Vaughan

In fact she had the same up-bringing as me - brought up on a boatyard, in her case at Womack. I had trained her as a wild fowling dog, so swimming if she fell in was not an issue! Never on a lead and hardly ever wore a collar. I have never owned another dog, as I still feel that no other could replace her.

She normally took the port jib sheet when sailing but there was no wind at the time and we were running free anyway. She has her eyes shut in fear that we are about to hit a large Broads Tours launch coming the other way round a bend!

Comments on a postcard, please . . . .

I don't think you will, unless each battery bank has its own alternator. I understand your thinking about the thrusters running via the charging circuit but if they are wired to the starter battery this should not be a problem as they are only in use while the engines are running, and therefore on charge. We can't tell you much more without some photos, and more of a description of the layout you have at the moment.

Blakes did this sort of thing in the 70s, by branding the newer and more luxurious boats as "Blue Chip". They had a badge on the cabin side to denote this and there were one or two extras on board, such as better linen, and towels. The idea of marking out a boat as more luxurious, so the customer expects to pay more, is fair enough but there is a danger to this policy! It immediately implies that the rest of your fleet are of a lower standard, even if you call them bargains, or "value for money". In selling holidays you must never, never, NEVER imply that your customers are hiring a "second class" boat! It doesn't work, and it didn't for Blakes, at the time. As for hiring by a different name, this is just semantics although I believe I am right that in maritime law, the hirer of a vessel is the charterer, and as such is responsible for the handling of the vessel. This is certainly the way insurance companies see it.

Be careful on the way home as the White Heron are now organising night-time paddle boarding, to Surlingham Broad and back. There is an article about it on the EDP website.

I have been reflecting on this and think you are right. They were designed as a sort of hood, to deflect the oil coming down from the rocker shaft and keep it away from the valve stems. I possibly don't remember them much, as I think they were usually left off!

I remember when I was truck driving in France, starting about 4.AM and sometimes calling in at a Routier restaurant to take a break and a coffee and croissant. There would be a line of big fat French truckers sitting at the bar, most of them asking for "Un petit café, et une pousse". Pousse meaning "a push" - which meant a large glass of Cognac. At 6.30 in the morning!

Sorry mate, I can't help with that one. Never seen one like it! I know the marine 4108 was the same as the vehicle engine as we often used to buy them from a car breaker (Hainford Hall) and re-build them. The only difference was the marine sump, which also meant a different (deeper) oil pump. The marinised engines also have a larger flywheel and bell housing, with the starter motor on the other side. We all used to get our parts from Duffields on the airport estate in Norwich. They were the Perkins main dealers and also developed the MC42 engine. Sadly they are no longer. All I can say is I am pretty sure it is not a "marine" part.

Making money out of day boats is nowhere near as easy as it might seem. You need to be in a place where there is a constant passing trade, of which the classic, is Wroxham Bridge. They need to go out every day of the week in season, not just at weekends. I also seem to remember that this company were insisting on the "right kind of customer" to hire their luxury boats. You have to take what you can get in that business, I am afraid.

I have also missed what on Earth this TV programme was supposed to be about?

Exactly. But the NBN is what I mean by a "more credible and respected debating platform". Except that this forum prefers to sit on its hands, respect the TOS at all costs and side-step the issue, while Broads navigation is in a crisis of mis-management the like of which we may never have known before. We have a choice to stand up and be counted, or look back in a few short months or years to come and wonder if we were just "fiddling while Rome burns."

After a phone conversation to friends in Norfolk I have heard that the BRAG facebook page has been closed to posting due to too many people getting offensive and in-appropriate. I suppose it was inevitable that this would implode at some point and I do wish this action could have been conducted via a more credible and respected debating platform.

I see on the EDP website this morning that the parish council intend to carry out a survey of the local people, to see whether the bridge should be closed to road traffic and maintained simply for pedestrians. As it is already closed to everything except what one might call "pedestrian" river traffic, one wonders how, in future, all the expense of maintaining it can justified.

Go on then, what else can you cheer us up with this morning? Personally, I am far too old to worry about my credit rating!

