Vaughan

Long way to go yet, mate! One wonders if there may be some soul out there in cyberspace, looking down on us and "pushing the buttons"!

Wow! I have just been upgraded to veteran! Do I get a pension with that? I suppose the next one up from there is "old fart".

Speaking as a newbie I think it's great fun that we can earn little badges to go with our avatar. Will there be one for needlework? Or domestic science? or perhaps fieldcraft? I am glad to see I haven't earned one as a "BA basher" - at least not at the moment! Maybe the mods will award me one called "sails close to the wind".

Without in any way touching on the politics, I just wondered how Kay Burley can presume to pontificate on the actions of Matt Hancock when she herself, has just returned from a 6 month suspension for a flagrant, public and arrogant breach of Covid regulations. I have always believed that news presenters should report the news and not presume to make it for themselves. Sir Richard Dimbleby is long forgotten, it seems!

No idea but I expect someone can confirm. Vessels with British owners in British waters wear the red ensign if they wish, as there is no obligation for registry. The history of the pilot jack, a union flag with a white border, is obscure and is said to have been flown by warships requiring a pilot, back in the days of sail. Nowadays, it is taken to denote that a vessel is British registered. Even so, you only wear the pilot jack on the jackstaff in the bow, when the vessel is not under way. The ensign and the jack are known as colours and are raised at 0800, which is called "morning colours". In flag etiquette, flags and burgees are "flown" but colours are "worn". There is no reason why a hire boat cannot wear an ensign but they normally don't, as they just get broken off within 2 weeks on hire! Whatever you fit on a hire boat has to be HIRER PROOF. By the way, any hirer of a vessel is the charterer, in maritime law.

I hope the ranger wasn't serious! The only thing you cannot fly on a private boat, bizarrely, is the Union Flag, as that denotes that you are a warship. It is also forbidden to wear the ensigns of the three Services as well as special ensigns of yacht clubs that you don't belong to. But the Yorkshire Rose? What about the Swiss flag, traditionally seen all over the Broads, as well as the New Zealanders? They love flying their flags when on holiday.

Both forwards and backwards, I assume?

I also lament the American love of verbalising nouns (sic). For instance, you do not access a computer. You gain access to it by entering your password. Access is not a verb.

I agree with MM (as usual ) but we are talking of different things. Sick has entered the vernacular to mean impressive, or cool. At least I think so! Sic is indeed from the latin and is usually used when quoting something as it was written, although the quote is not itself grammatical. Thass loik when oi reckun these yunguns don't half talk a load of ol' squit (sic).

Time you got yourself a new avatar, old chap. So how's the new boat going? We are waiting for a report!

Two comments on the debate, from my own experience running hire boats, but not necessarily based on "the science" : 1/. I have always known hire boats to have a coarse pitched prop, to give power at low revs, especially when going astern. What we want is manoeuvrability, not speed. How the big prop affects high speed doesn't concern us as the revs of the engine are governed by the boatyard anyway. 2/. Once the engine has been revved up on starting, to "cut in" the alternator, it will charge, even on tick-over. You may see a small difference in amperage when revving up, if you have just started and the batteries are low, but not during a days cruising. It makes no difference. I have checked this often with an ammeter. In a Bourne 35 with a reduction gearbox, at 2000 revs I would expect to be doing over 7MPH.

If it is the old cable type it is probably accurate! Personally, I find a Perkins "sounds right" when it is ticking over at the right speed. Imagine the sound a black cab taxi makes, when it pulls up at the kerb, and that is about it. The Perkins 4107 was a taxi engine!

The speed control cable is attached to the control lever on the injector pump and there is a small threaded setscrew on either side of it, with lock nuts. These act as limiters, for slow and fast speed. The Perkins pushes the throttle closed (as I remember) whereas the Nanni pulls it, so with the Morse lever in the neutral position just undo the setscrew which is touching the lever, until you get the right revs and then tighten the locknut. The spanner is the same size as for the fuel bleed nuts. 3/16 AF, as I remember. Do this with the engine running of course, but keep your fingers well away from the alternator belt!

For a start, the 4107 ticks over at 700 rpm. This can be adjusted on the injector pump. Too high a tickover could cause a violent gear change and wear on the flywheel thrust plate. The rest of the revs seem too high to me. Do you know what size the present prop is?

Moonraker did well then, to beat a punt "over the water"!

