Malanka

So hoping to get the old girl under potter bridge this summer, then up to the reeds it is for a sail, a pint and a fish. 6,6 in the centre is what we have, at the shoulders which are only 8ft apart she is lower. M

Note to all with Nav and Gen insurance you may find they have breakdown cover you never knew about or even requested. We did but didn’t find out until too late lol M

Headache plus trots the next day I’d imagine. White beer is great for constipation M

Sorry John was that a joke ? And you have heard of the Rheinheitsgebot I assume...LOL ? he he The Germans also brew Ales as well, so do the Belgians. The aforementioned regs insist that ONLY water, hops and Malt are used. Slow bottom (lagers) and more speedy top fermentations (Ales) and the temperature of fermentaion (lagers cold Ales warm) etc are main differences between Ales and Lagers but not all German or Belgian beers are lagers. Whilst resident in belgium I tried hard to sample some of the over 2500 different beers readily available. Wheat beers are still my fav though. M

So close Guys, amazing transformation. Timbo you're not going to know what to do with yourself once she's floating. Tip for the future: Don't moor at Percy's Island slap bang in the middle...I still have nighmares over the sickening crunching sound. Very happy to see RT being brought back to full health. Martin and Fiona

Metronidazole is one you defo shouldn’t mix. M

Griff mate very few antibiotics have a proscription on alcoholic consumption and most GPs and dentists frankly would know or care there is a difference. Which is why they all say the same BS. Metronidazole ( flagyl) is one. And the sulphanilomides If youve just got amoxycillin or augmentin no reason not to drink away safely and so on. M

You rotter it's tomorrow and I simply need to know about the sticking out bits at the entrance...

OK so time for a quick update before we head out for two weeks floating fun. We have bitten the bullet and decided to go a little bit 21st century with Malanka, now don't get too excited we're not fitting p***y buttons or a warp drive. That's bow thrusters or a beta /nani to you lot. What we are trying out is some LED lighting in the saloon and the galley, six warm white LED bulbs are on trial for their lives as we loved the warm ambiance glow from the old 12v lamps. Problem with warm ambiance is it's very dark if a little bit atmospheric so warm white LEDs it is. In addition we have added another 165 AH AGM battery with its associated 47kg of additional weight. This now gives us 825AH of domestic and inverter power which not even the offsprings phones computers and god knows what lighting until 4 am will use up. 282 kg of batteries amidships will do wonders for the airdraft too. The linoleum roof has had a coat of PVA to get it through the summer before being completely removed and the original electrics from 1952 removed too in the last leg of the Malanaka transformation. What you now see as the white painted bits on the top of the cabin sides either side of the grey linoleum is in fact original trackmark painted so much the finish is now smooth. Brown Trackmark will replace this alongside brand new grey linoleum roof after the season is over (post Oct 2018). Malanka will hopefully start 2019 fully restored 66 years after her original commissioning. Our starter battery was found to have a defective cell in it which caused all sorts of charging issues for us which hopefully will now be a thing of the past. Smart chargers are great unless you have a defective battery ... Note to self... check regularly. Hopefully we will be adding a couple of walk on solar panels as well, just under the masty thing which we will try out and transfer to the new roof at the end of the season. The idea of all this is to give us more flexibility to decide not to have to go anywhere if we don't want to. Jeckells came through with the wheelhouse side blinds so we will now have a lot more privacy in the wheelhouse at night time should we wish to use them. They really kept out the cold in the early season (Easter cruise). So as you can read it's all almost finally coming together and just one more little push at the end of 2018 and we will be at the end of the big restoration bits phase and into the drip drip drip phase of woodie ownership. Almost finished after 8 years, which was definitely not in our minds 8 years ago when we first parted with some of the legacy from Fiona's mums passing. Thank you Catherine a MILLION TIMES OVER..XXXXX Anyone who wants to can come visit us at the wooden boat festival in Beccles 2018. Bring dog treats Boris and Monty love presents.

Speaking of mudweight adventures, Someone I know very well dropped the mudweight overboard after heaving it a great distance to achieve the correct angle for peak performance and holding capability only to then see the end of said mudweight rope, double braided of course, go sailing over the toe rail of the boat and under the rather less than crystal waters. Oops Three volunteers from the crew then raced to see who could get disrobed fastest to retrieve the thing. Only took about three minutes for success to be announced. Aparently that is ....lol Not much to worry about in July but this was September.....

