Viking23

Rather than start a new thread, and since I have already posted on this one, over 2 years ago, I just wondered how we are all getting on with our Baofeng radios. I now have 2 uv-B5, I bought the second one recently, for around £22 as one of my pmr radios decided to go pop, so for £22 it seemed a good option. We use them at the locks on the Thames, as sometimes the holding area can be just out of site of lock operations. I have the programming lead, so I have now added the new marine channels, but being inland won't be a lot of use, but we do travel by car too. Both radios are a clone of each other. This morning I was monitoring PMR channel 1 using low power, so if I was back to my cb days I would have called.... "On the side, on the side" but for some reason it didn't seem appropriate. lol. On low power I struck up a conversation with a guy that I found out was 9 miles away, the conversation was as clear as if he was in my garden, In fact I did look to make sure. lol. On the Broads I did monitor Broads Control, and at certain times of day they gave out the weather forecast. We also found marine channel 12 good, as it gave port operations through Gt Yarmouth and 14 for Lowestoft. To be fair, monitoring channel 16, the calling channel was quite boring, as there was very little communications. I had hoped to get a feel for the marine channels, protocol etc and then take the radio exam, but health issues meant we had to move away from the Broads, and to be fair, no one uses channel 16 on the upper Thames. As mentioned before, I am aware of the misuse of radios, and would not transmit on the marine frequencies, or any other unlicensed frequencies but on the other hand, the radio remains capable of these transmissions. For example, we might have a licenced operator on board, or we might have to make an emergency call, so our radios remain fully operational. For the PMR channels these baofeng radios don't meet the regulations, even on low power, the radios are a few dB over on signal strength, and they do have removeable aerials, in fact on my 9 mile range transmission that I mentioned, I actually used a smaller stubby aerial that I bought. Hmm, if that works that well... might get another one lol. The reason I bought it was, when the canopy was up, and the radio was on the dash, the canopy rested on the aerial, and I didn't want to bend my rubber duck. lol The write ups on the uv-B5 are very good, there is the odd one that doesn't perform, but with the vast quantity made, it doesn't surprise me. Best regards, Richard

I would travel back in time to when the plans were submitted to the Broads Authority for the stone bridge at Potter Heigham, and just add a few feet to the clearance.

Not sure I got that from the original post, don't even know if the hull was wood or grp, but if it was my original gel coat, I would not be happy at all having filler on my hull.

If the damage was alleged to have been done during the three rivers race, then I assume there must have been a witness to the event, anyone witnessing this hit and run damage, should have made some notes at the scene as to which boat(s) caused the damage. One name, with a witness should be enough to get the damage repaired at the cost of their insurance company and the culprit done for hit and run. We all must take more attention to this sort of damage, we can't all assume that someone else is going to log and report it, and the offender has clearly got away with criminal damage. It is criminal damage, as the offender should have stopped at the scene, or at least reported it to the authorities within 24 hours. Just in case I am being a little harsh, have you contacted the BA or the organisers of the 3RR to see if any damage has been reported of damage to third party boats? I can assume having a note book and pen whilst sailing, to list all the boats they have damaged is not something they might have to hand at the time. Richard

Hi Chris, will that now be 24/7 if left on, or is there a thermostat that reduces the average current. On a hot day it will run longer, but if the on time is less than 50 % than that will be good. Trouble is, it may not be easy to know when the compressor is running. For a valid experiment, you would need to know the ambient temperature, fridge temperature, on and off time during the day... and night lol. Fridge efficiencies have really improved over the last few years. Richard

I can just imagine Frank Muir on call my bluff describing this one lol... RE cockapoop, I think it is a general slang name given to a small male dog, It's a shortened word which originated from "Cocks it's leg and poops" TRUE BLUFF TRUE ? Which reminds me, bring loads of doggie poo bags with you, it is totally unacceptable to have raw dog poo ready for moorers to step in as they moor up, or drag their mooring ropes through. Also hang on to the bag and dispose of in a sensible and hygenic way. Doggie life jacket... yes essential, ask the yard now about getting one. Richard