This is a good example of the benefit of shore power, when available. A boat fitted with shore power will (ideally) have a charger of at least 40 amps (DC), of which about 35 amps will be "effective". So, in the evening, 5 amps for the fridge, 5 amps for the Webasto (once it has started), about 2 or 3 amps for lighting, 5 amps for the TV (depending on model) and the odd burst of 15 amps for water pumps. So when plugged in to the bank, your batteries are not being "cycled" and will last for a long time. Solar panels won't provide this amount of power but they are giving a constant "trickle" charge in daylight and so will keep the batteries topped up at all times, when you are not on board. Don't let's talk about air conditioning. That's a whole different world!

That is what I would call seamanship, rather than just regulation!

Batteries are designed for a number of "cycles" and this is usually marked on them, along with their amp/hours and CCA ratings. If you moor up for the night, use the domestic batteries for lighting, heating, water pumps, fridge, etc and then charge again the next day, that is called a "cycle". If you take the battery down to 50% of its charge, that is a "deep cycle". The average 110 A/H domestic battery will do about 600 cycles. After that, it is finished. A more expensive type such as Elecsol, would do 1200 to 1400 cycles. Hence on a hire boat doing about 23 weeks a year, the batteries will only last 3 or 4 years. Basically, every night you spend on board your boat is a "cycle" of the batteries. Other things such as keeping them stored fully charged and never taking them below 50% of their charge, do of course, make a big difference as well.

I don't know about Ireland, but the crazy Dutchman was delivering boats for Blue Line back in the late 60's, when their French operation was quite new. In those days, Blue Line's main base was in Marseillan, on the étang de Thau, before they moved to the Beaver fleet base at Port Cassafieres, when both companies were bought by Crown Cruisers, of Somerleyton, and became Crown Blue line. Beaver Fleet by the way, was not the original yard at Someleyton but a new company in St Olaves, on a yard later operated by Alphacraft. The history of Broads businesses tends to be a bit incestuous! As the base was in Marseillan, this meant a trot of 6 Caribbeans, lashed together in pairs, would pass through all the locks in northern France and all down the Rhone, without having to be split up. An awful lot of work to do single-handed, though! I have towed up to seven boats on my own on several occasions when getting them back to a base, but never over that kind of distance! In the end they gave up this method of delivery as it took too long and there was too much minor damage on the way. All the boats needed a re-fit by the time they got there and they were supposed to be new!

This was in the old days when Broads boats were built without any specific standards. Nowadays all boats are built to ERCD standards, of which cat D, which applies to the Broads, only allows you out off shore for a certain distance "from shelter". I think it is three nautical miles, from memory. Cat C, I think, is 10 miles, so you still probably couldn't cross the channel in one. There is no specific building standard in Europe (as far as I know) for inland waterways, so most countries insist on a minimum of ERCD cat D, which is actually a sea regulation. Broad Ambition can go bombing about along the coast where she likes, as she was built before the regulations!

If only the world of boat hiring were that simple.

I agree with Turnoar. If these are genuine Wilds hulls they will have been laid up very thick, as these were the early days of GRP construction. Can't say the same for those laid up later by another yard, using the same mould tools! They are also a Broads design, which can sit happily on the long keel, having been winched up a slipway into a shed. Personally I wouldn't like to go on a drying out berth without bilge keels as these boats will lean over a lot if they run aground. I can also see that all the weight coming onto the keel might sink it deep into the mud and cause problems of suction when the tide rises again. There could also be propellor damage. The original Blue Line boats for France were indeed delivered by water across the Channel and down the French Canal system to the Canal du Midi. A journey taking 2 to 3 weeks, rafted up 4 or even 6 at a time but driven under their own power, single handed, by a crazy Dutchman. I forget his name now, but he never lost a boat, as far as I know!

Try this one then . . . . If you applied for planning permission to put up a garden shed on the banks of the Ant on land which is an old staithe at the end of one of the most pleasant country walks in the area, would you get it?

Luckily not. There is little or no tidal current on that part of the river.

There is a well known pub on the north rivers, where I moored stern on one morning, only to find that my boat had been moved two spaces up the quay, for no apparent reason, while I was having lunch. The quay attendant was apparently a well known "character" who had become a bit of a law unto himself, so I didn't say anything about it. On the other hand, the pub lost my business as I have never moored there again.