The wonderful past

[Wansworth]

Back in 1976 Ihada small yacht with a Stuart Turner engine ran like the proverbial sewing machine With no input from me.Anyway motored many miles that summer and laid up in Exetercanal basin.One year later without further ado I motored back out to sea .Twoyearslater I sold the boat.Nowon thinking of buying another boat I worry about the engine and fuel bug and endless scenarios where the engine can go wrong oh the ignorance of youth?

 

[CAPTAIN FANTASTIC]

You could install on the stern an outboard bracket and have a small outboard engine onboard. The outboard can also be used for a dinghy.

 

[Goldie]

Nostalgia! It’s not what it used to be…

 

[Blueboatman]

I have sailed with Stuart Turner lumps that were less reliable than a buggy, elderly , low compression, smoky, drippy, rattly, oily, overweight , asthmatic Diesel engine..


You were a lucky 1976 chap
TheS-T of popular legend was infamous like a hand crank sewing machine……

….. the only moving part being the bloke winding the starting handle ?…..boom boom.

When they ran, to be fair they were quiet smooth, and did the job.
The sails did the rest as was the culture of the day ?

 

[Wansworth]

I have sailed with Stuart Turner lumps that were less reliable than a buggy, elderly , low compression, smoky, drippy, rattly, oily, overweight , asthmatic Diesel engine..


You were a lucky 1976 chap
TheS-T of popular legend was infamous like a hand crank sewing machine……

( the only moving part being the bloke winding the starting handle ?…..boom boom

When they ran to be fair they were quiet smooth and did the job

Yes looking back I didn’t do anything to it,nothing not a spark plug or engine oil change zilch,must have had the patron Saint of petrol engines on my side?

 

[Fr J Hackett]

With the exception of some food I can think of nothing that hasn't been improved over its 1976 version.

 

[Blueboatman]

Yes looking back I didn’t do anything to it,nothing not a spark plug or engine oil change zilch,must have had the patron Saint of petrol engines on my side?

The fella you wanted to watch out for was Lucas…

 

[Blueboatman]

With the exception of some food I can think of nothing that hasn't been improved over its 1976 version.

Depending on one’s POV, that of the hapless mollusc or smooth bum boat owner, I offer 1976 TBT antifouling

And the one that came in glass jars ? too
Vintage !?‍?‍?

 

[capnsensible]

Red trousers, yellow wellies and knitted hats that weighed four tons when wet......

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Depending on one’s POV, that of the hapless mollusc or smooth bum boat owner, I offer 1976 TBT antifouling

And the one that came in glass jars ? too
Vintage !?‍?‍?

I will give you antifouling although the eco warriors might think different.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Depending on one’s POV, that of the hapless mollusc or smooth bum boat owner, I offer 1976 TBT antifouling

And the one that came in glass jars ? too
Vintage !?‍?‍?

Not just molluscs; fish and higher animals changing sex or worse! If the stuff had got into the human food chain, it could have had pretty nasty consequences. Basically, TBT was discontinued because of the likely effect on fisheries.

When people talk about the "Good Old Days", I give the following example. When my mother and father were little, measles was endemic and there was no effective treatment, so a proportion of children died of it and a rather larger proportion were damaged in life-changing ways. When I was little (1950s), measles was endemic but antibiotics meant it could be treated effectively. Nearly everyone got it, and though most survived (I did!) a proportion were damaged - brain, eyes or elsewhere. When my children were little, there was an effective measles vaccine, and so few people get measles that an outbreak of a few hundred mild cases is regarded as an epidemic! In two generations measles has gone from being a top childhood killer to being a minor nuisance.

 

[Blueboatman]

Not just molluscs; fish and higher animals changing sex or worse! If the stuff had got into the human food chain, it could have had pretty nasty consequences. Basically, TBT was discontinued because of the likely effect on fisheries.

When people talk about the "Good Old Days", I give the following example. When my mother and father were little, measles was endemic and there was no effective treatment, so a proportion of children died of it and a rather larger proportion were damaged in life-changing ways. When I was little (1950s), measles was endemic but antibiotics meant it could be treated effectively. Nearly everyone got it, and though most survived (I did!) a proportion were damaged - brain, eyes or elsewhere. When my children were little, there was an effective measles vaccine, and so few people get measles that an outbreak of a few hundred mild cases is regarded as an epidemic! In two generations measles has gone from being a top childhood killer to being a minor nuisance.

