Jim

Oh I forgot to mention that Trev (diesel Falcon) is more than likely close suggesting Trend were involved at the time. When we replaced our fender rubber in 2004, they were the only company that could supply the perfect fit!

Hi Mathias, I can probably find out who made the original screens for the Falcon range but this would go back to 1984 onwards. We had our old port and starboard windows replaced and I'm sure this was done by a local marine glazing company in Brundall. All the local Falcon 22 and 23 models that I have seen have the same arrangement as ours so it looks like they were using the same design/company for quite some time. I remember being given a guided tour of the Quayline 245 you own and I don't think the builder had fitted any screens if I remember correctly?

I will dig out a Falcon 23 manual I bought some years ago. From memory, it was pretty basic and I can't recall any wiring diagrams

My company has had a City Link account for some years now and although they aren't the cheapest, I find they are very reliable. Some of our suppliers use Fed Ex who are very impressive. On the day of delivery, they txt to advise your parcels are on the vehicle and later with an ETA which is normally not far from the mark. I bought a CCTV transmission system from Ebay recently and the package arrived partially damaged. TNT were the carrier and the package was signed for by our neighbours. When I looked at the parcel, it looked a bit squished on one side and on opening it, it seemed that a fork lift had run over one edge which crushed a 12 volt power supply and Euro adapter. Thankfully, the main unit worth £900 was completely unharmed!!

"Abnormal road" Are we going Chinese? LOL

I hope the next Summer is going to be as good as 2013 even though it was a long time before it arrived. We have never been on the hard since 2004 because there can be some mild weather during winter when boating on the Broads is fantastic. On the other hand, if it is going to be a bad winter, being 90 miles away from Horning can be a big worry!

Very sad news indeed. Condolences to his wife and family and friends

Can't agree more JTF. You may have even driven through between Widford and Much Hadham when those temporary traffic lights were there a few years back until they repaired the damaged culvert. A white van and myself were waiting at red when two cyclists from a club in Hoddesdon just shot through the red light. Van driver sounds his horn and cyclists turn and give him a couple of victory hand signals. Shortly after, the lights changed and white van man went off in hot pursuit. When I caught up with them he had stopped them both and had them by the scruff of their necks lol. He was a big fella too so after that, I'll bet they won't do that again in a hurry!!

Here is a link to an article about Helpston. I don't think I would run the risk but clearly, others are prepared to http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/local/cameras-could-be-installed-at-helpston-level-crossing-1-133518

To be honest I avoid it like the plague these days. I did read somewhere that it is classed as being considered dangerous compared with other crossings because of its length. Watching the trains to Newcastle fly by your car at over 100 mph is not fun at all even though they can't hit you!

All very stupid and happens all too often all over the UK. Maxine was waiting at a crossing near Stanstead Abbotts marina earlier this year when a car flew by on the wrong side of the road and dodged the remaning two booms before they had fully lowered and nearly collided with a car coming the other way. Reg number and details were reported to Herts police but we never found out if they traced the driver. This woman needs a hearing aid as well as specs Mark! For anyone that hates level crossings, avoid the huge one at Helpston to the north west of Peterborough. Barriers up and down very often and you have to cross two tracks of the line going off to the midlands and four tracks of the East Coast Main Line. It's very easy to get stuck in the "no mans land" between the two sets of tracks ....not for the faint hearted as I'm sure Buffalo Bill will confirm!!

Thanks Martin, Mark and Andy. I'll go for the bilgex option for the short term and see if I can connect some sanihose to the shower drain and lead it beyond the offending bulkhead to the bilge pump. I spoke to a fellow forumite yesterday who also owns an older Falcon 22 and his boat does not have the extra bulhead we have so we are a bit unique (typical). For nine years we have been boiling kettles of water or mostly using shore showers until our yard fitted a really good modern calorifier so we use the shower more often...one problem fixed leads to another lol. Once again, thanks for all your suggestions

Hi, Has anyone had experience of using bilge freshener? I'm looking for recommendations on any product that will help get rid of nasty niffs! Our Falcon 22 shower just drains straight into the bilge and there is a bulkhead under our thwartships cabin which holds the water back and acts like a dam. Eventually, anything spilling over the bulkhead will be dealt with by the bilge pump but more often than not, during the warmer weather, all the shower water evaporates leaving a slight smell behind which of course works its way up into the cabin. I know ideally it would be better to fit a sump drain plus pump to push out the water through a skin fitting but the floor in our shower is only a fraction above the hull which makes this hard to do. Jim

Thanks for the heads up Gary. They are getting on with the new road well so I'm hoping it will be open well ahead of the scheduled completion date. While they are doing the roundabout, I'll take the A14 and A140 for the duration!! Jim

Hi Brian, I bought a new Mariner outboard for our tender from them and I'm pleased with the results plus back up service. You should have no probs there!

