Vaughan

Six campaign Stars, which represent every Naval theatre of the second World War, except one. My opinion is as it always was. My remark was a sign that I did not wish to rise to your bait. I still don't now.

I wonder where he got the Mention in Dispatches from then? Or the Greek War Medal, in recognition of his bravery during the Italian invasion of Greece in 1941?

They had "babies heads" as well !

If only you knew.

A good example is Prince William, whose military rank is Major, in the Household Cavalry (Blues and Royals) but who also has the honorary rank of Colonel in Chief of the Irish Guards.

You mean "Ooh aah - Jim lad!" and "Avast heaving!" or what the BBC Radiophonic Workshop used to call "Days of Sail" sound effects. For those who may not have heard of them, they were using what amounted to a Moog Synthesiser before it had even been invented and composed - among other things - the theme music to "Doctor Who".

My father always used to say that when he died, they would have to take his liver out and beat it to death with a stick!

Here is a scan from the Admiralty Manual of Seamanship, revised 1979 : I think that should explain it. The asterisk * on the term "fake" goes on to say : A fake is one of the turns of a rope when stowed or coiled. The term "flake" has been used incorrectly in the past. All the same, I think what my father was taught in 1936, still holds good today!

This is also why when you buy a new coil of rope, you always take the rope from the centre of the coil and not from the outside.

Giving yourself plenty of social distance, again!

Cheesing down is OK if it is coiled down "with the lay" of the rope and then it won't kink. I agree that this is only done on ropes which you are not going to use very often, such as the forestay tackle, and it prevents a tripping hazard on the deck. Halyards, sheets and mooring warps would be "flaked down" in a form of elongated overlapping coil, which lays on deck looking a bit like a flat spring. Again, you must always flake down with the lay of the rope.

Many thanks for that Griff, and all sound sense. I recognise that as Navy training, that we were all taught when doing small boat handling. I would just add one thing, where the Broads are concerned, especially for the helmsman : Always approach a swimmer in the water bows on, to keep them well clear of the prop. Once you have got hold of them with a rope or boathook, turn the engine off and you can then pull them towards the stern where you can get them out more easily. For someone in the water, I always recommend swimming to the bank. In most places on the Broads, once you have got to the side, you will be standing on the bottom anyway!

Your boat is not a hire boat and was built before the EC regulations were in force, so I guess it is up to the BSS and your insurance company. It would be well worth having a good read of what your policy says.

It sounds as though that particular Volvo is a Perkins MC42 anyway. A large number of Volvo engines are actually Perkins.

You are obviously indispensable Tom! And it is excellent to have such a good link with you on this forum.

It was to the second but it could indeed have been the first!

Susie and I have been talking about this and we reckon we should still be able to get into a dinghy and row it. Trouble is, we don't think we would be able to get out of it again!

You don't know how right you are with that statement. Or maybe you do! Both Blakes and Hoseasons were marketing on behalf of member boatyards, so each one wanted his own space with his own photo and his own description, even though most of them were now coming out of the same Fibreglass moulds, and it would have been so much better to group them in classes, with a choice of different places to start from. So the whole thing ended up looking more like an estate agent's window than a holiday marketing brochure. Jimmy Hoseason and Jim Brooker, at Blakes, used to tear their hair out over this, but they couldn't persuade the owners! And then in the late 60s we got the "symbols"! Each boat description had a symbol on it for things such as fridge, heating, hot water, shower and razor point, so an awful lot of money had to be spent by small yards to "keep up with the Jones's" and have all the symbols! It takes a lot of time and money to fit a shower compartment into an old boat which was never designed to have one. And then some yards started insisting on a larger space if they had several boats of the same class (started by Martin Broom with the Admirals) which is how the Wilds Caribbean ended up with a full page all of its own! In Crown Blue Line, our brochure became famous among the travel agents as we only had 10 classes of boats in it, but exactly the same boats, to the same standards, could be hired in 18 different places in France and Europe. So regular customers could come with us on the same boat for 18 years, in a different cruising area each time. A very much better way of marketing a boating holiday!

It will probably have wrecked his nice new countersink as well, so he will need another new one!

My father was one of those consultees and he used to say the same thing.

Thanks very much for your trouble in researching that. It just shows that yards had all sorts of ideas in those days, to try and produce something "better" than the others. This may explain a lot of other engines as they were often the same basic engine, but marinised for marine use by different companies. I do of course, stand to be corrected on this as I am only talking from memory, but I seem to remember the Ford Watermota and Fisherboy were the same engine with a different gearbox. Similarly, I think the Meadows Kittiwake may have been a version of the Morris Navigator.

In my heart of hearts, I think you may have to wait rather a long time for that since I fear that pub culture - and pubs themselves - are likely to be eliminated after this is over. Let us hope that will not be as the result of official (and public) over-reaction.

Probably Ranworth, moored boats will probably have folks on-board, boats in marina, maybe not so likely. I must say I tend to agree with Marshman on this one. I moor stern on in a boatyard basin among around 15 other boats, all of whose owners seem to be friends and although they are usually seen there at weekends they often don't leave the mooring at all - just socialise with each other in garden chairs on the lawn. And yet if I leave the mooring to have lunch at Ranworth I have to moor alongside in case I get too close to someone? I can understand that the BA are keen to be seen to tick all the appropriate boxes but there is still the danger of thinking up rules in the process of over-reaction. After all, they are not the police. What was that phrase that we so often used to use about official bodies, before the virus arrived? Oh yes, that was it - "risk averse"!

I have had an e-mail letter today from Simpsons Boatyard in Stalham to say that they are offering all their usual services including pump-outs and diesel. I believe their repair and maintenance sheds have remained open throughout. Presumably one can now also moor on the recently re-built Stalham staithe?

A poignant comment about human interaction, and why we enjoy boating on the Broads and meeting people, either on public moorings or, even better, in pubs. But how are we now to do this when those we confront are hiding behind masks, hoods and gloves, so all we can see is a pair of terrified eyes, looking at us as though we are about to pull a gun on them? Excuse me. Perhaps I should have said this on a different thread.