[How to remove this]

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 with your eyes wide open that the propellor shaft is pretty long on the Townsons so you might find that changing to a dripless seal might require other changes to the drive line support.  'Ain't nothin' simple with old boats!

[The darkside - Fizz boats]

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).

[Vessel sunk]

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.

[Another ridiculous lifejacket article]

"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 that are inconsistent region to region.  In other words the very bureaucrats that now seek to punitively enforce these laws could not agree on what the law should be!   So they want to gloss over that failure by going straight to a regime of financially harming those who don't meekly comply with whatever rules apply in each region.  

 

No one is condemning anyone to death.  This is a discussion about how you achieve safety.  It might be useful for you to remind yourself of how blanket fines work.  They are primarily a punishment for being poor.   I would say that if you find someone out in their boat and not wearing PFDs in a situation when wearing PFDs would materially increase safety then some education is in order.  Perhaps something like the old defensive driving course.  You on the other hand think that the best option is to financially harm the person.  A minor annoyance for the wealthy, and a damaging blow to the poor.  If the law that these fines are based on was well written, consistent with what we know about safety, and encouraged instead of discouraged thinking, then it might be OK.   But this is bad law, inconsistent with its objectives, and soon to be badly applied and enforced.  That is what is under discussion.

[Another ridiculous lifejacket article]

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 the boot into peoples wallets.   Brilliant.  I spent 40 years in the aviation industry, and never once did I hear anyone advising that the way to achieve safety in an environment of complex decision making was to inconsistently apply badly written laws, in a punitive way.   But clearly the regional council staff know better.

[lifejackets, communications etc]

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 by dumb, unthinking application of a few specific rules.  In fact the teaching that you don't assess the risks, you just unthinkingly follow a few rules, you increase the risks in any complex process.

And of course as someone mentioned earlier, the fact that the rules vary from region to region is just plain barking mad.  Imagine if we had road rules, or CAA had different rules for flying that varied region to region.  Industry would tear the government from limb to limb.  But because boaties are a loose knit and diverse group we lack the ability to stop this regional nonsense.   Wait for the new rules that require each boat to carry bailer, comms, flares, etc AND a chart that clearly shows the boundaries of regional councils, so that the skipper knows which rules are in force!

[Watching paint dry.]

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.

[Laser or Starling ?]

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.

[The fight over Takapuna Beach continues]

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" with the "in crowd"? No, I don't live there, nor own land there!