Vaughan

I don't think that would be a problem. A lot of ocean yachts with teak decks leave them in bare wood and they are then scrubbed every few days and oiled often. That's fine if you have a paid crew. The big thing about a bare teak deck on a yacht is that it is non slip and most traditional crews will sail in bare feet. The trick when applying paint or varnish to any wood is to scrape it right back to the bare wood before you apply it. If you try to put new varnish on what is left of the old coats, even after sanding, you are wasting your time. We used to varnish teak by rubbing in two coats of linseed oil with a rag, followed by a first coat of half and half varnish and turps (not white spirit). The first coat probably won't dry out fully but don't panic! The second coat will dry out the first one. Ideally I would sand the deck right back to bare wood and then oil it. Unless this film of plastic was put on to hide other problems such as leaks? In which case better to find the problem and cure it, rather than cover it in resin and hope for the best. What the French call a "Cache misère".

I am talking of resin rather than gelcoat. It is a lot more flexible than one might think, especially with only a very thin coat, such as this. I presume it hasn't stuck as teak has natural oils. Another reason why it is not an easy wood to varnish.

At a guess, it is Fibreglass resin. In those early days of GRP, there were one or two "miracle cures" done on wooden boats by Fibreglass sheathing. I don't think I ever saw one that worked!

The ZIG panel is also for 240v shore power, as it has a switch labelled mains and 13amp fuses for the fridge when on mains power. These are themselves out of date and should be circuit breakers instead. You may not know, but volt drop in a circuit can overheat and start a fire, without blowing the fuse. If this is not wired up yet then you really ought to give the job to a qualified marine electrician. There are regulations about shore power circuits on boats and especially, they have to be properly and carefully earthed. Basically, mains electricity and water do not mix. Please don't try and do a DIY job on this or I can assure you that you will only regret it later. By the way, I suggest John Spruce. He is the best one I know.

Do you mean what used to be the Old Beams, on the street in Brundall?

Yes, It does! I am trying to make the connection. Will probably come to me sometime in the night. . .

You forgot the pickled eggs. Buerrk!!

In 1965 there were not many pubs doing any food at all! Cornish pasty if you were lucky. Or chicken soup in a basket. Was this the Barton Angler?

I actually hold a CPC (certificate of professional competence) both national and international, from when I was driving in the 80s. They were quite complicated exams, designed for transport managers of companies, not for drivers. If you were an owner driver - a "subbie" - you needed it as you were running your own transport business. Very often it was a subbie's wife who held the CPC as she was doing all the paperwork anyway! Modern CPCs are not as complex but every HGV driver now has to have one, for some obscure reason, which certainly won't improve his driving! So you not only have to spend a few thousand on training for the licence, you have to pay for the CPC training as well. If that is not enough to put new people off the job, remember that you can't hold an HGV licence until you are 21. Most young people leaving school have got settled into other jobs by then. I don't think this has much to do with Brexit. I think it has been "on the cards" for the last 10 years. Even back when I was driving, we reckoned that it was almost impossible to get into an international artic and drive it 100 yards down the road, without breaking some little law or another. It was bad enough then but I am very glad I am not still driving nowadays.

I remember that evening. Just about. . . . .

Best I could get from a distance, I am afraid.

"And in the next cage, ladies and gentlemen . . . "

Out in those flat marshes, it was probably a relative of the "OO me goolie" bird!

If you imagine a heron with no neck, then that is what a Bittern looks like in flight. They fly steadily in a straight line, just like a Heron. Sutton Broad is certainly a place where you would find them, especially in the early morning. If it was smaller than a heron, it was probably one of this year's young ones, which are a lot less timid than the adults.

Wow, is that what they cost these days? She is one of the earlier versions with very narrow saloon side windows. The windows on newer boats are almost twice as deep and give a much more modern appearance. If doing a full re-fit it is possible to fit the new type windows if you want to spend the money. I suspect that the interior has been carpeted as the varnished bulkheads had become too weathered. It is very difficult indeed to scrape off plywood and re-varnish it, without going through the first veneer. Also, anyone who has tried it will know that you can't paint over varnish!

