Vaughan

On Sunday we had a swarm of bees arrive in the garden and today they are still there. All very well and nice to see them but they need a better home than that and they are blocking the gate through to the garden. So tomorrow I shall have to find a bee-keeper to come and collect them. Should be fun! Susie has christened them NIMBEES.

All good stuff but hardly ground-breaking, I would have thought. Surely there is nothing in there that is not common sense? I notice the cartoon characters were wearing lifejackets but did they really all have to be depicted wearing face-masks? Out in the open air on the Broads? Does this indicate that the pandemic and its associated risk aversion will never end, in the eyes of Authority? I felt there was too much reliance on "downloading the app" which is all very well if you are not in one of the many (and busiest) places on the Broads that have no phone signal! I saw a programme on TV a couple of days ago about electric cars, and the number of charging points that don't work, because of electronic technology. The presenter summed up by saying "If you haven't got a smartphone, forget about about electric cars!"

Some of the old country restaurants still do but they are normally separate now. The French have become quite civilised in some ways, but not in others! They still go around supermarkets with a small hairy dog sitting in the trolley among the food. I notice those people seem to be the only ones who still wear a mask, for fear of catching something!

Good grief!

The Kens were good friends of mine in the late 70's. Their wives were sisters. One of the many very high quality small family yards that fell victim to the great recession of the early 80s. The Broads has never been the same since then.

You'll soon find out when you smell it!

No, because : 1/. The exhaust flue is piped out over the side. 2/. If the jet is in good condition it will not burn with a white flame, so will not give off CO The flue at the back of the fridge has to get hot, to create the heat exchange and circulation that make it work. So if the flame is not burning well, the flue does not get hot enough. This is why they must be serviced in the spring.

Behaviour in public is a civil responsibility which has nothing to do with the boatyard. All the boatyard has done is hire them a boat. If you hire a car, YOU are responsible for how you behave in it, not Hertz.

You would still have to think about earthing the 240v circuit, as you would not be plugged into shore power.

By the way, if the fridge is on all the time 24/7, as in a hire boat, it will get through a 13kg bottle of gas in 2 or 3 weeks, depending on the thermostat setting.

I notice in the EDP that the Fire Brigade are treating this incident as deliberate.

I quite agree. I can't see the point of wind farms to power houses, as they don't work when there's no wind! To use them, however, for the electric supply to manufacture hydrogen from water is an excellent green, non fossil, sustainable solution. The technology of running a car on hydrogen is basically no different to running it on Propane gas.

Just thinking it through a little further - A new electric fridge will mean you need 3 domestic batteries, as one fridge will use the capacity of one battery. 3 domestics will need a 90 amp alternator, to give enough charge in a day's running. The cable run from the battery to the fridge will need to be strong enough to avoid volt drop in the line. If your batteries are at 12.5 volts, but there is a drop of one volt in the circuit, then the fridge won't run. Or it may run for a few seconds and cut out, then start again. Volt drop is the most common cause of fridge failure, but it is not the fault of the fridge! So fitting a new electric fridge may be more expensive than you thought.

And it probably wouldn't still exist in that condition if it didn't have its own wet boathouse.

If it were me, I would keep that fridge and be thankful! I would run it on gas all the time, and have no battery problems. Stay on a mooring for several days, no problem! On hire boats we never connected the electrics, as we couldn't rely on the hirers to do the change-over to gas when the engine is not running. On 12volts it uses far too much power but if you have a shore connection, they run very well on 240v. Floydraser is correct - you cannot install a new gas fridge unless it is a room sealed unit and these are very expensive. Indeed I have heard Electrolux no longer make them. But you can have an existing gas fridge and do repairs to it, such as a new jet or a new burner unit. They do need servicing every spring, to inspect the jet and clean out the flue with a special wire brush. The jet must be in good order, so that the pilot burns with a proper blue flame. Your boat looks like a privately built Broom, so I think you can be sure it was installed to the proper standards! Have it serviced by a Gas Safe fitter. You cannot do it yourself. Don't bin it yet, until you have used it for a season. You may find out what a bonus it is!

It is what they call the lazy wind. It can't be bothered to go round you, so it goes straight through you!

I see on the EDP website that the old Oasis leisure centre in Thorpe has just joined the Griffin pub, Langley Junior school (Beech Hill) and Pinebanks by being burned down in the night after spending a good while empty in the hands of potential developers. I hope someone managed to rescue all the newts that have previously prevented any change of use or building permission on the site.

Hearts Cruisers tow boat used to have one of those, as she was an ex Admiralty harbour launch. Very effective, but a whole new method of boat handling!

Hearts put the first diesels in the new Knave and Ten of Hearts in 1949, followed by the Queen in 1950. They were a Turner V2 on a Parsons gearbox, but the vibration was awful and all the boats were later fitted with the Coventry Victor Vixen, flat twin, for which Hearts were local agents. At the end of the 40s petrol was still heavily rationed and very costly but diesel wasn't, so it was a big selling point. No problem with filling up as the boat would easily do 2 weeks on a tank full. Did it take time to catch on? Yes. Things always do on the Broads! In the late 60s, I am sure a good half of Jenners fleet of 200 boats, still had petrol engines.

Absolutely Trev but don't forget that in the Forces we lived by certain standards - of pride, service and the general role of keeping the Queen's peace. All the same, a few "boots on the ground" right now would very soon clear the public highway of obstructions!

It's been there quite a while, too! I think this was 1953, when the staithe was still in commercial use. The boat is the Queen of Hearts, one of the first 3 hire boats on the Broads with a diesel engine.

I think that may be a presumption rather than fact but as I have no wish to cause you any further distress we will just have to agree to disagree and leave it there, no amount of discussion on here is going to change how any one yard chooses to operate. Fred I have a feeling there are several others among us. Tobster, NeilB and Wussername spring to mind immediately and I suspect there are several others who know the business well. What concerns me, and I am sure the others, is that what I might call bank-side comment without foundation can be harmful to a business's reputation without justification. This is an important forum read by several thousand members and guests. But it is not Tripadviser.

Tell that to Heathrow Airport!

I can't argue with that, I am afraid. My experience of managing boatyards for corporate tour operators has been bitter and frustrating, to say the least. You are under attack from 3 sides : 1/. From the customers who complain about the state of the boats. 2/. from the staff, who are demoralised because they end up having to do the work of 3 people each, owing to all the staff cuts that have been made, 3/. from the senior management, because the customers are complaining about the service! I am glad to say that most yards on the Broads seem to take much more of a customer service approach. Richardsons for instance is a family business which the two brothers grew up in. Although they have to be commercial they have obviously learned the importance of regular customers. All the same, hull cleaning is not a priority for staff employment.

Well, if it took one yard lad an hour to clean one hull, I wouldn't want him back next week. I am afraid the staff availability is a misconception as large yards are run by accountants. And management accountants work for shareholders, not customers. On small yards, the owner cleans the hulls. Or maybe his son or daughter.