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I am having bit of a problem here, I am agreeing with Ian and I am sure that's not right?

My lovely wreck 😍

Oh gods , another one. When you come on a forum and ask for opinions, that's what you get. That's sort if how it works. The fact you may not agree with them doesn't entitle you to start slinging insults about , it just makes you look a prat. It cost me £1000 to black a forty foot thin boat. Less than twice that to do something more than twice as big does look relatively cheap, in my opinion. I may be wrong, but there again, I may not. The fact that half of it has fallen off tends to make me think I'm right and you got what you paid for, instead of stumping up for a proper job. It's the experience of almost every long term boater that unless you keep an eye on what's being done, it gets bodged. Again, you didn't, and it was. If you're fool enough not to listen to advice, and idiotic enough to insult those who suggest ways you could avoid repeating your mistakes, , you're heading for another crap job for exactly the same reasons and, tbh, serve you damn well right.

My experience is that, whenever a government encourages you to do something different, its not to benefit you, but to save itself money. So you are usually better of maintaining the status quo. As per the encouragement to contract out of SERPS and move your occupational pension to a private pension debacle a couple of decades ago.

In fairness had you read through the 2 pages at that time you may have understood that poking fun at the OP was not appropriate at that juncture. It’s probably seldom appropriate in any new posters first few postings TBH. Something a few posters who ought to know better do very regularly. I generally enjoy such posts but there’s a time and place. I’m afraid I too must agree with Ian, maybe there’s been too much sun today 🧐.

In fairness to new posters. I can’t be the only one who isn’t on any other forums, Facebook or any other social media. This forum has from time to time been very useful to me but having said that because of my experience here I’m certainly not in a rush to join any further forums. Maybe newcomers expect too much. It takes a while to understand that amongst all the bollocks talked there is some very practical, useful information which would be difficult to find elsewhere. I had a rough ride from some participants when I joined. Some of this I thought was a bit childish and unnecessary but thankfully I stuck with it. its a bit like going to a new local pub. It takes time to get accepted by the locals some of whom you will find aren’t worth bothering with anyway but hopefully you will make a few new friends who will be a big help. One forum for me is enough

If they didn't launch in with a stack of insults when they get comments intended to help and occasionally amuse, they wouldn't get that response. They wouldn't have lasted thirty seconds in the bad old Dunkley days. Dunno what it is. You'd have thought people would know, how forums work by now , or perhaps they don't and think it's just like Facebook where nobody is really very interested, it's not a discussion, and the attention span is about that of a day's end mayfly.

To carry on in praise of mud hoppers, now I assume gone from the Ship Canal, here is a postcard issued by Pan Canal Cards of Bridgeman's house at Fretherne. Printed by Larkfield Printing of West Yorkshire. I cannot remember when I got it.

it an interesting argument with wooden boats. I feel she should, if no one takes her on seriously, be transferred to the off site storage facility at Ellesmere Port as an example of a wooden Josher which so few of are extant. the argument of scrap value is an interesting one. we dismantled Beech in 2020 and are still using the wood that was salvageable , and her ironwork has gone on to be repurposed for other things but being kept as a set. at the boatyard we also have a social space called 'The Beech Hut' made from.....you know what......

If it Defra approved then they are not designed to slumber. If you look on YouTube there is a guy who does reviews on stoves. Can't remember his name off hand but he has been the stove industry for years. He tells you how to remove the defra bit so as to reduce the airflow and then you can slumber The Tortoise is his YouTube name

It was, and it largely turned out to be optimistic pie-in-the-sky thinking -- it's always easy to say "find other sources of funding" until confronted with the reality of actually having to do it...

Those old boats don't have much freeboard do they !

It's a great experience and you'll love it I'm sure. Just make sure you have a good supply of tea and biscuits for Stuart 🙂