David, I think we have to remember that these were the days of "answers on a postcard please..."! Most people who phoned for a reservation would have already asked for a Blakes brochure or got one automatically through the post if they had booked before. So all they had to do was fill in the booking form on the back page and send it in with a cheque. The 72 hours was simply to allow for delays in the post. I can well remember the big queues at the kiosks on Blakes and Hoseasons stands at the Earls Court boat show, where people had taken a day out by train to see the show and book their boat for next year. After January, the season was pretty well booked up. This is a photo of the back of the 1959 Hearts Cruisers booking chart, where my father has done an analysis of when the bookings came in, starting with the end of August 1958 and also comparing them with previous years. All those booked before Nov 1st would be repeat customers who had paid a deposit in the office at the end of their holiday, to book a boat for next year. We can see that the rest have filled up by February, owing to the London Boat Show. Hearts were running on a level of 60% regular customers in those days. The Princess of Hearts was the newest boat then, only a year old. She had already got 24 weeks booked by the end of August the previous year! Notice also that the Four of Hearts bookings have been crossed out, as she got sunk by a coaster on the Yare in the spring of that year, so all her bookings had to be re-allocated by Blakes. Last minute bookings were very rare indeed in those days, as you can see from these figures. There was also no question of offering any discounts. The price was as it said in the brochure.

If you drive over Wroxham bridge towards Stalham, after you have gone over the twin roundabouts on the Horning junction, there is a big house on the left called "Crossways". This used to be Blakes' head office after it was moved from 47 Albermarle St. in London, in the late 60s. As you look up the drive you can see an extension to the main building, where the brochures were distributed and most of the rest of the lower floor was the booking hall. It was laid out in an L shape with both sides of the L around 40 to 50 feet long. On both sides of each L were the booking charts, with a bench underneath at standing height, for paperwork and mounted with a row of telephone jack plugs, about 5 feet apart. The charts were laid out according to region (Broads, Thames, Canals, France, etc.,) and size of boat (2,4,6,or 8 berth). When the phone rang, any girl who was not busy could answer it, ask a few preliminary questions and then walk over to the right place on the charts, where she could plug her headset into a jack plug and deal with the booking request. If a reservation was made, a diagonal mark was made in pencil on the chart, meaning a provisional booking. This had to be followed up by the customer within 72 hours by paying a deposit. The chart then got a second diagonal line to make a cross and this was a "confirmed" booking. Meantime the slips filled in by each girl were passed to the office where the paperwork was typed up and posted to the customer. This was better than a modern computer as each girl had an immediate overview of the whole situation. So if there were no 4 berth boats left free in Brundall, she could immediately look across and find something else - maybe a 5 berth in Wroxham. You didn't have to "page through" a large number of little screens as you have to nowadays. The booking hall was supervised by Cilla and Hazel, who took alternate shifts and strode the central aisle of the hall much like a matron in a hospital! Their knowledge of the Blakes fleet of over 2000 boats was total, and they were well known personally by all the member yards. The marketing manager had to decide the number of staff required, so there were a lot more called in if there had been an advert in the national press, or in the weeks during and after the London Boat Show. The hall usually closed around 10PM, when the Company secretary, Harold Rouse, came down with a (then very modern) Polaroid camera and took a series of flash photos of all of the charts. These he deposited in the night safe at Barclays in Hoveton, on his way home. So if the building had caught fire overnight there would still be a record of all the bookings, right up to date. I was on the board of Blakes in the late 70s when the decision was made to try to put all this on computers. It was a huge and controversial decision at that time and actually took 2 years to fully implement, starting with the entry of customer details and the automatic printing of booking forms. Right up until my retirement, in whatever hire fleet I have been running, I have always kept a paper booking chart on the wall. It has always been the most reliable method and you can use it for so much other information about the fleet. An O on the chart means the boat is due an oil change that week. OF means oil and filter. FF is fuel filter. C is confirmed booking. OB is owner's direct booking (with less commission to agent). R is regular customer. Usually the regulars have their name on the chart as well. A good friend on another yard used to add a W after some of these regulars' names. We all guessed what that mean't but he never admitted it!