I lie down a lot usually after some wine. Just ask Barry.. M

I’m sorry to be a party pooper to those saying this is a rare event as quite simply for us it is not. Last year we had our lines undone twice. We also were shouted at whilst moored in Coltishall by a silver hatchback with numerous yobs hanging out of it calling us c***s and f*****g w*****s and rich t***s. We report all such happenings . Luckily last summer at coltishall we didn’t go anywhere as I had taken bow line back onboard and as the tide was running it was very tight so they couldn’t undo it. Stern line was all undone though and boats bum was out into the river. Several times Boris has barked in the middle of the night and folks have decided maybe not. I too am awakened by a ducks fart so I’m on hair trigger. Last year once at woman dyke and once in Coltishall. We have also had lines undone in Loddon too. So I’m pleased for you if it had not happened to you but I’m afraid to report for us it is a routine thing against which I take all precautions I can. Sorry folks M

First taste of the broads. Bridge craft dog kennel. Watched Wimbledon final. Sooooo hot all the time and snow at home (Rochdale) in May. I was 14 M

Well I look and I see them so disagree away. No worries. maybe we will see a huge increase in pike that have been eating the geese and ducks chicks. Or the huge increase in marsh harriers as apex predators have had to eat something ? They whatever the they is, don’t just disappear they die or don’t die or fly away, If they die something killed them if they get old they are still here. Lets not look to simple media sound bites to provide an answer when simple population dynamics explains everything. There is no such thing outside of managed grouse moors as an example where the population stays static it’s dynamic, always has been and always will be. Heard some national trust Twonk talking about ocean temperature rise being responsible for a decrease in puffin populations. Only problem is the temp of the North Atlantic hasn’t changed . Oops

In the flood defense where the boats aren’t. M

With that airdraft you should be able to almost come and go as you please. Lido mooring is great. Waveny river center for bookable mooring. Dont worry about the locks mooring if you’re towing a dingy drop plug near the cow field on the rhs as you arrive and row if full. Three weeks and counting M

Phils guys can do it. Simpsons. They will be doing ours at some point hopefully years in the future and we have a ton of internal mahogany as many of you know. It’s everywhere...Only two places bubbled so far the rest is pristine. M

The whole acid rain rubbish is completely thought of differently now. And the Sulphure dioxides weren’t ours as it turns out. This was proven when we put the scrubbers in to remove the issues but the eutrophication of the lakes continued unabated. CO detectors as high as you can reasonably get em. Ours is on the shelf with the booze. M

Petrol engines can be tuned to reduce both CO and CO2 produced. So called lean burn technology has been available for many years. If folks remember the eutrophication scandal of the 70s and 80s ( acid rain killing fish and Forrests in Scandinavia) More modern research has shown that CO from cars was NOT the culprit and farming practices had way more influence. So we then fit cats to cars to turn the non problem CO into CO2 which we of course now tax, wonder why that happened. to answer your question John Grendel said it in that yes CO per volume weighs less than what we call air. Remember I mentioned respiration as we respire with oxygen not air and we breathe air not pure oxygen. So my answer was not more complicated than the question my answer is what’s Necessary to understand to fully understand why as you put it the CO doesn’t escape out the vents. Movement of air inside rooms is not like balloons rising or not depending on weight. The answer involves basic thermodynamics I.e. excited molecules ( warmer) occupy a larger volume therefore they are relatively lighter than the same gas with a lower temperature in the same volume. I said I didn’t want to explain ideal gasses and physics but think about this . P1x V1 divided by T1 is always equal to P2xV2 divided by T2. The individual values my change but the sum of the energy equation is ALWAYS equal. p is pressure v is volume t is temperature decrease volume increase pressure and thus increase temperature. It’s how fridges work actually. so it can’t escape because it’s not a balloon it’s distributed in the other non oxygen parts of the total volume. Some will but it doesn’t take much once bound to the haemoglobin it’s bound and going nowhere. Remember this is all at the molecular level. if the air in your boat is at a lower temperature than the CO then yes most will escape. If they are the same then the CO will SLOWLY move to the top. This is a very slow process which is why defective boilers kill people when they are asleep not when they are moving about. i will tell you all about the myth that is temperature over a beer sometime. CO is LIGHTER than the weight of air at the same temperature but not all gasses in the air are at the same temperature all the time. You’re really asking a question about mass and temperature not lighter or heavier.

I will now go and have a lie down.....

