Recent content by chriscallender

I did exactly that, I made a launching tolley for a leisure 17 (with a car tow hitch) - when I want to move it I piggy back it on to a car transport trailer. In theory I could do that with the boat on it too, but I have only ever needed to move it with the trolley empty so far. The trolley has...

No need to keep it wet. Some brands are 3 months until launch, some are 6 months but I don't think there are any that will be a problem after 6 weeks. My boat was antifouled late October and will go back in the water early April

I've also worked on standards, not ISO but fairly hardware related. It was pretty much as you say. As well as developing the requirements themselves, a set of tests was standardised as well in an annex and passing all the tests was considered to be evidence that the device complied with the...

The position of both is spot on on websites like marine traffic etc right up to the point of the collision. That position is derived from an actual AIS receiver which is then forwarding the position reports on to the server. I suspect that in the case of the yacht you saw in the wrong position...

Ditch the projects, get a second hand RIB for diving and fishing and a dinghy for sailing, both of them ready to go out tomorrow? That would give you a much nicer summer, unless you are one of those people that actually enjoys fixing boats more than going out in them... A sailing boat is never...

The biggest pod I ever came across was when I was crossing the Bristol Channel bringing a boat from Southampton to the Clyde by myself. There were at least many 10s of them. I wasn't having the best of days because my autopilot had chucked it when leaving Padstow and I ended up spending 12...

If GPS stops working on a wide scale, sailing probably won't be your biggest worry. A vast amount of critical infrastructure depends on it. The chaos would be on a level of the pandemic or worse. I doubt any state acting rationally (whatever that means these days) would decide to turn it off...

The DV20 has decompression levers as well. Hand starting was (at least) an art, I never managed it from cold despite trying. If the engine was already hot or at least a bit warm it was doable, it caught pretty easily. I Perhaps I needed to tame a friendly gorilla as crew for the cold starts.

The Bukh is robust, a dedicted marine engine rather than a conversion. Definitely an old school design, but that isn't a bad thing at all and the fact that the company has been making them for so long and still exists is testimony to it being decent. I had one on my old boat, the only thing that...

Quite impressed how well they strapped the mast on

I made one something like 20 years ago from a length of 100mm (I think) square box section stainless which I welded a top and a bottom onto. I'm guessing it was about 200mm from top to bottom. It had a door,a grate, and some adjustable gubbins to control the airflow. I made a hole and welded a...

I have teenage/young 20s kids with cars and motorbikes. They loose my tools faster than I could ever buy new ones. Every so often I get annoyed and "ban" them from borrowing tools when they have their own but it doesn't make any difference other than to leave smoke coming out my ears. So I go...

I can't imagine marinas being willing to accept end of life boats. I believe they would have the right to disclaim the inheritance and as a commercial business that would be the sensible thing to do. Then it is going to come back to the estate to solve anyway.

Just different approaches to life.... For me, I don't put a cost on my time tarting old things up (if I did I'd have been bankrupted years ago :) ). I don't mind at all spending (say) 1k on a boat and another 1k tarting it up for it to end up being worth 1100 (or even 900 ... they are not a lot...

It isn't all bad news yet Standing rigging - I have 3rd party insurance so nobody cares except me. I chose to replace mine because one of the lowers had some dodgy wires and I didn't trust the rest of it which was presumably the same age (whatever that was). Spreaders were also severely...