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tjg1677

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Posts posted by tjg1677

  1. 8 hours ago, DaveB said:

    Sir, i couldn't possibly comment :norty: :naughty:

    But thanks to everyone for your help and input, after speaking yesterday to a lovely chap at calcutt boats named Roger, thanks thingamy !!!, it looks like we have a way forward :party:i just need to make a few calls tomorrow to arrange everything, and you never know we might even make it for Easter:clap

    Nice one Dave. I had a canal boat for over 25 years and during that time there were a few people I know who used Calcutt,  one of whom bought a fully re-conned Bmc 1.5 ,  no complaints from any of them, so you should be on a safe bet.

    Ttfn

    Trev

  2. Calcutta boats have been reconditioning BMC engines for at least 25 years that I am aware of. They have a very good reputation so I figure are a safe bet. Usually they have engines ex stock too. Only other BMC  specialist that I know of on the broads is  Boulters at Horning but I know he does have quite a bit on at the moment from talking to them a couple of weeks ago when I was last in there. 

    cheers 

    Trev

    • Like 1
  3. Indeed it was in use in the brass fire extinguishers fitted in the green goddesses and some RN motor boats right up until the end of the seventies. Was great for getting stains out of uniform clothing too.:shocked

    Trev

    • Like 1
  4. Once again brilliant Geoffrey, I love watching your cookery blogs. Just got to try and persuade thr GK catering department to try some of your recipes . Look forward to seeing you in may, perhaps you could do a live demo for us and then do a galloping gourmet and grab a nubile lady from your onlookers and have her wine and dine with you, naturally we will all be watching enviously. ☺

    Keep it up mate

    cheers

    Trev

  5. Have purposefully not commented on this as having served in N.I. It brings it all back. The bottom line is that terrorists are indiscriminate killers. That use religion as a thin veil to justify their activities but if religion were  the reason their murderous acts would be selective.  If the latest attack I was based on religion  how did he know  what beliefs were held by the crowd he mowed down?  What is clear is that terrorism is incited and need by a small minority of nasty foul minded people with a view to achieving their own ends and agenda. That are not fit to live in a civilised society nor should they be allowed in one. 

    Our shores have been under attack from terrorists for decades in varying forms and by varying factions. The question is will we ever get used to it or give in. The answer is a simple word......NEVER !!!!!!

    Britain I am proud of you, always have been always will be. Was going to finish with an emoticon of a union flag but for some reason there isn't one........

    Trev.

    • Like 6
  6. Hi Christie,

     

    welcome to the forum, I am sure you will have a great time afloat, it is a very addictive past-time.

    If you are considering staying overnight in norfolk, the Travel lodge in Acle is as  good a place as any to start and close to yarmouth and of course the river with plenty of good places to eat.

    Whatever you do, have a great holiday.

    cheers

    Trev

  7. If you have a compass fitted at the helm, it makes life a lot easier as you can steer an estimated course in limited visibility across Breydon. My VHF also has a compass built into it, which has come in useful on a few occasions, particularly one foggy september morning last year on Barton broad, the VHF became worth its weight in gold and my Richardsons map of the broads became an impromptu admiralty chart........ If you are really good you can even dead reckon to figure out roughly where you are but then you need to know tides and wind speed and your speed over the ground.

    cheers

    trev

  8. That's not bad weather,  the ship is hardly moving, just the sea that is a bit lumpy that's all..........:hardhat::hardhat:.

    HM Minesweepers had a propensity to roll up to 50 degrees when in  really bad weather.  Once crossing the Pentland firth in a force 9 whilst escorting an RNR squadron, I would swear that you could almost see down their funnels as they rolled, scary stuff.

    cheers

    Trev

    • Like 2
  9. Tried to edit but couldnt , so adding this ps.

    Those of you who have alphacraft will probably be familiar with the stupid moulded in lifebuoy holder on the cabin roof aft. All this does is fill with water and create a very deluxe mobile and expensive birdbath. Have to make a drainage system to alleviate this problem, as last september, when backing onto my moorings, i had to do a quick burst of full ahead and the contents went all over the crew member handling the aft ropes. Didnt do it on purpose - honest :angel:.................

