That was fun

[Alan de Enfield]

14 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Well as when working I was registered with the engineering council as a technician engineer I suppose I might be called an engineer rather than a mechanic but in my book that is not that important. What is important is how well you can do the job and that includes proper diagnosis. Leading on from that how well you understand how the things you come across work, both in theory and practice. A rather major point is that I KNOW there are members here who could probably knock the spots off me with the dirty hands practical work but may not even hold conventional qualifications or the qualifications they hold are at the mechanic type level probably in a related field like vehicles or agriculture machinery.  If I have any strengths its probably more on the teaching and presenting side. So those who seem to like the "who is an engineer" type debate who would you rather employ? Me, or someone who can do the job efficiently and swiftly. Of course the problem comes with finding out who that someone is and to make matters worse I have found that big ship technicians are all too often useless on our type of boats. On the hie fleet I would always choose someone with decent qualifications in a related  field over the big ship boys. I fear, but don't know, that this is likely to apply to proper registered marine engineers as well. The trouble is that when I left work the only nationally recognised qualification for our sort of work was one only available to the armed forces. I did try to see if we could get one recognised and courses running but the nature of the inland industry, the way NVQs were structured and the demands of government funding made it impossible to achieve. From what I can  gather the NVQ demands caused the closure of the only such course I know about.

 

 

 

 

Completely agree, experience and knowledge far outweigh a piece of paper, BUT

 

You see two adverts for 'engineers' who can fix your boat, you know nothing about them which do you choose ?

 

The best way is always by recommendation, but that can be fraught with danger too - maybe the person the engineer worked with was having an off day, was obnoxious, didn't return your calls, made a bodge of it, but other folks give him rave reviews.

 

It is not always easy to find someone to do your work to your satisfaction.

 

On the subject of NVQs, we found it very easy to administer and operate.

My wife set up as an NVQ centre for teaching Equine Management, and we had a number of students, funding came thru regularly and the admin was not a burden.

Maybe it was easier as we were in Wales and linked to Wrexham college.

Edited May 9, 2021 by Alan de Enfield

[Tony Brooks]

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

Completely agree, experience and knowledge far outweigh a piece of paper, BUT

 

You see two adverts for 'enginners' who can fix your boat, you know nothing about them which do you choose ?

 

The best way is always by recommendation, but that can be fraught with danger too - maybe the person the engineer worked with was having an off day, was obnoxious, didn't return your calls, made a bodge of it, but other folks give him raving reviews.

 

It is not always easy to find someone to do your work to your satusfaction.

 

On the subject of NVQs, we found it very easy to administer and operate.

My wife set up as an NVQ centre for teaching Equine Management, and we had a number of students, funding came thru regularly and the admin was not a burden.

Maybe it was easier as we were in Wales and linked to Wrexham college.

 

The problem came when they stopped simulated workshop assessment. Until then things were fine we were able to do the whole thing from booking lecturer's/student's in for jobs,  do the job and the hand back as an assessment. Then the rules changed so that was no longer allowed. That was fine for local garages where we could send an assessor to them but extrapolate that for the inland boat industry. We would need class sizes of about 12 to 15 to be financially viable and to achieve that one would need to recruit students from a vast area of the country (as BCH did for their marine course). There is no way a typical boatyard will send an employee on courses to allow them to assess at the yard so it would involve assessors travelling all over the country to assess a single job. As an example BCA found they had to send an assessor (lecturer) to the Channel Isles to do an assessment and that involved an overnight stay if not two. It was unaffordable.

[peterboat]

19 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Well as when working I was registered with the engineering council as a technician engineer I suppose I might be called an engineer rather than a mechanic but in my book that is not that important. What is important is how well you can do the job and that includes proper diagnosis. Leading on from that how well you understand how the things you come across work, both in theory and practice. A rather major point is that I KNOW there are members here who could probably knock the spots off me with the dirty hands practical work but may not even hold conventional qualifications or the qualifications they hold are at the mechanic type level probably in a related field like vehicles or agriculture machinery.  If I have any strengths its probably more on the teaching and presenting side. So those who seem to like the "who is an engineer" type debate who would you rather employ? Me, or someone who can do the job efficiently and swiftly. Of course the problem comes with finding out who that someone is and to make matters worse I have found that big ship technicians are all too often useless on our type of boats. On the hie fleet I would always choose someone with decent qualifications in a related  field over the big ship boys. I fear, but don't know, that this is likely to apply to proper registered marine engineers as well. The trouble is that when I left work the only nationally recognised qualification for our sort of work was one only available to the armed forces. I did try to see if we could get one recognised and courses running but the nature of the inland industry, the way NVQs were structured and the demands of government funding made it impossible to achieve. From what I can  gather the NVQ demands caused the closure of the only such course I know about.

 

 

The BSS scheme seems to be wanting inspectors with marine qualifications, which is at odds with our sort of boats. But what do I know Tony my qualifications are genny field power and batteries with vehicles and trailers thrown in! 

I have to say I always liked boats because of the kiss principles but that's disappearing rapidly with multiple electric gizmos to avoid knowledge and personal interaction 

[Tony Brooks]

5 minutes ago, peterboat said:

The BSS scheme seems to be wanting inspectors with marine qualifications, which is at odds with our sort of boats. But what do I know Tony my qualifications are genny field power and batteries with vehicles and trailers thrown in! 

I have to say I always liked boats because of the kiss principles but that's disappearing rapidly with multiple electric gizmos to avoid knowledge and personal interaction 

 

In that case I am pleased I have sold the boat. I can see  the BSS getting even further away from the "minimise pollution and danger to third parties" principles.