Welcome to the forum, and a welcome to the Broads, I guess as your title says, you are new, then this is your first ever visit. As others have said, stay north, don't go below Stokesby as the tides become stronger and tide tables are essential to get your journey planned. There is a lot of river between Wroxham and Potter Heigham, and from Acle to Stalham, plenty of room to cruise as little or as often as you want. Your planning could simply be.... we are at a river junction.... left or right ? A busy part will be on the Bure between Wroxham and Horning, but a beautiful section by far, but explore Wroxham and Salhouse Broad. Mud weight for a few hours, and let the boat drift around in circles as the wind changes your position. Each river has it's own charms, some narrow and windy, others wide and open, from where you can see the odd white sail cut across the meadows, and also the white sails of many of the restored wind mills (wind pumps really lol) . You will pass St Bennets Abbey several times, as this is in the middle of a "H" section with tributaries off to Malthouse and South Walsham. Enjoy... Wished I was there. Sorry... missed that... did you say you had a spare bunk for an experienced crew member lol? I'd get killed in the rush lol... Richard

If you can still get one, it is marked as discontinued, maybe the low price was to clear remaining stock. I must admit, last week I was seriously looking at that one, should I need a new one. Might be worth a phone call, they might keep an odd one back for warranty exchange. Richard

If you do go the frame out route, you can get blind and sealed pop rivets, so when they "pop" there is no route for water to go through the "pop" hole. I mentioned it on my VO site, but get a few plain washers that are a tight fit over the rivets, as some holes in the grp will break out the side and split the grp, and the rivet will have something to squeeze against. Washer goes over rivet end inside the boat once inserted. This worked well on a couple of rivets that were too close to the edge. From my experience in the Viking, the water was not getting in through the frame to grp seal, so removing the frame wasn't the cure. The water got in as the black sealant glass to frame has gone brittle and granular, but then half a minute looking at it, and scraping with a thin screw driver will be obvious. The corners are the most critical. Time wise... removing a frame, dismantling the frame, scraping out the sealant, (what a pain that was) degreasing and redoing sealant, which gets everywhere, as you are assembling, and reassemble frame, reinserting frame and riveting, then cleaning up the grp, glass and frame, etc... around 6 hours if you have the right tools and experience. A Black and decker workmate was useful here to hold parts of the frame as was a large tarp to collect all the old sealant bits, and catch the small retaining screws that always end up on the floor lol, and to prevent turning the tow path to mud. Risks... bending the thin aluminium frame as you try to remove it, shearing the corner screws that fasten the thin steel brackets in the 4 corners. Breaking the brackets ! now where can I get them from? They are only thin strips of plated steel, but require drilling and tapping and bending. Easy to make in the workshop, but riverside....? If you want to see the brackets, they are similar to the ones that hold the sliding window frames together. If I recall, you can see those when the windows are slid open. cracking or chipping the glass is also a risk. You may not get a good seal between the grp and the frame due to old sealant, bent frame, loose rivets, and introduce a new leak to an area that wasn't leaking before. The only option... start all over again, the dig out method will not be any use now. With the dig out method, an hour or two in total, do from outside first, then a week or two later, the inside. After the outside has been done, say an hour, then it will be obvious before the next visit if it has worked. Caution.. with the dig out method, it is possible that the glass sits lower in the frame, which could lead to a gap at the top of the glass to frame, so you might need a thin strip of rubber in a couple of places to centralise the glass in the frame. If you have fitted double glazing units you will be familiar with that. Risks... the leak wasn't the glass to frame sealant after all. but you have only wasted an hour, but saved a day if it was lol. Chip the edge of the glass or even break, the window, if you use any tools as levers. You can see I prefer the dig out method, as it works well, for me anyway. Richard In conclusion, I would only remove the frame if I was replacing broken glass. Another tip:- you probably have a plastimo flexible water tank, these have a life of 5-7 years, you can either buy the whole unit, or just the inner for half the price. see Force4 chandlery. When they leak, water goes everywhere to places very difficult to dry out, so I pioneered the introduction of the pond liner. This sheet goes under the tank up all sides, you might need some plywood to form a dam wall but it does stop some serious leaking. You need to check it say every other fill or several times a season, slip your hand between the liner and the tank, or buy a water leak detector unit with a remote sensor. You won't regret it. Richard I do go on a bit lol...