A very valid reminder. Businesses were not run by computers then, either. You could actually deal with human beings.

Like Jenners basin, as it was intended. But both the resident (paying) boat owners and the land owner were deliberately persecuted by the BA for over 10 years until they were finally driven out to find a mooring somewhere else on the rivers, wherever they could end up. "Starting somewhere" would mean the BA taking a fair and reasonable approach to the problem and not making such a costly and infamous mistake again.

Looking at this strictly objectively (perhaps with a jaundiced eye?) we have a great deal more to worry about in these days of Covid, austerity and international terrorism, than a little bit of wild mooring on the Ant. However . . . . This is a forum of responsible Broads users who have continued to "play by the rules" all through the pandemic and will still do so. So the owner of this boat is just sitting there sticking up two fingers at all of us. It is all very well for authorities to say that they are powerless, but they are the ones who make the local bye-laws. If the law is not adequate it can be changed to accommodate modern problems. So, BA, EA, Natural England, and all the rest of you - get on with it! We (the toll payers) are still paying you to look after our interests. And while you are at it, for Goodness' sake do something as simple as getting the bins emptied!

Simon (Broads 01) has just started a thread called "prop walk" about stern on mooring and refers to a previous one where we had discussed it, so I thought I'd save repetition by referring back! You can see that "prop walk" is described as a different thing from "prop kick". Prop walk happens in very shallow water where the prop is almost paddling the stern of the boat sideways through the mud. Prop kick is the natural tendency of a propellor to thrust a bit sideways, which is felt more when going astern and is usually to starboard as most river boats have left hand propellors. Anyway, have a read of the discussion and see what you think . . . . Meantime, I suggest that good stern on mooring has a great deal to do with judging where the wind is coming from and getting your boat into the right position before coming astern.

OK. As we are reminiscing . . . . I used to know John Walker quite well, but only socially. He was a good friend of Alan Pye, who owned the Cumberland Hotel on the Yarmouth Rd in Thorpe, and whose wife Gaye, was a very well known model at the time. What was known in the 60s as a "Dolly Bird"! Do you remember the "Super National" petrol adverts on TV in the 60s? A beautiful blonde haired girl driving an E-Type with the hood down, holds her arm out to the side and a falcon lands on her wrist? That was Gaye Pye. Anyway, I digress! John Walker was a regular in The Town House Club bar when he was staying with Alan and Gaye at weekends and we (the In Crowd) spent many an evening sitting round a table and chatting with him. A very pleasant, un-assuming man with lots of stories to tell. But he never sang for us. His sort of music needed a lot of backing and suitable electronics. So Pat Simpson and I sang to him instead. We could (and still can) do a rather passable version of the Everlys' songs, especially "Dream", "Crying in the rain" and "Take a message to Mary" Also "Ebony Eyes" and "The Lightning Express", but those were reserved for when you wanted to make the girls cry! I lament the passing of the Everly Brothers because they came from a time when pop musicians sang about how young people felt. The intensity of young love, as well as the awful wrench, when young love is lost.

There speaks a wherryman!

Short answer - No! It looks as though you have a SPDT switch (single pole double throw) so you only need one of the throws. The black wire is the return, and does not connect to the switch. The best way is to test the switch with an ohm-meter to see what happens, but you can't do any harm, with a DC circuit! Just try out the terminal positions until you find one that works. An electric fridge will cut off automatically when it gets below 12 volts, in order to protect its motor.

I reckon we ought to put our name down for that one! It will probably be our first visit to Norfolk - or the UK - since summer 2019. Even so, I'm not making any ferry bookings yet!