Hi John, It's simple, Carbon (14) weighs less atomically than an atom of oxygen (16) does. Oxygen appears in the atmosphere as 02 which is 2x16 (32), CO is one of each which is 14+16 (30) Scientifically this is referred to as the Molecular weight i.e. how much does a molecule of X weigh when molecules are made up of individual atoms. (its more technical than that but we don't need to start discussing ideal gasses and Moles) CO2 is one carbon two oxygens so a molecular weight of 46. and so an oxygen rich 2x16 filled atmosphere with lots of Nitrogen 2x15 (as a molecule its N2) is 30. Has oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide C02, and Carbon Monoxide CO. When there is a roof it is trapped and so fills up from the top down. Of these Nitrogen which doesn't help with respiration and CO are the lightest. Remember respiration is what goes on after the breathing bit which is just physical gas in gas out forced by Diaphragm movements and intercostal muscle movements. If you are not breathing in respirable gasses you are doomed after only a few breaths. The issue is that under normal circumstances CO binds irreversibly to the haemoglobin molecule and so an oxygen molecule cannot displace it (unless we increase what's called the partial pressure of the gas mix by increasing the external atmospheric pressure in a chamber and then sometimes the CO can be displaced), simply giving pure oxygen just allows the Haemoglobin molecules not yet bound to CO to be saturated with O2, it does not displace the CO unless at elevated partial pressure. So CO will "tend to be" at a physically higher level in undisturbed atmosphere than 02 as it weighs less. CO mixes freely with the Nitrogen (also molecular weight 30) you cannot utilise Nitrogen in respiratory processes either. CO2 is a bit of a red herring as all Co2 does is exchange with O2 under normal gaseous exchange in the lungs, roughly 400ppm in and up to 35000 ppm out. What CO2 does is act as a trigger for breathing when the level in the bloodstream rises to a threshold value which is quite low, there is another trigger which is lack of O2 but this is way lower and normally CO2 is the trigger. You can prove this to yourself by hyperventillating for two minutes (if you try sit down to do it or you'll fall down) and then wait until you need to take a breath, this is why you breathe faster and deeper during exercise, CO2 build up prompts you to. When you hyperventillate you purge the CO2 and so until the low O2 level trigger is initiated or the CO2 builds up to the threshold value you'll not need to take a breath. Feels quite wierd actually, when I was younger I could quite easily do this for nearly three minutes, if I did it now I'd collapse or pass out after 30 seconds of hyperventillating, as I did when I went for a lung function test last June. All good stuff. Hope this helps. When you sit in a human physiology exam and they ask you to discuss respiration the number of people you can see holding their ribs to decide internal or external intercostal muscle use is hilarious or it was for me 33 years ago. One more scientific thing to leave you with. The level of CO2 required to place most humans in respiratory distress is 5000 ppm. With only 400 ppm in the atmosphere at the moment how did evolution give us a stress level of 5000 ppm? I'll help by adding that stress is what prompts evolution, i.e. we can't evolve systems that respond to 5000ppm without being exposed to 5000 ppm. As far as I know the PPM meter on nuclear subs is /can be, set to 3000 / 3500 ppm, so the military know this physiological glitch and have done for decades. The submariners routinely breathe air with many times the normal level of CO2 than is present in the atmosphere and these guys have the nuclear button in their hands...LOL M

Gawd just watched that for the second time in half an hour and I'm flaming hungry again.

I agree with Paul about the beans and hash browns. And I love the fact your sausages are still juicy, can't understand folks that cook sausages until they are dry. Don't see the point of having a sausage if that what you do to em. Cooking is only a matter of heat for time equalling energy transferred so it doesn't have to be brown or burned or anything to be cooked. YES you were missed at the meet. Tell Austin Monty is still growing...

You flush out the top layers of the inside air as quickly as possible whilst staying outside as CO effectively fills up from the top down. That's why it's so pernicious when you are sleeping so by the time you wake up and sit up you have already been poisoned and short of a High pressure oygen chamber you are a gonner no matter what. And you do "it" until the detector stops detecting. And again yes this will be a long time. Remember Fiona and I had the electrical fire in Malanka, we were sitting and only felt something was wrong when we stood up, at that point the impact and effect is instantaneous and dramatic. We then saw smoke and had to deal with it or watch the boat burn down, so I dealt with it after getting Fiona the heck off the boat. All done whilst holding my breath as I knew what would happen if I took more breaths. I already had the roaring in the ears plus the inability to actually take a BREATH that did anything which is very very scary. (if you've ever been put under in a choke hold that's what it feels like) Smoke plus CO is a nightmare that still sometimes wakes me up. It was only my Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Fire service (Rire Responsible Person) training that kicked in and gave me the confidence to get the extinguisher out and deal with it again holding my breath. Oh and I am not a fan of powder fire extinguishers, Tripple F for me all the way now when possible. The stink and clean up afterwards was horrednous. Thank you Mr Dyson.. The day after the fire the newly purchased CO alarm kept pinging every now and then as we disloged a patch of CO in the ceiling of the boat. We didn't have any detectors before the fire and now use the CO detector which still detected CO the next day in the highest part of the boat and its very sensitive. M

After big bridge on RHS just before Beccles old bridge old pump out machine is super good. M