A few weeks ago I rewired the 12 volt supply to our aging electrolux three way fridge, as the original wiring was getting quite warm, and the voltage drop excessive. The new cable run was shorter and a much thicker cable. I was now surprised to see that the current at 12 volts was close to 10 amps. This is an absorption fridge, not a compressor type. It runs fine when on 240 on electric hook up, where a thermostat controls it well, but at 12 volts there is no thermostat, and the consumption of 10 amps at 12 volts is 24/7 totally unacceptable. The idea was, when cruising, we could switch to 12 volts, but this puts a considerable drain on the battery as the honda outboard only puts out 6 amps at cruising speed. Next visit I am going to take a digital max min thermometer and log temperature variations, and I am going to experiment with a current limit device to limit the power the fridge takes to 5-6 amps when cruising and then monitor the temperature. If successful, then I might fit an electronic thermostat. Note... I would not use a current limit on a compressor fridge, as this could cause considerable damage to it, but an absorption fridge works in a different and totally inefficient way, (30 year old technology where ammonia was king) proportional to the heat input, either from a 240 volt or 12 volt heater, or via a gas flame that can either be low medium or high. A very inefficient system, that we have managed with for nearly 30 years lol. The fridge has been modified with a flame trap, to meet the BSS so can be used on a petrol driven vessel. So it looks like we will continue to use it on gas when away from the mooring, but it is heavy on propane. The 12 volt powered fridge is the biggest killer of leisure and marine batteries, and battery voltage monitoring is essential to give batteries a reasonable life. If I was starting afresh, then I would certainly consider a compressor fridge that worked on 12 volts dc The one mentioned looks a good option, but we might need a slightly larger one to chill more bottles of wine and cider etc At this stage of my boating career, and health it will be difficult to justify spending £££ on a new fridge, £££ can buy a lot of propane lol but... if it broke down tomorrow, I would rip it out and buy a compressor one on a 24 hour delvery lol... and refurbish the galley, new sink, new cooker, new work top etc etc. So seeing the coolbox link, wow it is low consumption, and if our current fridge ever breaks down, then worthy of a look. If my electronic control with current limit actually works then I will report back. As most of you know, I like technical challenges, Richard

Well as you can imagine... I have had this problem. My experience has been replacing sliding window glass that has cracked, replacing the slides, removing the frames, dismantling the frame, removing the black sealant, resealing and refitting the frames with new rivets, and my preferred method, which has been used by many Viking owners on my recommendation is ... What I call " The dig out method" So far 100% successful many years down the line. Quick and cheap too. Yes, again have a search on the Viking Owner's web site, which I think you should consider joining. I like many others, have written a lot of other maintenance projects too. I'm too tired to spend time finding the link tonight. Not been an easy week. Best regards, Richard

Hi Nigel, what a great first post and a memorable introduction. I hope you can share with us, other experiences too. Welcome to the forum. Richard

Wow Chris that wood work looks great, the last time I saw it was pre winter. We fitted a boarding ladder soon after we failed to get an abandoned sailor out of the middle of Hickling Broad. His dinghy was sailing away un manned at a rate of knots. After several attempts, we called over a low free board aluminium fishing boat, three young men on board, and with myself and the sailor, it was still a struggle. I always thought that the rudder plate on our engine would have made a good foot hold, but no. I even had a home made rope ladder that we tried, but again didn't work, to use one requires training and practice. This is my set up. The netting around the engine is anti coot netting, they seem to like engine wells on the Thames lol. Richard

Charlie, I need to do some more research, and gain more data, but... am I right in thinking that during all the years before you were a moderator, you never fell in once, and after you have become a moderator, you take your first drenching. So is being a moderator a hazardous role to have lol? Like I say, limited data so far, but evidence does seem to support this hypothesis. lol

Wow... how things could have been different, on your own say, banged your head... game over. A nice dry life jacket will do nothing to save your life. A couple of months ago I followed ChrisB's advice and checked the expiry on both auto life jackets, and one had expired in January 2017, ok, no great worry, probably servicable, but once I found it, I had to order a new one there and then. Hope it works when I need it lol. Richard

I must admit, when I first read this post I thought I had ventured onto another type of website, then I realised it was NBN after all. A spark ignitor from a gas cooker might have a similar desirable effect though.

Boat looks really great, but has Robin borrowed one of your blue fenders from your port side lol ?

