shedman

Just a note of caution re going to a dripless seal: whilst the stuffing box is technically not a support bearing it does give the shaft a bit more support than many of the dripless seals. My old man replaced the stuffing box on his Townson with a dripless seal and thereafter had a hell of a problem with harmonics in the shaft. At some rpm the shaft would whip so much that it banged against the tube - sounded like the proverbial two skelletons wrestling inside a 44 gallon drum! Lots of things come into play including type of prop, engine power, rpm range etc, but just go into the exercise

There's a new Salthouse "picnic boat, about 30 or 31 feet, by the same design team that did the South Star. Don't know whether it would go on a trailer, but it's a stunning looker. If you want a classic take, look up Peter Sewell's "Whio" - bit of a "Q Ship" as it looks like a classic double ended launch, but planes. Made the cover of Wooden Boat magazine a few years back, and warranted a significant article in the mag as well. Goes like a robber's dog with (from memory) a Toyota diesel out of a van. And it's trailerable (just).

Down on the ramp at Okahu Bay yesterday morning a bit of a sad old sight - big Wharram getting carved into bite sized pieces with a recip saw and chucked into a bin. Boat was probably past practicable restoration (obvious extensive rot in cross members for instance). Just a boat, and one that has been left way too long without effective maintenance, but the end of someone's dreams, and a pretty stark "full stop" marking the end of a cruising boat. Might be quite a regular sight soon I'd say looking at the condition of some of the mussel farms moored out in the bay.

"dickheads will still drown" has to be the nadir of the opposition to safety on the water here. We're talking about human beings who may not be as fully aware of the risks as we'd like them to be. That's no reason to condemn them to death. Disgusting. Wow Kevin, that's a bit of an OTT reply. Step back and look at what is being discussed here. Safety at sea is a process of making good decisions and updating those decisions in response to changes in your environment. No one here is opposing safety on the water. What we are discussing here is the proposed punitive enforcement of laws

So if you're paddling a super unstable 450mm wide but 6.2M long multisport kayak out in the middle of a large harbour you don't need to wear a PFD, but if you're going 150M in a sheltered bay, from a keelboat to the shore in an inflatable dinghy, you do need to wear PFDs. But this could all change depending on which region you are in 'cos the rules are regional, not national. Knowing where the boundaries are between regional councils is now an important part of safe navigation! And the way the authorities will paper over the absurdities of their inconsistent "standards" is to just put th

Unthinking enforcement of rules can have some unfortunate side effects. When some bunch of desk bound bureaucrats start enforcing life jacket wearing (and/or carrying) on every short dinghy trip they are increasing the exposure of the jackets to sand, salt water, UV, theft, and more importantly, when things do go wrong instead of the jackets being in the emergency grab bag, or some other specific location, the life jackets will be who knows where - in the dinghy, on someone's bunk, in a bag somewhere.... After 40 years in aviation I'm pretty sure that safety is not something that is achieved

Good thing about using Alltex Timbercote is you can use their Enamel Quick Dry additive. It allows you to doctor up the brew to suit the conditions - great stuff for varnishing over winter, and/or making sure that varnish kicks off quickly so it doesn't run, and making sure it's hard enough for recoating the next day (maybe in under 24 hours!). You can use it with their single pot paints too - most useful stuff.

Young, light plus tall...got to have a serious look at the Farr 3.7. Way more fun than a Laser and the sort of boat that puts a smile on the face of a youngster. Or crew on a 12ft skiff/R class. Plenty of time for serious classes later on. Best way to get through the age when most kids leave sailing is to get out on a crazy fast crash and burn boat. A PT might just scrape into that category......just.

Apologies in advance for being a new to Auckland and its politics, but why is there so little interest in placing this whole YNZ shebang at a place like Gulf Harbour? Heaps of space, parking, infrastructure, marina to tie up the support boats, ferries to and from Auckland. Nice deep water for sailing, no shipping, and the ability for dinghy classes to train from Manly if northerly winds make that desirable. Seems weird to an outsider why you'd want to set up a space hungry endeavour like a major sailing base in one of the most crowded and expensive areas in NZ. Is Whangaparoa just not "in"