    • Like 2
  10. Ok heres where we are. Had a maint. Weekend last week and got a few bits done. At the moment the to do list is horrendous.

    Since buying GK late last season she has had: bowthruster, solar panels, hull repair on the skeg, sixty percent rewire, inverter fitted, lots of lighting work and much more besides. Back on topic, last weekend saw a few important bits done. My boat has four separate cabins, none of which were ventilated. Se now have low level louvres fitted in all the doors and a ecs ufo type vent in the stbd aft cabin roof. The low level vents i simply drilled 2 x four inch diameter holes with a holesaw and put a fixed louvre vent either side of the door. The roof vent was cut out using the same holesaw.  Managed to make the job look neat inside using ecs bulkhead grilles - incredibly expensive pieces of flimsy aluminium, but it made it look reasonable.

     Also got lots of smallish jobs done such as isolators fitted etc. The next maint weekend and a substantial proportion of easter will see two more roof vents fitted, a pulpit rail fabricated and fitted, bridge access doors rehung, duplicate set of engine instruments fitted to flybridge, handrails fitted, more rewiring, tv aerial resited to allow fitting of new canopy, nbn burgee rigged as well as about a dozen minor jobs.

    I posted elsewhere about pulpit rails and after several re thinks have come up with a cunning design that i can assemble and install myself using yacht hand rail gate stanchions, stainless tube, various fittings and some big 14mm holes in the deck, thus saving about 70  percent  what i was quoted and for a more desirable result. So with to do lists growing and savings dwindling I will press on and keep you informed, may even take some pics too!!!

    cheers

    Trev

    • Like 5
  11. This is where I am a bit confused. As I understand it my boat has had the copper treatment blended with the gelcoat at build. Isn't coppercote a retro applied epoxy coating???  I had her out when purchased for the survey and subsequently again when the BT was fitted. It was difficult to look see the bottom properly as there was a lot of anti foul still on it ( it had been re antifouled about 9 months previously ) but I thought it strange at he time as the bottom did seem to have a coppery colour to it and as I had never heared of this process, thought nothing about it.

    So please enlighten me, if she has the copper into gelcoat treatment, would I be right in assuming that it is an antifouled for life treatment????  if not , what was the point of it when done???

    Marshman, no thanks dont think I will go diving for two reasons. One its too cold and the second is that being an ex stoker, I dont like getting wet !! Anyway, if I| did, FM would probably charge me for the priveledge :-) . I take it you are moored near me then - what is your boat called? If you see me aboard, please do say hello and have a cuppa!

    cheers

    Trev

  12. 8 hours ago, Jim said:

    Around now is the time we normally do. Water should be back on at Ferry and the tanks need more than a good flush through plus tons of sterilising tabs to get rid of the "eggy pong".  We never drink from the taps and rely on fresh water for tea, coffee etc so no real risk there.

    Yes  Jim, the water is back on at FM. Will check the tanks for odour but have to confess I have not come across the eggy pong syndrome before in 25 years of boat ownership, can you give us more details please as it sounds like some sort of a chemical reaction, be intrigued to hear more. Thanks

    cheers

    Trev 

  13. Just now, Vaughan said:

    Yes, but that was just part of it.

    Accident investigators will always tell us that a major accident does not have just one reason : it is a "cascade" of events; each one not being enough to cause the accident but when all added up, they amount to disaster.

    I used to serve on logistic landing ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and part of my job was to calculate the stow plan of the army vehicles so that the ship was stable. These ships were basically Ro-ro ferries painted grey and they were inherently unstable if not loaded properly, owing to the huge open space inside, where the vehicle decks have no transverse bulkheads.

    Normally the chief officer of a ship like this will look at the load he has on board and will then pump the double-bottom tanks as necessary, to add extra weight low down. "Metacentric height" without getting too technical, means that the ship's centre of buoyancy must be above its centre of gravity. If not, it capsizes. In this case the chief officer had started to pump the double-bottoms but had not finished before the ship sailed, as these ships are just a rapid bus service, and he did not have time.

