mbird

I have no idea what my kite is called, but it's jus tover 3 metres. Last time I flew it was at Holkam beach. I took off, nearly had a finger amputated, and snapped the cord on one of the kite-killers. Haven't flown it since!

The old "speed on Breydon" chestnut raises an interesting question.... Late last year, we picked up a rope around one of the drives that caused a vibration. Removing the rope seemed to stop the vibration, but to be sure, I took a trip to Breydon for a couple of high speed runs (all in the interest of testing you understand, no enjoyment was had whatsoever ). We passed a couple of hire boats in the opposite direction (one of whom wanted us to go past fast, but we resisted!) having slowed to around 6mph, until they were clear of our wash. On the return leg, however, we again caught up with the cruisers. I did wonder about giving them a wide berth and carrying on planing as we went past them because the wash is really pretty small at planing speeds. However, I did what I thought was the courteous thing and slowed down. As it turned out, one of the cruisers was flat out at about 7mph, so in order to overtake, I had to be doing 8-9mph. This obviously creates quite a lot of wash, and whilst I understand it is the accepted "right thing to do" I am sure from the look on the occupants faces it was a whole lot more uncomfortable for them as a result. Opinions? (and please don't say I should have stayed behind them and not overtaken, Smelly. They were not even halfway across Breydon and there was still a mile or so of essential testing to be done! )

I managed to find a magenta fine tipped permanent pen in the art department of Jarrolds in Norwich at the weekend. Only £1.10 too!

Where would one obtain said item? I tried Staples today but could see nothing like that...... I'm sure I remember seeing some links on another thread but can't find it now...

Hi Ian It does sound tempting, but I'll have to let you know. We were thinking of a quick jaunt to Southwold at some point over the Easter weekend as weather and shifts allow.

Hi Barry Go on then mate, who should I avoid? You can't leave me hanging like that! Mark

I'll certainly give them a call. I suspect it'll involve another lift charge though. I was hoping there might be someone who did mobile repairs as the boat is already out, but if not, then Goodchilds sound like the ones to trust. Thanks guys.

That's a very useful link. Thanks Martin!

Can anyone recommend someone to carry out a few little gel coat repairs loaclly? We have some damage to the corner of the bathing platform that has been badly repaired by a previous owner, and also a few stess cracks in the gel coat around the fuel fillers. I want to get a quote or two to see what sort of money they would be after.

Thanks Ian. I do remember hearing it should be magenta now. Where does one buy such a thing? Would Staples have them?

Thank you for posting that Perry.... Novice question now; what is the best way of updating your charts? A fine black permanent pen would be my guess, drawing the new symbol where it needs to be and crossing off the old one. Is that somewhere right? Do you draw an arrow from the old locations to the new when things move?

Cor blimey, major Fred Drift on this thread from speed cameras, eh? Anyway, since when is £31,200 an "average" salary is what I'd like to know! I realise it's probably governement figures or something, but I wonder how may people are actually on the average wage now compared to the 60's. The modal wage rather than hte average would probably be a better indicator.

When I bought a Sterling charger for our last boat, it came supplied with a fuse and holder for the negative side only. The fuse was a glass type, though I cant remember the size I'm afraid.

Glad it all went well W44nty! Not too bad a day weather wised either

All very true and undeniable Keith, but, and lets be honest here, hands up who hasn't been frustrated behind a slow driver though? Age was never brought into the discussion; thats a whole other debate

That was some boom by the looks of it. No bacon butties today then!

I think you'll find there's another thread already running on this one Strowy!

Hi Soundings, as you say, it can be an emotive subject. My problem isn't with people wanting to drive at 45mph, but the fact they are in capable of adjusting their speed when entering a 60 limit from a 50. Most people will speed up a bit, even if they stay 5mph below the limit. I'm afraid the "because they at to drive at 45" arguement holds no water with me, as I want to drive at 60 where I can and it is safe to do so, as did the dozen cars behind me, so why should one person dictate what twelve others can do? The biggest issue with too low a speed is that it frustrates people, and that can lead to some very dodgy overtaking being attempted. In my opinion, that is a far greater danger then simply driving at a safe speed.

As was stated much earlier in the thread, this stretch of road has cost several lives in recent years, so anything to help reduce that must be a good thing (and I believe still NONE recoded since the cameras were installed even though they weren't "live"). However, they do cover two different speed limits (50 & 60mph) along different sections of the road, so why did I have to follow someone at 45 mph along the entire stretch yesterday??

I'm certainly no expert, Pat, but from my limited understanding, Lightroom is a combination of a cataloguing tool and a method of enhancing photos. It enables you to alter things like exposure, sharpness, white balance, add grad filters etc and also convert from RAW to various other formats. What it isn't is a full blown image manipulation package, so I don't think it's meant for things like pasting objects into photos that don't exist, or creating layers and masks. I understand Elements to be something of a cut-down Photoshop with some of the image manipulation bits, as well as a way of tagging photos to make them easier to find. I'm afraid I haven't really used it properly though, although it looks quite pretty! I also have Paint Shop Pro X2, which is similar to photoshop, but I found it a bit of a pig to use. But that's probably just me!

You could try a Pet shop and look for a ramp that would normally be used to allow dogs with to climb into a car boot. We had a retractable one of these a couple of years back, but I'm not sure of the weight limit on them.

Just a note for all those who use the A149 between Potter Heigham and Wroxham, that the average speed cameras now seem to be operational. Over the past few weeks there has been activity at the cameras every time I have travelled along that stretch of road, but finally a new sign has gone up stating they are operational. I wonder if the article i nthe EDP spurred this on?

Sorry to hear that Andy, and more sorry to hear no one at the yard had noticed the boat looking low! I agree with the posts above that it sounds like your bilge pump has flattened the batteries.

Also, Pat, you can download a fully functioning trial version of Elements 9 from the Adobe website. This is time limited to 30 days, but will give you an opportunity to try before you buy.

Elements is certainly worth a look Pat. Although I use Lightroom, Elements is a bit more for the "home" PC market and pretty intuitive to use.