Every boat to have a black box fitted with a GPS device giving position, no let's go with... a blue box, as the BA like to enter things into a blue book, so this can enter it automatically lol. with the speed limits programmed in, so speed limits can never be broken, and a remote engine shut down so no engines running after 8 pm, no cruising after dusk etc The advantage of GPS positioning for the customer is.... in case of engine breakdown, a call is automatically sent to the hire company, of location etc. All mooring locations can be logged and a fee automatically paid to the land owner. Any boating incidents, like collisions etc could place a boat at the scene, may be with video evidence. Any boat passing under a particular bridge without a pilot would have an automatic fine, and crews without 200 cruising hours would not be allowed south of Stokesby. Boats failing to comply will have their mud weights automatically deployed to ensure the boat is disabled safely. Seems quite simple to do, we have the technology, add finger print technology to the throttle position to prevent banned crew members or under aged crew, and a breathalyser to prevent engine starts when a skipper is under the influence. So far so good, at this rate, the boat will never leave the home mooring, there will be no excessive speeding, no excessive wash, reduced incidents of stranding on Breydon, the reed beds will be saved and everyone will live happily ever after.

Of course you could go rag and stick and go for a traditional wooden yacht, no engine etc but plenty with engines too, some with showers. I love the traditional wooden cruisers, most have mod cons, showers, fridges, central heating, conventional gas cooking, tv's etc some may miss out on on board wifi or microwave ovens but why not rough it a bit lol. Let's keep these boats on the river, where they belong, some have been there nearly a hundred years already. Richard

I can believe that lol...

I quite agree, but hirers get away with a verbal telling off, and they know it, private craft crew should know better, but there was no mention of private craft exceeding the speed limit, unless I fast forwarded past that clip, we have all seen evidence of private craft exceeding the speed limit too. Richard

We have only left the Broads now 9 months, and to be honest, I do keep in touch with what is going on, probably more than the previous 6 years lol, but I am not happy on what is being reported... We have mobile phones, tablets and video cameras capturing and reporting alleged speeding, with no technical support evidence, we have name and shame of vessels allegedly speeding or emitting noise with no speed or dB noise measurements and distance using calibrated equipment, we have boats being reported for overstaying 24 hour moorings, with or without broken propulsion equipment. Then to cap this we have people bringing megaphones to the broads to give advice to boaters, because in the opinion of the person behind the megaphone thinks... in his / her opinion, that they are doing things wrong. The reason I brought this last one up, is that I watched Coronation Street earlier this week and there is Brian, the ex head teacher, on litter duty, and he is standing 6 feet behind people that accidentally dropped litter, but in fact picked it up before it reached the ground, but he had to use the megaphone to tell the alleged litter lout of his offence. Now.... what a pratt he looked, and we run the same vision for any visitors to the Broads. If a "Brian" type person did that to me, then ... Well I'd just launch the torpedos or rockets that I just bought from China last month. lol I can only see this escalating with aggression. May I suggest (tongue in very big cheek) that the forum produce some table tennis battons with various mph speeds on them, then we can wave 3mph, 5mph, at every boat that goes past, speeding or not. After all, we don't really know their speed. What is the Norfolk Broads becoming? You have to bear in mind that people have paid huge amounts of money to hire a boat, having paid tax on their earnings, the real cost for one day and night on the Broads could be between £300 - £500 for each and every night, plus food and drink etc Surely they deserve more? Richard

My grandson, aged 3 3/4 took the helm of our Viking 23 a couple of weeks ago, I could clearly see the river and all users through the cabin windows, as I kept a hand over the steering wheel, now to all intents and purposes, any passing boat would only see our grandson at the wheel, and possibly a shinny bald head out of shot. lol. Now he soon got the hang of it, when a boat came close he said... "Hide Grandad ... Hide" we had to chuckle. He took great pride in knowing he was seen as the skipper. We took his high back car seat from the car and lashed that to the boat helm seat, he had his life jacket on and he was really comfortable. Starting them early, is not a bad thing, as long as there is a responsible adult within arms reach of the helm at all times. Richard

I know they differ in length of control cable and termination, so if it was me, I would mark up where fittings clamp to, and remove the whole thing, complete with engine termination and take it to your favourite chandlers and match it, side by side. It is possible to replace parts within the head, or the actual cable, but you need someone to recognise compatible parts. I think, some parts are compatible across manufacturers, but as companies take over other companies, who knows. Now many are imported from the far east and clones appear too. Mine has survived close to 30 years of private use, in fact, looking back, I'm not sure if the jubilee clip idea on mine was a factory original, or if it was one of my other re-engineering successes, but it has been over 18 years since I looked at it lol... So it has proven to be very reliable. Good luck. Richard

Hi, yours is a replacement unit, at the time of manufacture of your boat, 1985 there were no CE markings on products. So I think you might need some replacement parts, or a new head. Richard