oldgregg

Not a boat that has had a lack of investment....

That seems very high given the overall average age of the Broads hire fleet. Some older boats have been retrofitted but a lot haven't. Where has that data come from?

Thunder has had a lot of work done, Simon, and it's work that I know some of the other syndicate boats really need doing. The engine is one major item but also there has been a rewire of most of the boat, new split charging system and battery charger etc. The syndicate has spent a lot of money over the last few years and is now onto more cosmetic things like refurbishing the heads in order to keep the boat at a decent standard.

@MauriceMynah is good with Antiques, perhaps he can help determine its vintage?

Yeah, that's correct. Hire boats are currently free over on the campsite end (where the fleet is moored). The £20 is if you're on the new pontoon over on Eddie's side of the basin, and is including shore power and use of the shower block which I think is one of the best features of WRC. If you compare it to Oulton Broad Yacht Station, they're £13 with electric but the showers are £2 (I don't know if that's per head?). It's not cheap, but they have done a HUGE amount of work to the moorings this year so that cost has to be recovered somehow... I'd also say that WRC is one of the nicest places to moor on the south. My first night south is generally either there or OBYS, depending on who is with me - Oulton Broad has more nightlife, whereas WRC is more relaxing.

It looks like our email provider has changed their rules, so we no longer get enough free per month to handle the volume of email the forum generates. A fix is now in place.

I was told about this a while back and was convinced the person telling me was on a wind up...

I think dealers may tell you it's for economy reasons, and blame legislation etc. In reality, they can get away with it so they do. It makes packaging easier, and shaves a few quid off the production cost. In manufacturing, every penny counts.

Yeah, indeed, what originally looked like a slightly flawed design actually works really well. I found with the Diamond 43 that we used the interior helm a lot of the time, and as you say it's a matter of seconds to change when the weather dictates / allows. The more recent designs based on the Diamond 35 remove the helm moulding and therefore what is arguably the best feature. The split sliding roof also helps with sheltering from wind / sun or to just have half open and leave the 'bank' side closed when moored. I think there's a good reason used values are strong on them... I do have a soft spot for the Pearl as well, but the Diamond 35 might be just about the perfect 'go anywhere' boat for a couple or a family as they're spacious but only having the running costs of a 35ft boat.

Indeed. I think this thread went adrift a bit, but essentially @jimbob88 is looking to sell because his other half has not been bitten by the boating bug... The asking price is £4800 but if anyone is interested then you could always make an offer - The worst he can say is no, or that he's looking for a little more. But you may get yourself a bargain, and a share in a great boat.... Also remember that if buying directly from the current owner of the share then the owner won't need to pay any sales fees to BCBM, meaning the owner can factor it in and pass that saving on....

You'll be looking in the region of £10-15K, plus any electrical work etc that might be necessary (or at least very sensible) in terms of split charger etc. Also if the gearbox isn't viable for refurb then you'll want to factor that in. That's based on fairly recent experience.

That's the perception, but by what measure? Newer engines are often revvier and more responsive, but are not necessarily more fuel efficient and as mentioned above will usually have a finite lifespan.

Yeah, I think it is a tricky one. A full, proper, rebuild is indeed more than just piston rings and seals. For many engines you can find the overhaul kits online to see what they contain. Certainly for the engine we were looking at rebuilding the kit included complete pistons, con rods, bearings and all manner of things and of course a full set of seals. @marshman what I meant was that because of this you can see why opinion varies and people think it's not a viable option when actually done right it very much is.

Then that's an engine which hasn't been properly rebuilt, so you can see how misinformation spreads.

Is that the one where 1976 has exploded inside of it?

Having been through the process of procuring a new engine recently, I'd say to definitely consider a rebuild depending on what the engine is. A newer engine will be revvier and more responsive to the throttle, but will cost you a shed load of money and in the case of a (Kubota based) Nanni or Beta once that engine has done its 15-20,000 hours there is no rebuilding it. Not going to be your problem in reality, but something to think about when factoring in the cost. An old Perkins, BMC etc can usually be rebuilt and I think there is a lot of confusion about what that actually means. When you do a full rebuild, most of the important internal components are replaced and what was an old, leaking engine that was down on power becomes pretty much a new engine inside an old block. I don't know what it costs to rebuild but I do know what it costs to re-engine and it's not cheap. Personally, if it weren't time critical and / or I could pick up a donor engine to get rebuilt while I'm enjoying my boating and then swap out when ready, I would seriously consider going that route. There is a obsession with having to have a 'new' engine, which I think comes from people being used to how bad engines have got in cars - But obviously a marine diesel is a very different beast and an old one isn't an especially scary thing provided it is looked after.

It wasn't that hard a tide... We found that the tides were about right to get to Oulton Broad on the Saturday evening (and have time to get the drone out on Breydon) if we went a bit before low water, so that's what we did. The boat was (briefly) flat out for the purposes of the video as it looks more dramatic....

Hi there What is it you're looking to know?

And the rest...

What John is saying is that he has a shortcut to the forum on his desktop, so that Windows launches the site in whichever browser is currently set as default. Not a bad plan if you ask me. Simply right click on the desktop, select New > Shortcut from the context menu and then paste in https://forum.norfolkbroadsnetwork.com/ when asked for the location. On the next page when asked for a name, simply enter Norfolk Broads Network or NBN.

It looks as though people are having issues mostly with bookmarks - Can I suggest that everyone who uses a bookmark for the site goes and edits it so that it is just https://forum.norfolkbroadsnetwork.com/ - That way you won't have a problem when a software update changes the structure of internal pages etc. We apply software updates in order to patch any vulnerabilities and to keep the site moving forward, and it would be irresponsible of us not to do so. If we didn't apply updates and there were a breach of users' data (emails, passwords etc) which was possible because of a vulnerability we hadn't yet patched, I think our members would quite rightly be asking us why we didn't apply the latest updates.

Could you explain what you mean by that?

What browser are you using on the laptop? You'll need to clear your cache as what is happening is that in order to save time your computer is storing an older version of some of the important files that make the forum run, rather than downloading them fresh each time and getting the latest (correct) version.

As Grendel mentioned earlier, clearing your cache should sort the issue. One of the other problems with an update is that browsers 'remember' any old site code from before the update for up to a couple of weeks in order to save time and download speed. The problem is that when the forum actually needs you to download the new code containing the updates right now, browsers tend to ignore that.