As a matter of interest, here is how a hire boat can be fairly easily adapted for use by the seriously handicapped. It is based around one of our existing Bounty 44s, which we called "Atlantic". It can still be hired as a conventional 7 berth boat, or for two couples handicapped with space for another three able bodied helpers. The aft chair lift is optional, as people can easily be carried aboard over the bows, with the boat moored bow or side on. My design was overseen and approved by a large handicapped association in Switzerland, who gave their own input into some of the details, such as a fridge/freezer for special medicines. The boat would also have had "beefed up" electrics, for the running of overnight oxygen breathing apparatus. The conversion could have been done at my base in St Gilles where we had two of these boats in the fleet. Unfortunately it never happened as my esteemed tour operator employers didn't think it was commercial. I think the truth was they didn't understand it. Despite the Swiss association having guaranteed in writing to provide a full 27 week season every year, just from their own members. A sadly missed opportunity, I fear.

Hmm . . . Yes, you are probably right, although you may not understand why, even if I explain. I was literally raised on the river, on a houseboat, at a boatyard where, by the age of 14, they called me a "time served" painter and yacht rigger. Since then I have watched the changing fortunes and seasons of the place I have still come to love more than anywhere I know. I have seen its good times and the bad ones. Right now I fear for its future more than I ever have before. It has been under bad mis-management for several decades and this season I feel that we have finally reached a crisis point. I seriously believe that this measure of charging for BA moorings will result in a recession from which the Broads as we know them will never again fully recover. In fact we all should realise that they never fully recovered from the recession of the 80s. The lessons from that, were never learned by the authorities. So in that atmosphere It is perhaps understandable that I get frustrated as well as depressed, when I hear so much negativity about all the little things that people think are wrong with it, whilst at the same time seeming to be the lone voice that defends the boating tourism industry - the life-blood of the area - from ill-informed criticism that can easily do serious damage to its image in what is a very fragile market. But on second thoughts you may be right : why should I bother myself with it? There will always be those, for whom the facts of a matter just bounce off; like water off a duck's back.

You may find it was already cracked before you tried to remove it. These old heat exchangers are only held on by three small studs and they were a "natural" for people to stand on when working in the engine compartment. I would have thought it should be a simple matter for a firm to do a weld in this area and then, as you say, fit a Bowman side mounted heat exchanger.

Never mind. You have managed to take us off the topic of bark chips versus gravel on a BA mooring and stir up yet more muddy water off the bottom of the broad. It could seem to me as though that was your main intention.

Is that because these examples defeat your argument? I have very often advised on this forum that if you have special needs, you must advise the boatyard when you make your booking. That way they can recommend a suitable boat and also make other provisions for you before you arrive. It is no use at all turning up at the yard at 3PM on a Saturday, unfolding your wheelchairs out of the back of your adapted "people carrier" and then expecting the yard (and the Broads) to make it all happen for you. I have seen this happen so often and from that moment on, sure enough, it's all the boatyard's "fault".

That makes a change then. You don't mention whether you submitted to paying the mooring surcharge.

Quite right, my friend. Members will know I am rather cynical about the BA's attempts to open up the Broads "to a wider public" since to them, that appears to mean ramblers and paddle boarders. But the handicapped are a very different matter. I mentioned Poppy because he is one of the volunteer skippers for the Nancy Oldfield Trust. I myself have been closely involved in organising and running visits to waterways for the handicapped, both mentally and physically (or both) and I know that the fun and fascination that they had on those days out will give them happy memories for the rest of their lives. The Broads are one of the safest and best places in Europe for the handicapped to enjoy boating on a conventional hire boat holiday, so long as you choose a boat design which is suitable. The best for me is the good old Bounty 37, which can even be driven by a person in a wheelchair. To say that it is "not safe" to have them on a boat is to totally mis-understand one of the best possible ways for the handicapped to enjoy a leisure activity in a very high degree of safety.

They do indeed. Bob also published a book called "The Broads" which is full of fascinating history. I can highly recommend it.

If Poppy were still a regular contributor to this forum I know he would have a few words to say to you.

Morning, MM! I didn't know whether to give that a "like" or a "laugh". This person certainly seems to have a personal agenda and typically, she is using her privileged position as a journalist to make a noise about it. Yet another "Crusader for the Truth at all costs".