John B

Anyone who follows classic yachts like I do will be aware of Kate , a 'new' first rule 12 metre boat. Unfortunately her owner and skipper has been found ,but has passed away while he was making a single handed Atlantic passage. http://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/story/2015-08-03/search-for-missing-yachtsman-called-off-after-discovery/

That was well worth it ,thanks Matt. On one hand I was pleased I knew a bit more than I thought , on the other ... I know nussink. Good strategic overview of options, I thought.

As soon as you do your advanced sea survival course and jump in the pool you find out how useless inflatables are without crotch straps. And, as soon as you wear one with crotch straps , you'll find out how many things you can get hooked up on on deck. Which then gets you in this cycle of the safety device hauling you up short, and restricting your freedom, potentially even causing an accident. I ended up wearing the straps on the basis of clipping them up properly when you're actually in the water.

Cos it looks weird with the shank so close to the fluke? I have a rocna just because , a supreme would have been fine too. Damn things are so hard to get out and off the bottom , can't they do something about that, shirley ? I bought the one at the lower end of the size threshold for my boat too. I don't want an anchor that comes apart for my best( for a secondary maybe) I don't want one that bolts together and I don't want one with hollow components , especially the shank. Just saying.

Shoot, and I thought I was cold. Great shots all right!!. Because we took the friday and monday off ,( My wife is a teacher)it was pretty leisurely to get to the Coromandel. Deep cove to ourselves friday night , Rabbit island to ourselves sat night and , for old times sake, sunday night in Te kouma with one other boat . Just superb.

We went to find the elephants again, but they'd left. Or it was the wrong time of the day. Currently sliding across the firth , a lovely brisk southerly, I'm hoping we'll bust through the 4 knot barrier.

A well known boatbuilder told me back in the 80's to watch for plywood problems in some of the popular types. He thought that some of the ply used was going to be letting go 20 ( or 30)years in , as some of it was not necessarily proper marine ply. But , on the other hand , they are pretty easily repairable. The glass boats have the pox to deal with and that's been attacked by all sorts of people for the last 20 odd years too. I remember an H28 next to us on the hard in about ooo late 80's or early '90's. The guy shaved the thing down so far with his grinder that you could literally see hi

I can never remember which one is good... lemmee see, el nino , the naughty little boy . That's got to be worse than a wee girl hasn't it. says the guy with 2 girls and boy.er, Let me re think that.

Aluminium bolts ? seriously ? Ullrich have monel rivets in a few sizes , be prepared to be shocked at the price per unit , but of course its cheap insurance. You can make washers to isolate the SS from the ali out of ice cream containers or even use tap washers if you have the room.

Yes it is Rigger , I could probably find out where. Pete Brookes ( boatbuilder) took the photo.

This is what she looked like about 06 ? 08 perhaps . Whether she's still there or not I don't know. A friend took the pic.

Sure ,its Ngahau, It may still be with us , I saw a photo circa 2008 up norf but she's just a hull shell. What would you like to do ,Quarterback? More history? I can put you in touch with Harold Kidd? A mate owns B2 and I own B3.

Yep, I'm in.

I'm in.

This new fangled fashion of gold rum stuff is ok , but of course real ( old) yachties drink Coruba, Captain Morgan and Lambs. But we draw the line at Black heart . eeechhh.

Sneaky ,underhand and manipulative.

I've always asked cruisers how their trips have been , storms and weather in general. What people say above is repeated a lot, in fact several of them talk about prioritising light sails because so much of it is in 10 knots. Anyway , since its friday... one those people was the chap .. Gordon IIRC , who sailed Varangian out from the UK. He left in the same weather system that nailed the fastnet fleet ( 1970.... 75?) but was in the bay of biscay and he missed the really nasty stuff. So I asked my question ... what was the rest of the weather like.. and he said good. Fine in fact , until

Yep, I was hoping 2016 but work has become busy. Maybe 17 for us , we have the boat for it. I don't want to go away for years ,just start with a couple of there and backs in winter and take it from there.

Yes , same timber dust inevitably comes out darker than the original.MDF dust gets you a lighter colour , might be ok with teak. I've used that, oxide , graphite , coffee, to get various colours.

I had a moan at this years boat show about this ( above, which is a year ago) Policy has changed , they updated my chart to NZ,AU and pacific islands and they loaded whatever new software the plotter needed ,for a couple of hundred. I'm a happy chappy now , instead of the bitter , malicious , grumpy old grudge bearing barsteward I was.

That's a good book too.

Tawhiri is still in Nelson. She was on the hardstand last time I was there. thanks for the heads up.

Which race disaster? Lyttleton ? the cruisers on the way to the islands? Lionheart?

We still sail that way locally sloopy, the instruments we have are pretty 'orrible, but a plotter is a real boon locally and AIS plus some redundancy ( ipad / tablet etc ), plus some forecasting ability is important to me for offshore.( in a year or two) Full internet coverage for better than gribs can't be far away ( in a realistic financial sense) windy ty backed up with situation maps and some local forecasts and you could passage plan and go anywhere.

I've written to my council representative and had a fairly ambiguous reply. What we need and what the people of Auckland need is a list of council representatives who support the megalomaniacs who want to take Aucklands harbour off Auckland and Aucklanders,New Zealanders for that matter, and we just vote them all out next election. Simple , One issue decides who you vote for . get rid of them and make sure they know that you're going to get rid of them.