Oh I agree absolutely
It is just a shame that we haven’t come up with anything much beyond copper coating and mid season scrub offs
I had a gadget called a Brizzo which when used periodically as a bottom scrubber meant that 3 coats of ablative a/f would go two years between haulouts ( and you get a free work out using it)

Any progress with ultrasonics yet I wonder fir deterring hull fouling ?

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Oh I agree absolutely
It is just a shame that we haven’t come up with anything much beyond copper coating and mid season scrub offs
I had a gadget called a Brizzo which when used periodically as a bottom scrubber meant that 3 coats of ablative a/f would go two years between haulouts ( and you get a free work out using it)

Any progress with ultrasonics yet I wonder fir deterring hull fouling ?

I put two on my boat and in the 3 years they were working I noticed a reduction in barnacle encrustations and the rest of the fouling seemed to come away easily.
Norman E is the only other person that I can remember fitting them his boat was in Turkish waters mine was UK based Devon / Cornwall and East coast Orwell.

 

[Blueboatman]

I put two on my boat and in the 3 years they were working I noticed a reduction in barnacle encrustations and the rest of the fouling seemed to come away easily.
Norman E is the only other person that I can remember fitting them his boat was in Turkish waters mine was UK based Devon / Cornwall and East coast Orwell.

Interesting
There was an e n o r m o u s thread on here about them but it’s all gone quiet .

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Interesting
There was an e n o r m o u s thread on here about them but it’s all gone quiet .

Yes that's the one I think Norman E started it off we bought them as kits from Australia built and installed them. I didn't really get to evaluate mine as I changed locations and sold the boat about 3 or 4 years after fitting but as I said I have the feeling they worked reasonably well. The general fouling when the boat was hauled out for survey after 2 years in the water on the East coast was that the slime was light, patchy and washed off easily.

 

[Wansworth]

Having dry sailed my boat from Chichester harbour it would be possible to prepare the bottom perfectly and scrub off on the plies at itchenor say once a month or every six weeks.Hainshas been scrubbing off the racing keel boats for ever using that same principal

 

[Blueboatman]

In the tropics if you didn’t lift the dinghy at night, you could feel the barnacle bumps as well as the slime beginning after three days immersion on bare surfaces ..
?
Could try leaving an MP3 player on the floor of the dinghy , I suppose , to deter marine growth , quietly playing the greatest hits of ( Barry X xxxxx insert your least favorite crooner here) ?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Oh I agree absolutely
It is just a shame that we haven’t come up with anything much beyond copper coating and mid season scrub offs
I had a gadget called a Brizzo which when used periodically as a bottom scrubber meant that 3 coats of ablative a/f would go two years between haulouts ( and you get a free work out using it)

Any progress with ultrasonics yet I wonder fir deterring hull fouling ?

As far as I understand it, ultrasonics complement antifouling, and don't replace it. They are also ineffective against some organisms - sea squirts (ascidians) are usually mentioned.

I have seen several research papers on anti-fouling (can't go into detail, as I saw them before publication) and a) it is a major economic issue, so there is lots of work going on and b) it's an amazingly difficult problem. Other than broad spectrum poisons (e.g. the copper we all use, either in paint or in Coppercoat) the problem is that what kills one group of fouling organisms is fertilizer for another! Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but not much. Fouling organisms are incredibly diverse - practically every major phylum is represented. You have bacteria (essential to the film that actually starts the fouling process), algae, molluscs, crustaceans, ascidians, polychaetes and many more that I can't recall off the top of my head! The biofilm (slime!) that underlies fouling is incredibly complex. And what kills one organism may not be noticed by another, so at the very least, it removes competition. Finally, whatever you use must not be harmful to the ecology away from the hull of the vessel, and must not accumulate in the environment (TBT failed on both).

 

[Blueboatman]

as far as I understand it, ultrasonics complement antifouling, and don't replace it. They are also ineffective against some organisms - sea squirts are usually mentioned.

Ah
And goose barnacles grip shiny topsides on long passage
Maybe the Dutch have it right with fresh or brackish moorings behind locks
I dunno
Def a work in progress research-wise!

 

[Fr J Hackett]

as far as I understand it, ultrasonics complement antifouling, and don't replace it. They are also ineffective against some organisms - sea squirts are usually mentioned.

Yes I still antifouled but every 2 years and it still seemed reasonable after 2 years on the survey, I had thought that changing over to a hard antifoul as opposed to the ablative one could have been the way to go. But as I said this is all from distant memory and only a short period of empirical evaluation. You also have to leave them running 24/7/365.