    The Herald was a Dover based ship and they always "bunker up" with fuel and water on a Saturday morning. This was Friday night, and so her tanks were almost empty. Where were these tanks? Low down in the double bottoms.

    Most trucks coming back from a week abroad will cross the channel on a Thursday, so on Friday night, there were not many trucks. As it turned out, a lot of the trucks that were loaded had hazardous cargo and so they were loaded outside the holds on the upper decks, leaving the lower vehicle deck almost empty of trucks.

    The Sun newspaper had organised a booze cruise that day, so several hundred Sun readers were coming back as foot passengers, who were all gathered in the bars on the upper deck, but had no vehicles stowed below in the holds. This is known by mariners as "top hamper".

    The ship was normally used for Calais - Dover crossings and so her bow ramp was not designed for the link-span in Zeebrugge. This meant that on certain tides the ship had to be flooded slightly bow down when berthing.

    It was normal practice for the bow doors to be left open when the ship sailed, in order to evacuate the truck diesel fumes from the vehicle deck. The doors would then be closed once the ship had cleared the harbour. The design of the Herald meant that her doors were well clear of the waterline and she would have to heel by easily more than 25 degrees before water came in at the corners.

    What actually happened was that the ship sailed in a badly loaded unstable condition and when she turned hard left (as you have to) when leaving Zeebrugge she simply fell over to starboard. The captain realised this and tried to "steer" her back upright by going hard to starboard. Unfortunately although she came up again, she then fell over to port. By this time she had turned right round and the water had started coming in at the corner of the bow doors. The "free surface" effect of this water on the open vehicle deck then finished her off. If the captain had not made his turn to starboard, she would have capsized in the deep channel and gone right over, bottom up. As it is, she only went over sideways into the shallows, so this, and the Belgians, was what saved so many lives.

    If all this had become public at the time, most cross channel ferries would have been immediately pulled out of service and it would not just have been Townsend that went out of business. Remember that the present day Pride of Dover and Pride of Calais are exactly the same design of ship and they are still sailing today.

    How much more convenient to allow the press to pin it all on some little bloke who "forgot" to close the doors?

     

    Absolutely 100 % spot on there Vaughan!! 

  14. I remember this all to well, we had just loaded 2000 tonnes of Gas oil from Immingjam oil terminal and were just clearing the Humber estuary when the VHF came alive on CH16,  we were listening to events unfolding almost in real time. A very very sad incident and it still makes me shiver now!  Odd metacentric heights should be mentioned ,  immediately afterwards our full ballasting , loading and stability procedures were scrutinised  minutely.

    cheers 

    Trev

    • Like 2
  15. Very interesting all this. I understand it was an expensive option when GK was built. What puzzles me is that the previous owner of seven years used to have her antifouled annually, just seems a bit counter productive, particularly as I am one of the school of thought that subscribes to the non anti fouling fraternity.  Any further input on this subject would  much appreciated.

    cheers

    Trev 

  16. Hello all. Time to draw on the forum expertise again. My boat was apparently given a copper bottom when built. Can anyone shed any light on what this means,  how it is done and what the advantages are. Never come across this on grp, wood yes but not plastic. 

    Thanks in advance

    cheers

    Trev

  17. Got the first one fitted into the stbd aft cabin as well as a low level vent in the cabin door, see how it goes overnight and how bad the condensation is in the morning.  Managed to stretch the headlining and secure a vent grill on the interior to the deckhead so it don't look too bad after all.

    Going to tackle the port fwd twin cabin tomorrow,  that's the one that suffers condensation the worst. Just two more cabins to go after that!

    cheers 

    Trev

  18. Morning all.

    Got down to G.K. about 4am today. Wind howling in Horning and rain was like stair rods in the headlights coming down at about 45 degrees,  not pleasant. Roads were pretty bad too, some very frequent and very deep water on the A47. I thought  I had hit something solid at  one point, got blinded by main beam of oncoming truck  and hit some  standing water at about 45 mph  ,  the wave came over the bonnet! Here safe  now so hoping to get some work done and sort out a few  ventilation problems.

    cheers 

    Trev

    • Like 2
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