Practical Yacht Owner - May issue..

[Scillyboy]

Despite the magazine's stated bias towards the yachting community , as one of the accursed motor-boat fraternity, I do still find a few articles of common interest. Not for much longer, I fear. The cover of the May issue, under the 'Project Boat' banner, plainly advertises articles on removing skin fittings, and a vibrating cutter test. Keen to learn more, I handed over some precious currency, and bought the issue. I have searched in vain for the articles. A printing error in my copy, perhaps?

Edited - I was expecting some sort of comparison tool test, and a specific article, as per the hull-deck join item. I've now found the references in the cover article - I really was looking for more!

 

[Searush]

Err, take another look, it's actually called Practical BOAT Owner & has since its inception been aimed at diy on small boats of any type. Agreed it does tend to have moved up market recently & has had relatively little input from MoBoers over the years, but it has never been solely aimed at so called Yotties.

 

[Scillyboy]

it's actually called Practical BOAT Owner

Yes, thanks - my thread title was actually a mildly immature attempt at sarcasm.

 

[ianfr]

I was expecting some sort of comparison tool test, and a specific article, as per the hull-deck join item. I've now found the references in the cover article - I really was looking for more!

I was also looking for a comparative article regarding the cutters, so a little disappointed with a couple of passing remarks inside the project boat article. Really should not have been highlighted as a seperate article.


Fair winds

Ian

 

[chinita]

Yes, thanks - my thread title was actually a mildly immature attempt at sarcasm.

Perhaps too subtle; you should have said 'Practical Raggie Owner'.

 

[Fire99]

Being a former small MOBO owner and now a 'Yachtie', I tend to agree about PBO. It used to have the caption at the top of the front cover 'Sail & Power' but that appears to have gone by the wayside.

Personally, I think you're a bit knackered if you own a small MOBO. Motorboats Monthly always seemed more 'premium' than the boats I owned and Boatmart was relatively featureless.

Maybe the market is a bit small for owners of small Shetlands, Freemans etc. Or they're covered in some Inland Waterway publication that i've not heard of..

But lets not mince our words. PBO really is just 'Budget (ish) Yachtie'

 

[rob2]

I'm pretty sure Ma'am didn't call Brittania a Mobo - it was always the Royal Yacht. Over the years PBO has made many attempts to rectify the imbalance but the resource of publishable articles of a practical nature from Mobos seems to have come up short. I guess on a practical front, there are just so many more bits to fiddle with on a raggie...

Rob.

 

[stownsend]

Thats one reason I swapped from MBM to PBO, I found a couple of interesting articles over the couple years I subscribed to MBM for my 30 year old mobo. Now I've moved to the dark side - should complete on the 7th - I find PBO more relevent now but also when I had the mobo as well.

Cheers

Stu

 

[Fire99]

I guess on a practical front, there are just so many more bits to fiddle with on a raggie...

Rob.

You may have a very good point. Thinking about it, my Shetland Black Prince needed exactly nothing doing other than a bit of tweaking of the V8 engine and learning how to service an outdrive myself. I tend to do far more faffing with the Snapdragon.

 

[Scillyboy]

I guess on a practical front, there are just so many more bits to fiddle with on a raggie...

Rob.

You are probably right, although I'm only in my third season with a small 15 year old mobo, and I can't stop tinkering. By way of some examples of the sort of things applicable to mobos and others that PBO might usefully cover in a bit of detail (anybody listening?), I have so far -

Fitted a dual battery relay system
Replaced fuse boxes/busbars
Replaced skin fittings/seacocks (twice - brass, then bronze)
Refurbished the instrument panel, and added rev counter, voltmeter(s), trim gauge, temp gauge.
Refitted depth transducers
Added NMEA2K network, with fuel flow meter
Fitted a fuel tank switching system
Relocated the auxiliary mounting
Fitted trim tabs
...and a few other things which escape me at the moment.

I'm retired, so I have the time, but I can keep my costs down with a spot of DIY. Although I seem to have spent much of my life fixing old cars, I consider myself a boat novice, and it would be really good to read of the experiences and difficulties others have had.

 

[Iain C]

Erm, there was a publication aimed squarely at the average Mobo owner, but sadly it was taken out of circulation a few months back now. Editor's name was Murdoch and I think they had a problem with picking up other people's DSC calls or something?







(...runs for cover...)

 

[alahol2]

You are probably right, although I'm only in my third season with a small 15 year old mobo, and I can't stop tinkering. By way of some examples of the sort of things applicable to mobos and others that PBO might usefully cover in a bit of detail (anybody listening?), I have so far -

Fitted a dual battery relay system
Replaced fuse boxes/busbars
Replaced skin fittings/seacocks (twice - brass, then bronze)
Refurbished the instrument panel, and added rev counter, voltmeter(s), trim gauge, temp gauge.
Refitted depth transducers
Added NMEA2K network, with fuel flow meter
Fitted a fuel tank switching system
Relocated the auxiliary mounting
Fitted trim tabs
...and a few other things which escape me at the moment.

I'm retired, so I have the time, but I can keep my costs down with a spot of DIY. Although I seem to have spent much of my life fixing old cars, I consider myself a boat novice, and it would be really good to read of the experiences and difficulties others have had.

Well, write them up and you may find a new source of beer tokens.

 

[Scillyboy]

That's a thought. However, while I'm happy doing stuff for my own boat, I'm not sure I have the confidence to suggest that others do things my way. Perhaps I could list all the things that went wrong in the process!

 

[barnaclephill]

That's a thought. However, while I'm happy doing stuff for my own boat, I'm not sure I have the confidence to suggest that others do things my way. Perhaps I could list all the things that went wrong in the process!

If it goes well, publish it in 'practical projects' section.
If it goes badly, put it in 'learning from experience' section.