oldgregg

Yeah it's brilliant and Guenther Steiner is just hilarious. TV audience is the biggest issue F1 has at the moment. The racing has mostly not been very interesting for the past few seasons and it's now only on pay TV. Quite a few of my friends are (or were) diehard F1 fans but most of us are just really bored with it now and don't have the enthusiasm to pay to subscribe and definitely not to spend lots of money and drive half way across Europe (even before COVID) to go to races like we used to. When it was free-to-air people were much more likely to watch and feel interested by it, but Bernie did the sport no favours with the Sky deal. I know Liberty would prefer it to be on terrestrial TV in the UK but the contract was signed before they came aboard and they couldn't get out of it. I think it runs until the end of the 2023 season, at which point Liberty will probably be begging the BBC to take it.

Had you hired the Aquafibre in the foreground? Just curious (and whether you have more pics) as we hired the boat I think that is in 1983.

I hope Red Bull are genuinely quicker but I'm not convinced yet. Lewis is capable of pulling something special out of a rubbish car but I'm not convinced Bottas is. And yet he still finished third, ahead of some very talented drivers. As for the cost of watching, the UK price is ridiculous. The price of F1 TV (which we can't buy in the UK because of the deal with Sky) is around 65 euros for the whole season and that covers multiple devices. And it works on most VPN services.

That’s only the domain registration, but my understanding is that there is no issue with the bills being paid. As Ian has said, we have offered help and will provide it if asked.

Correct. I don't believe funding is an issue.

There have been a few issues with it, and other people have also flagged that up. That's the reality of what happens when websites aren't being actively maintained, unfortunately. I have previously been in touch with people close to Craig's wife and am hopeful that we may hear something about what she wishes to do with the site before too long.

Prices definitely have risen a bit. I booked something yesterday and was a bit surprised by the price, but I get why it has happened and I think as demand falls next year you'll probably see prices levelling.

As I mentioned before, an old iPod with RockBox installed may well do what you need... If the battery is any good it’ll keep playing to itself until the battery dies, if not then it’ll go off with the ignition. I’m tempted to dig my old one out to try it..

It depends on the vehicle, some don’t.

Thinking on the Bluetooth front, I believe the Android Auto app can be configured to automatically play a playlist when it connects to a particular Bluetooth device (like el cheapo one linked to above) that will of course come on with the ignition. It doesn't need to be a high-end device to install the app on, and it isn't just for use with cars that have screen casting. Android Auto wasn't about when SWMBO got her Yaris...

Okay, gotcha. I actually looked for the same thing a few years back - My wife's old Toyota Yaris had a line-in on the back of the stereo and I wanted something to shuffle from MP3 when she started it up. I don't know of any off the shelf devices which work in that way, but obviously that's not to say there aren't any. Having found nothing, what I looked at doing (with my developer head on) was to use a Raspberry PI and a special 12V PSU for it. It'd start up with the ignition and then run a script to randomly play an MP3 from whatever USB stick was plugged in to it. I think I did find such a specific PSU (essentially a UPS) which had a small battery and when power went off it could communicate with the Pi to tell it to shut down cleanly to avoid trashing the SD card. I think the PSU was about £50 so I didn't bother and just got a Bluetooth adapter with aux out (tons on ebay) so she could just stream from her phone. It obviously requires a smartphone and isn't as neat a solution, but it was cheaper and required no effort on my part. Another option which I didn't think of at the time is to use an old iPod and install the custom software 'Rockbox' on it. That may be able to do what you need from an auto-start perspective but it is also a fair amount of faff..

If you fit an aftermarket stereo with MP3 playback (via a USB stick) then if you leave it set to that source they'll usually resume where you left off. Car stereos with MP3/USB have been around for quite a long time now so you should be able to pick a decent one up for peanuts I think? I bought a 'mechless' (no CD mechanism) JVC one back in 2017 for Thunder and that was about £65 new. I doubt that would cost a lot used on the 'bay.... You'd then just need the ISO harness for the car (often available on car groups / forums) and a fascia adapter if necessary.

My view would be that the vaccine rollout is going so well that the media need something negative to report on...

Yeah, I remember the boat graveyard well. I nearly went through the rotten floor of what is now Escapade! I tend to forget the bathtubs as i'm really not a fan, but yeah @andyg you're quite right - A lot of those have had major internal works too and the two you mention definitely look really decent inside.

Yeah, Viscount was a total refit There are a few which have been done to that level. Barbados, Capri, Calypso, Escapade are the ones that spring to mind in the late noughties. And then Melody, Major Gem and various other classes had heavy refits in the mid-noughties. The thing is, if you look at Viscount now she looks great. I'd hire her no problem. And that was a 2009 refit. Sure, it will have cost more. But when a set of mouldings can be getting on for £50K, I don't get why more yards don't do deep refits.

I get what they've tried to do, but I just can't see it looking good in five years. I know the Ricko's refits will have cost more, but those still look good after 15 years.

I suspect these boats will not....

From what I've seen they're not total refits - The windows have stayed in and the bulkheads seem to have been re-faced rather than stripped out. The pictures I saw of the last one didn't amaze me. The end result looked like it would date fairly quickly. It's good to see investment in older boats, though. I'm more than happy with an older boat that has been updated.

A Bounty 27 is a reasonable compromise, and the ones fitted out by Bounty themselves have a lot of GRP internally so still look good. You can tell by the presence (or not) of a black plaque with white writing near the helm which says 'Bounty 27AC' and then the build number - And the fact that there's a lot of GRP visible inside on the bed base and dinette. Many people prefer a lot of wood internally, but a nice neutral fitout with a lot of fibreglass will look way better after 20+ years. The Shetland 27's are okay, but they're a fairly narrow beam boat that are designed to be used on some of the canals too and so the internal space isn't great. A Bounty 27 was designed for Norfolk so it suits the system well. If you want the most space for the money, perhaps look at something like an Aquafibre 38 centre cockpit. You should be able to find a decent one for £30K and the fibreglass layup is a bit (okay a lot) over-engineered so they don't give much trouble. Also, the Ocean 30 as shown above is not a bad shout at all.

I'm booked for the week before with a group of mates so that's not going to happen! I'll keep the booking but will be a different crew.

It doesn't strike me as the Turf Fen windpump (the drainage mill near to How Hill) particularly, even assuming the view is from the Turf Fen side of the river looking towards How Hill.

Yeah, I hired the 36ft version in Ireland about 10 years ago and have been aboard the 42ft version on the Thames too. They're a very spacious boat and remain one of the favourite boats I've hired. I particularly remember what a good size the heads were on the 36ft boat.

Yeah, looks like a Bermuda hull - Which then basically went on to be almost everything Alphacraft did.

And that sums it up, sadly.... The old models developed before the Renault marriage are pretty good. But then along came the Renault-Nissan alliance and the accountants set to work on cost-cutting to reduce the losses Nissan were making. Unfortunately, cost cutting only ever means a reduction in quality as cost accountants look at what they can immediately make cheaper rather than how to do what they're doing better in order to drive sales. It's the same thing that happened at Mercedes in the late 90's and at VW in the mid-noughties. Neither of those groups have really got their reputation for quality and reliability back either. Nowadays Nissan are (mostly) little more than a brand name, predominantly selling re-skinned Renault models such as the Clio-based Juke and Micra. The latter barely looks any different from a Clio. Same goes for Dacia, and sadly Mitsubishi have recently joined the fold.

Sometimes, wind turbine blades are just collected up and buried in the ground somewhere! Yes I think there may be some salvage value, but probably not an enormous amount. The engines would be okay after a good clean out, but electrics etc are probably toast so it may not be that economical to repair.