken for a whale on the event whilst participating but more worried about being harpooned on this forum long before getting to the WRC slipway. Do we have the same attitude to the London marathon when our enjoyment of our vehicles is restricted for the day or how about the English stages of the tour de France and the traffic restrictions that causes. Should I have been lambasted for causing inconvenience to others whilst taking the wherry turn in anger on a Thursday night and preventing free access to the broad to other river users? I was there on the very first SUP race, there were I think, 8 on the long race and 5 on the short course. They jumped through hoops to make that happen and look at it now. Ultimately we are all responsible for our own safety.

We had new crewsavers for all the dogs recently until one of the rings (not the handle) on the back of the neck of one suddenly failed. When we checked the others they were similar. Crewsavers suggested the ring was not for attaching the dogs lead to.... it had no other purpose that we could see and the instructions suggested that was what it was for. Anyway they were very good and took the faulty ones back and we now have Julius K9 items. Our problem was opposite to yours. We have a bulldog and they can't swim. This one weighs 25kgs. Because they have no natural bouyancy and just sink to the bottom we needed a jacket that would save rather than assist. A 25kg dog jacket is about twice the size of the bulldog (!) but Julius were excellent and soon had the problem solved.

I hope you are not encouraging young Tim to smoke something he shouldn't?

This really does bring back memories Grendel. It took us days to get these right, something a true craftsman would have ticked the box for in a couple of hours! You have truly captured the essence of the traditional boat builders with your project though. Now dont forget the hoppers...

Its Newsons Amethyst outside the pub.

Its me!! Yep, they tucked me up with questions on chocolate and I just couldnt help myself. So I am next weeks quizmaster. Next weeks rounds will be 1- The 1950's 2- The 1960's 3- The 1970's Refreshments and teddie reloading 4- The 1980's (Are you starting to detect a theme here?) 5- The 1990's 6- Erm... oh go on then The Noughties! And its Good Friday so there may well be some choccy bonus questions as well. See you there!

Ah yes, the how long is a piece of string question! The real issue is that because we all do the job differently we all get quite varying results from the same product. 2 pack varnish is harder when cured which would suggest it's more suited to your application but it lacks flexibility and can crack away especially if the wood underneath is not prepared correctly. We have, for example, had excellent results from Screwfix no nonsense varnish and then been unhappy with the results from Brava, a much higher priced product. Our current varnish of choice is solvent based Epifanes though it's drying time is a bit slow at times. Funny thing is the man who supplies the Epifanes swears by sanding between each coat using finer and finer grade papers to get the perfect finish whereas a proper time served boat builder I know never sands using anything less than 240 grit. He says the varnish needs something to grip to and gets results to die for. So, having been absolutely no help to you at all, good luck with your wheel.

Now isn't that pretty and still sporting its original side valve.

If you are going to start adding heart attacks to your repotoire will we need to re-train the beagles?

I've not paid that much for the boat let alone a survey for it!

Why do you need either? If the heating ain't getting the boat warm I can't see the need for the fridge to cool anything down. You just may have the best of both worlds and not realised it yet.

Aha found the piccy! My first night was back in 1972 (gulp) aboard this... Somewhere in mums loft is a cine film of the holiday which I must liberate!

Not my first night on the broads but one of the more memorable was being moored on the quayhead along from Martham Boats waiting to be lifted out. Its quite exposed along there and the wind always blows across the fields no matter what the weather is doing elsewhere in the country. Anyway, it was late October and had been raining all day just to make everything nice and slippery before the wind got up about towards midnight. It blew an absolute hooley of course. The boat was being thrown against the quay with the fenders screaming and then back out into the river ready for the next assult. I was in the front cabin in the berth that 'didnt leak as much as the rest of them' (new cabin sides were on the list to do once out the water) listening to the wind howling, the fenders playing football against the hull constantly and the drip drip into the saucepans in the bed opposite me! The first attention getter was the sound of splintering wood from the aft deck. Up and out into the cockpit to discover the aft spring lines cleat had pulled out of the already rotten deck (also on the list, lol) but confident the doubler would hold on the 'good' side. The bigger crash was the dinghy, previously taken out the water and on the bank, catching the hull as it was returned to from where it came. I didnt get up figuring I wasnt about to chase it down the river in the pitch black. It had a name on it, someone would find it in the morning. Then the canopy on the yacht behind me let go turning into a proper flappy thing partially attached to a flappy thing. I have never been so keen to see daylight. The following morning I found the dinghy. It must have landed on its side in the water because it was sunk under the boat. The only clue was its painter that had caught a mooring rope on the way past and was somewhat tight leading into the water. Of course, the day before, I had removed all the bouyancy tank lids to dry the condensation out ready to trailer it home... typical eh? All in all an excellent night

It was Ellie twisting his arm to film young beauties that caused the injury in the first place

Checking for osmosis is part of the survey for all craft - even woodies. Otherwise there would be no point in going to all the trouble of fibreglass sheathing dodgy hulls....

Welcome to the NBF

There are many boats out there that have had expensive repairs to osmosis following which they haven't sunk. There are large numbers of boats out there that have had cheaper repairs to osmosis and they didnt sink either. Then there are the boats whose osmosis was left untreated. They also remained afloat. There are very very few examples of osmosis actually sinking a boat.... yet. Polyester mite on the other hand... Osmosis is, however, a useful bargaining tool.

Shall I bring a chocolate fountain so we can make it more palatable?

I believe it's a risk that can be managed by consulting the appropriate health and safety bod. Now the risk has been identified you will be pleased to hear that they will protect you from the wetness until the water is turned into dry water and you can be trusted to go near it again.