Flies...

[snowleopard]

tens of thousands of them have taken up residence in my mainsail. the same thing happened last autumn and a lot of them died and decomposed there making a hell of a mess on the sail. i've even found them inside rope clutches.

is this a local phenomenon? i never had the problem before i came to cornwall. (please, no ethnic jokes, we're all fully PC round here, aren't we?)

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[ChrisE]

Funny that you shuold say that..

Hauled the mains'l up three weekends ago and was covered in the things. They were still alive and must have come on whilst we were moored at Gin's Farm sometime between 2pm and 7am.

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[Dougie_the_Mate]

Same thing happened at Kippford on the Solway. As each person stripped his/her boat a plague of biblical proportions emerged. An older hand said that this was the worst she had seen.

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[Evadne]

Suggest you call in at Chichester harbour before laying up. I usually have a surplus of spiders at the end of the summer and I'm sure we can come to some arrangement.
The scariest one of all is the big black bugger that lives in the hollow of the plough anchor. So far it has survived three anchor deployments, and I'm not sure I want to try and evict it. I think it prefers lobsters to flies.....

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[LittleShip]

Thats not a spider............. it's a crab?? /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

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I wish I'd been born rich instead of good looking ?

 

[Evadne]

No, crabs are arachnids that are eaten by humans. This one is not one I'd like to tangle with, or make any culinary suggestions that it might hear. On the other hand, we don't get many flies on the foredeck....
I have a great picture of a Picnogonid on my PC, but unfortunately not the time or space to post it. Definitely not an animal to make arachnophobics sleep safely on their boats!

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[maxi]

More 'New Britons' contributing to our economy - no doubt.

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[Cornishman]

You have answered one of life's great mysteries. You now know where they go in the wintertime, although why we have to put up with the rest of the country's I don't know.

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[tonyran]

Could this have something to do with the remains of the dead cat you also found in there?

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[andy_wilson]

Me too.

Went to lay up last w/e.

Rolled up dinghy was full of 'em, Mains'l was full of 'em, Foresail had a fair few.

First time ever seen it so bad.

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[Twister_Ken]

Sounds like a bad case of...

...Global Swarming

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>

 

[BrianJ]

Re: Old saying

There used to be an old saying here in OZ.... "no flies on the Poms,yet you can see where they have been"..... this puts a new slant on the meaning

BrianJ

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[snowleopard]

Re: Old saying

our flies settle in our sails. not on our heads or in our ears, eyes, noses etc.

wonder what that says about us /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

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[brianhumber]

Re: Flies...Me as well

Hoisting the main at 0700 on Saturday, thousands fell out all 'laid up' for the winter it seems. They had a shock as it was 'ice on deck lads'. Never seen this before.
Have a great sail to Brighton and back in the sun as well.

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