 

As I said, qualifications and experience in related fields that are transferable. Nowadays, I suspect your skills will become more and more important with electric propulsion while my vehicle ones will become less and less relevant.

[matty40s]

14 minutes ago, peterboat said:

The BSS scheme seems to be wanting inspectors with marine qualifications, which is at odds with our sort of boats. 

I am struggling to see how the BSS will continue, due to lack of inspectors.

Having spoken to quite a few surveyors over the last few years, and seen more and more of them drop  a standalone BSS survey from their portfolio, they just dont feel it's worth their time and effort.

£6k and 2 weeks for the course, certificates costing about £50 off the top of my head, travel to and from, with maybe a return trip to make sure repairs or changes are carried out correctly....for about £150-200. 

[Athy]

2 minutes ago, matty40s said:

their portfolio,

...or, for those specialising in traditional boats, portholio.

[peterboat]

12 minutes ago, matty40s said:

I am struggling to see how the BSS will continue, due to lack of inspectors.

Having spoken to quite a few surveyors over the last few years, and seen more and more of them drop  a standalone BSS survey from their portfolio, they just dont feel it's worth their time and effort.

£6k and 2 weeks for the course, certificates costing about £50 off the top of my head, travel to and from, with maybe a return trip to make sure repairs or changes are carried out correctly....for about £150-200. 

I agree I was going to do it I have a high pressure LPG qualification but Dave who ran the scheme at the time said marine qualifications required, that ain't me and I can see  a massive shortage of qualified BSS inspectors in the future 

[ditchcrawler]

17 hours ago, howardang said:

Small world indeed. I spent some time in the early 70’s driving anchor handling supply vessels in the North Sea including running to the Inde and Leman fields before moving to other oil and gas fields worldwide. I was also deeply involved in the Southern Ocean, running large salvage tugs during and after the conflict, and spent time down there installing a large accommodation vessel in Port Stanley. 
 

Howard

I hope it wasn't you who literally knocked me out of bed one night on the Shell Leman Bravo when the anchor handler ran into us

 

[howardang]

39 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I hope it wasn't you who literally knocked me out of bed one night on the Shell Leman Bravo when the anchor handler ran into us

 

Not me, guv, honest!

 

I do remember once arriving at one of the platforms in the middle of the night with an urgent cargo but we couldn’t! raise  anyone on the radio. We put the bow very gently alongside one of the platform legs and a deckhand got hold of a large lump hammer and beat a tattoo on the leg which resonated throughout the installation. The response was quite startling and it was amazing how quickly the platform crew turned to.  Interesting times! 

 

Howard

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, howardang said:

Not me, guv, honest!

 

I do remember once arriving at one of the platforms in the middle of the night with an urgent cargo but we couldn’t! raise  anyone on the radio. We put the bow very gently alongside one of the platform legs and a deckhand got hold of a large lump hammer and beat a tattoo on the leg which resonated throughout the installation. The response was quite startling and it was amazing how quickly the platform crew turned to.  Interesting times! 

 

Howard

 

 

I had worse than that up on the Indi field. Bacton tried to raise us but someone had unplugged the phone in the bosses bedroom, so they contacted the standby boat,  they launched a Z boat and put a chap on the spider deck, he in turn worked his way up, into the accommodation, up the stairs and opened the first bedroom door he came to. My bedroom. I woke up, bedroom in the dark, light in the corridor and a chap in full sou'westers silhouetted in the doorway. Its funny what goes through  your mind at a moment like  that.

[manxmike]

On 08/05/2021 at 21:18, LadyG said:

There are cables all over the place. Red, and black, and black with red.

I've tried numerous times to get the electrics sorted, and failed.

My boat was wired (and I use the term loosely) with brown coated wires, no other colours, just brown. I rather think the person who did the wiring did knitting as a hobby. It was a mess, extraneous wires everywhere and not one fed through a fuse box. I tried numerous times to trace the wiring, but it was next to impossible as there was no logical system, crossed connections all over the place.

I was going to completely re-wire the boat, but sold it instead!

[Tony Brooks]

5 minutes ago, manxmike said:

My boat was wired (and I use the term loosely) with brown coated wires, no other colours, just brown. I rather think the person who did the wiring did knitting as a hobby. It was a mess, extraneous wires everywhere and not one fed through a fuse box. I tried numerous times to trace the wiring, but it was next to impossible as there was no logical system, crossed connections all over the place.

I was going to completely re-wire the boat, but sold it instead!

 

The trouble with that sort of wiring (and LadyG's) is that to just finding out what is what can take many hours of apparently not doing much at all and when the bill is submitted its almost guaranteed to get complaints about the work done and the cost. In fact in your case rewiring it may have turned out t be the cheaper option.

[manxmike]

1 minute ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

The trouble with that sort of wiring (and LadyG's) is that to just finding out what is what can take many hours of apparently not doing much at all and when the bill is submitted its almost guaranteed to get complaints about the work done and the cost. In fact in your case rewiring it may have turned out t be the cheaper option.

It almost certainly would - the main reason I sold the boat was to finance a new build, sadly the hull had been eaten away by MIC and neighbouring boats electrical systems and I ended up dropping the price to a level below the waterline.

Given that my children and grandchildren used the boat more than I did, the thought of it sinking with them on board was not a nice one.

So, now no boat but a motorhome instead - now I just need to be able to go somewhere in it.

[Alan de Enfield]

24 minutes ago, manxmike said:

So, now no boat but a motorhome instead - now I just need to be able to go somewhere in it.

 

You could always take an hour or so for a trip around the Island.