July MBY

hedwig, I'm not sure what your beef is but the fact is that an experienced Fairline owning member of this forum who is close to Fairline did advise them that the proposed design of their mooring cleats was unsuitable for Med stern to mooring. They chose to ignore him and now they've launched a new model with, presumably, the Med as a major target market, and which has a mooring layout which doesn't suit Med stern-to mooring. I wouldn't call that a mistake or teething problems. I'd call it dumb incompetence especially in a market as tight as the new boat market currently is. And yes, FWIW, I do agree that the mooring layout is crap
 
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I've had plenty of arguments with boatbuilders over the size or location of cleats and fairleads in the past, but I don't think I've ever come across one who has been stupid enough to put a winch on a foredeck without a cleat available to take the rope that you've just winched in

[/ QUOTE ]Absolute 52. I submit that it is impossible to winch in a bow line, attach it to the cleat without losing tension, and free up the capstan for the second line. I'll very happily be corrected if anyone knows how to do it. (I don't have a pic to hand but there is a centreline winch, no fairleads, a pair of chunky bow cleats right on the gunwhale edge, and that's it)


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So, with all respect, I don't think anyone on this forum can really take the credit for having told Fairline how to do it!

[/ QUOTE ]This isn't about credit for working out how to locate cleats. Boatbuilders have been getting it right since before any of us were born. But sometimes they do make bad choices at the design stage (where, to be fair, they have 1000 other things/compromises to deal with) and sometimes customers do point out improvements they could make at the design stage. Pity Absolute didn't engage with customers when doing the 52 foredeck

Edit, just found pic of the Abs52
Absolute-52.jpg
 
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if I tell you that grass is green, or that you will get wet if you fall in water, can I take credit for the fact that you now know these things -- and extrapolate from that to the assumption that you must have been ignorant of them before I told you?

[/ QUOTE ]Ok, shall we play with semantic?
If I tell you that you can't deny a person the credit for having told someone that the grass is green, when he actually did just that (regardless of whether the listener already knew that or not - not to mention that he might be daltonic /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif), can I take credit for the fact that you now finally understand what I'm talking about, and jump in any kind of conclusion about your previous ignorance?
 
Deleted User
My "beef" is that someone announced that the Squadron 65 did not have cleats on its foredeck, and by doing so prompted a thread along the lines of "yes aren't they crap" and "how stupid to ignore such expert advice".

But the fact of the matter is that the Squadron 65 does have cleats on its foredeck.

Even so, you (and he, and anyone else) are entitled to your opinion that "the mooring layout is crap".

Whether I agree with you is irrelevant. But for our opinions to have any value at all, they have to be based on fact. Any opinion (yours or mine) that is not based on fact is utterly worthless.
 
Blimey Hedwig, you are being grumpy. I thought the Sq65 cleats were on the gunwhale. You then pointed out that there were 2 more cleats on the fordeck not visible in the pics, and I immediately replied (2332891) that if that was the case then the foredeck was fine. What's the problem?

And none of that alters the fact that the aft mooring arrnagements for the Sq65 are crap. That's hardly my mere opinion, it's just self evident to anyone who is a regular stern-to moorer in the med. Not a reason not to buy the boat, just a tedious owner mod to get fairleads custom made

As for "radar arch", jeeze, I know you've edited your text out now but lighten up. Ok ok, so, strictly speaking, it's a kinda twin mast. I just used "radar arch" as slang/shorthand. I could have said radar tower I suppose. But to suggest that my saying "arch" instead of "tower" or something makes what I say unreliable is just daft. (Feel free to think what I say is unreliable for other reasons, but not that reason, perleeese)

Perhaps you're still mad at me for criticising your article about handheld plotters or whatever it was :-)
 
JFM,
Yes, I probably am being grumpy, but it is not aimed at <u>you</u>. As you say, you immediately replied (2332891) that if that was the case then the foredeck was fine. And I thought I was being a bit heavy about the radar arch, which is why I edited my post to take that bit out. You must have hit the forum at exactly the wrong moment to have seen it, because it was only there for a few minutes!

What's making me grumpy at this particular moment in time is someone insisting that the only reason Fairline might have fitted those bloody cleats is because you told them to (and I don't think you ever claimed that!). Then when someone asked me "what's your beef?" I told them, and someone else jumps down my throat for answering that specific question.

Besides which, of course, I am a professional Mr Grumpy./forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I'm afraid I don't remember you criticising my article about handheld plotters or whatever it was. That's not to say that I ignored you. It's quite unlikely that I would have done. It's just that I tend to remember what people say rather than who said it. And it must have been a long time ago, because I haven't written anything about hand-held plotters for yonks.
 
Hedwig, all ok, no real argument, just banter on a forum. All meant in a daft friendly way, and I enjoy reading your techy/geeky stuff on your website. The handheld plotter thing was years ago; a kind of funny thread where non-plotters claiming to be plotters that you reviewed got compared with washing machines in a bit of thread drift :-)

On your central point I don't I agree with you though. Manufacturers DO get stuff wrong. Surely you don't think that just cos a team of folks are good boatbuilders they must ALWAYS know themselves how to get everything 100% right? 97% is more like it I'd suggest. See Absolute 52, as noted above - that's in their 3% of cock ups imho. (If anyone disagrees and knows a handy knack of winching in the groundlines in a med berth on that boat, please do say, and I'll eat humble pie copiously. Nobody has yet, not even you Tim, or TJ who knows a bit about rope handling /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif).

I do make lots of comments to Fairline. The chairman of Fairline 2006-8 has been on my last and current boats lots, both with me and without me (crewed) so there is a direct line of try out and communication there. His experiences and comments gathered do, for sure, get fed back into the Fairline new boat development process (he can talk and shout and give orders for England, actually. Not at all afraid to speak his mind). He was on my boat for 3 days and 70nm the weekend before last. I've also examined FL and competitor boats with Adam Greenwood (chief of design at FL), in which we have shared techy/geeky conversations on how stuff is done/might be done differently. Nothing special/unique there - they have lots of repeat customers whom they engage with like that

The removal of the teak trims aft of radar tower on hull #1 of Sq55 and replacement with plastic was a result of comments on this forum about oxalic acid in your eyes. Likewise, the orginal design and drawings (I have some of them on this laptop) for Sq65 did not have the foredeck cleats, then they got some feedback, then they added them. It's fairly go-figurable, and nothing wrong with it, as communication between builder and customer is a good thing.

This is no big deal. Fairline or any other builder of similar stuff have 1000 other engineering challenges to deal with, and it is much easier to criticise a Sq65 than design and make the thing, so huge respect to Adam Greenwood and the Fairline team for actually making the thing and merely 0.000001% credit to any folks on a webforum who help them locate the cleats or tweak the radar tower trim, etc

Anyway, I'm rambling/drifting from your central point. I am interested in what you think about the Abs52 though. 97%++ a lovely boat of course, but crap foredeck cleats layout or not crap? Whaddya reckon? Best wishes
 
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