mjt

Great news. Well done to them!

I've just been having a look through my recording and I reckon that Broad Ambition was in shot for just 7 seconds, and then I only found her by referring to some still images posted elsewhere on the web. You're right Jonny, from the information posted about her she was the only one built and her hull was then used as a plug to mould some GRP clones, so she is unique and certainly deserved better coverage from our local TV stations. I didn't see the Anglia item on her and as far as I know BBC Look East didn't mention her at all although it's possible she got a mention on the local part of the programme but we only get the Western news in our area. All I saw was a rather un-newsworthy item on a dragon boat from St Neots and a rather more useful report on MTB102.

It does beg the question, though, of how far you go in relation to loss of authenticity on an item of historical significance. She is, after all, the only survivor of her class.

They did it in 16 hours on the way down but they had a very calm sea. I imagine the return trip might take longer if the sea is rougher. Still, the forecast is for the wind to get stronger by Friday so they probably don't want to delay. As ex-Navy they should know what they're taking on.

Hi Carol, Thanks for posting those YouTube clips. The BBC could take a lesson from those cameramen. On Sunday you would never have known there were 1000 vessels in the pageant. I don't think there was a single shot of the recreational boats and very few of the Dunkirk Little Ships and working boats. They cut away from MTB102 just as it was coming into view. I see a BBC spokesperson is quoted as saying “We're very proud of the quality and breadth of the BBC's coverage of this extraordinary event†which just emphasises the utter arrogance of the organisation.

I am, of course, referring to the BBC coverage of the Thames Pageant. Seemed to be planned and directed by luvvies with no interest in boats and an attention span of about 3 seconds. I tried my best to watch it but just had to keep getting up and going out of the room. I wonder how many people tuned in to find out the number of jubilee babies that had been born. As one newspaper columnist commented : "it's about the boats, stupid!"

I can vouch for these. When we bought our old boat it had already had the original lights replaced with the old-style Labcraft striplights with the cheap plastic flexible diffusers. They were all knackered so I replaced them with squarelights. These are really well designed and look so much better than linear striplights. They use a standard 16 Watt 2D lamp and include a pre-heat which helps to prevent the lamp ends from blackening and is claimed to extend its life considerably. They are very efficient, the claimed consumption is 1.3 Amps at 12V, and so bright we generally only need one on in the area where we're sitting to read comfortably. The only downside is that, at 42.5mm, they are a bit deeper than a striplight so, being 6' 2", I tend to bump my head on them (although I'd do that with any lamp). LED lamps would undoubtedly be even more efficient but I personally think they still have some way to go in terms of price/performance.

Perhaps the Scots would only sell a Saltire

One thing struck me - after he'd had that boat beautifully repainted you'd have thought he could have spared a few pence for a new ensign.

What's really annoyed me is, while Post Offices were (and are) being closed all over the country the government (and the previous NuLab one) have been systematically trying to take business away from them by encouraging DVLA to send out flyers with renewals to try to get people to renew on-line. At one time they were even offering a car in a prize draw for renewing on-line. Personally I've just carried on using the Post Office - use it or lose it. Another advantage is there's no risk of my new tax disk getting lost in the post. One thing that's not been pointed out is that it's not just that staff lose their jobs. It also means you can no longer go and sort out a problem with someone face-to-face. Instead you spend time (and money) trying to find your way through an infernal telephone menu system, hanging on while being driven to distraction by inane music and finally being passed from pillar to post and probably not getting your problem sorted out.

On a more serious note there'd be no limping home on one engine. It would have been interesting to see how it performed in a bit of a sea.

A thermostart is a standard fitting on my Perkins 4.108 so is there something different about Steve's engines which would prevent it working?

I watched the programme on Monday and I just love this Victorian engineering. What a pity that modern engineers don't seem to have the expertise to maintain it.

Not quite as slick as on the Mac where you can press Apple/Shift/3 to take a screenshot of the whole desktop, or Apple/Shift/4 to use the mouse to select the area for the screenshot, and save as a .png file on the desktop.

I normally lay some old thick curtains over the top of our vinyl canopy, both to prevent the tarp from chafing and to provide a bit of insulation. With moisture traps left in the cabin and cockpit I haven't had any problems.

Hi Neil, If I can throw in my twopenn'orth I don't think there's any significant difference in the strength. The two hardeners are just to cater for different ambient temperature ranges.

Hi John, Right-click anywhere on the page, select 'View Page Info' from the pop-up menu, select 'Permissions' in the info window and see if the 'Set Cookies' box is checked for 'Use Default'.

Hi John, Have you made sure cookies are enabled for this site in Firefox? I recently had problems with Google Map, simply wouldn't load any maps. Turned out that cookies had become disabled on that site. I don't know how it happened but once I'd re-enabled them it was all hunky-dory.

It's called Natural Selection.

Actually, based on 2.54cm/inch the dimensions are 76.2 x 58.42 x 30.48 = 135,684 so Antares estimate of just over 135 litres is spot on.

That does look rather a mess. Whoever did it didn't even bother to smooth the sealant off. It constantly amazes me the way some people bodge things. I think you'll have to bite the bullet and take them out. If you have trouble releasing the frames from the grp try heating carefully with a hot air gun and slip a thin flexible blade such as a putty knife under the frame to break the seal but be careful not to overdo the heat. The chap who did mine used that technique successfully. He then split and cleaned the frames and reassembled with the glass bedded into black silicone sealant. The frames were then refitted to the grp by bedding them onto oil-based mastic sealant. Some people advise using closed-cell foam tape for this but I've had no problems so far. They appeared to have been fitted originally using a mastic tape with similar properties to the tube-based stuff and that had probably lasted 30-odd years. that's Port to us boaters

Hi Gordon, I was basing my comments on the data for the Faria instrument as I don't have personal experience with electronic tachos. For all I know there may well be others which don't have an ignition feed. Certainly in principle it would be possible to design one to take power from the same wire as the signal.

Ok. - the penny's dropped. The ex-Richardsons boat with the hydraulic drive. I've lost my money, but at least I now know I can get a replacement for the cable on my boat. So, is it possible there's a blown fuse in the 'ignition' feed to the tacho?

As Tango is fitted with a Perkins 4.108 then unless it's been modified at some time in its life it's most likely to be a mechanical system. The fact that it suddenly stopped working suggests a broken cable. If it was an electronic system corroded connections would most likely cause intermittent operation (although it could just be a wire has fractured or corroded through). My money's on a flexible cable, though.

That seems a pretty good price for a bespoke cable. Much cheaper than converting to electronic. That's another useful one to bookmark How long was your cable Craig?