Not to forget the Falcon 34 sometimes referrred to as the Falcon Velici. I think only four of these were built before Falcon got into difficulties. There is one listed at a marina in Bray with loads of pics available.

I'll try and tap up some info from Graham at Ferry as he was very involved in the Falcon business. His brother Ian built our 22 and when he worked at Ferry, he confirmed what I had always thought which was we have hull number 1. I did use to keep in touch with the owner of Quayline Marine in Herts who obtained the 22/23 moulds. I only saw one renamed Quayline 23 and she was fantastic.

Will be interesting to see if this grows. As far as I know, there are only three Falcon owners on the forum at present!

I've probably seen you Alan at Ferry Marina when the syndicate boats were moored there before re-location to Brundall. I don't know who owns both boats these days but I remember Sam and her dad doing a great job valeting and polishing ours just before the 2008 meet at Burgh Castle. I've remembered the name of the Foster? which was Triumphant Lady but can't remember the name of the yard. It dawned on me that the Aquabell was called Tango 3 or 5 when Bell Boats hired it to us. I need to get some of the old pics I took of all our hire boats scanned so I can upload them here.

Crikey Dan! Non boating holiday will leave you suffering with withdrawal symptoms. My first boating experience was a trip on the Coventry and Oxford canals with my friends family back in 1969. Memories of that two week holiday include some fantastic hot weather and some lovely Oxfordshire villages. The locks were hard work though! It was some years after that that we first hired a boat in March 1979 from Southgates in Horning. She was an Elysian named Crystal Stream 8 and is now in private ownership somewhere on the Broads. Considering we only had a week, we managed to cover visits to Salhouse, Womack, Barton, Reedham, Brundall and more. I suppose that's when the boating bug got me and the next year saw us hiring a smaller boat, Moonstone from Corig Cruisers in Thorpe. We ventured over pretty much all of the Broads except Loddon and Beccles in 1980. In 1982, we hired from a yard at St Olaves whose name I forget. There were four of us this time so we managed to sqeeze in a lot of places and finally got to Beccles and Loddon as well as getting north for trips up the Ant and Bure and a visit to Potter to see if we could get through. After a long wait for the pilot, he decided against us passing under the bridge so it was a case of turning round and heading off to Womack but not before yours truly slipped off the quayheading for my one and only (so far) dip in the river. After a break of a few years, in 1987 we hired an Aquabell from Bell Boats in Brundall and set off for a fews days up north and then headed back to the Southern Broads for the rest of the trip and settled down for our penultimate night at the Waveney River Centre. After dinner in the pub and watching the now infamous Michael Fish weather report on their TV, we headed back to our boat for one hell of a night! That story is posted elsewhere on the forum. The following year we hired our last boat before becoming owners nine years ago. The boat was Ferry Privateer 3 which was then owned by Ferry Marina and later to belong to our fellow forumite James. As the rivers were so busy (and the boat was very big) we found ourselves a bit restricted in terms of where we could reach and stayed north for the whole week. What didn't help was a pic of our boat stuck under the bridge at Yarmouth with the comment "don't let an accident like this spoil you holiday" I decided to start my own business in 1989 and as most small company owners will tell you, you don't get to take holidays for many years. Finally, I managed to get a week off in 2004 which saw us rent a riverside property in Ferry Marina and one of their day boats for the entire week. I'd always fancied the idea of us owning a boat but lack of funds and time meant it never happened...up and till then! NYA had some nice looking boats for sale and despite the protests from SWMBO, we had a look over what was to become our boat. She is a Falcon 22 SPC and I arranged the quickest pre purchase survey I could, borrowed the money and within a week, she was ours!! We have had some good breaks aboad over the years but time off work is restricted so we're hoping to get a 10 day break later this year. As part of my job, I spend a lot of time working on inland sand dredgers and riverside wharves and just lately, I seem to spend most of the time watching commercial traffic on the Thames which does not compensate for the Broads. .

Noisy, unreliable and thirsty? I thought you were talking about me there Mark

Have a look on Boatshed Norfolk Branden. There was at least one Falcon 22 on there for under £10K recently. As a Falcon owner, I confess to being a bit biased towards the marque and I'm also happy with a centre helm position which has easy access to the stern.

You have a crackin sense of humour John lol

Nice to see the pics of farthing Green. I used to work in farthing Green House when Redland owned the building.