Intro - and a Q for anyone in Bristol or nearby

[BogMonster]

Originally Posted by Cheeky Monkey

not sure that would go down too well, since it backs onto the kitchen

Tell her it's a new egg whisk

[Cheeky Monkey]

Originally Posted by Cheeky Monkey

I'm off to the garage with a tape measure again......

face of wall to inside face of door ................. 5.18m

door width 2.1m (its double, but with 2 doors)

so Max's 5.10m SR 4.7m set up would fit

I guess I'm in the market for a SR 4.7 then so long as I find the right trailer !

Damn - that just put the price up !!!!

Originally Posted by BogMonster

Tell her it's a new egg whisk

it would punch into the back of the washing machine thinking about it - mega efficent spin cycle ?

[davej]

Just do it, I live hundreds of miles from the nearest coast but when you get those few magic days out everything seems wothwhile. I actually use my boat all through the year, for helping out with the local rowiing club on the river, I have even used it to help out a local school with an event, which they held on the river bank.

Keeping it in the garage helps as it is safe and dry and you can fix it, tinker with it and get it just right.

Also a RIB is just so useable as it can be towed all over the UK or further afield. Having lived in Essex for ages, my experience of looking at all the big boats moored up in the creeks was the bigger they are, the less they get used.

I had a fantastic week up in Plockton at the beginning of April ( lots of snow) exploring the local sea lochs.

I do all my own servicing and with an older 2s its easy, a complete set of service items for my 60 merc costs £70 from Keyparts and takes an afternoon to do in the drive. Buy a manual and use the iboats.com website to answer any motor questions.

Fuel costs for a smallish motor really are not significant given the limited time most of us get to use our boats.

I think given we did some miles from Plockton the fuel bill was around £140 and that was in a week of using it most days

Davej

[davej]

Just reading more of the threads re garage size etc. My RIB is a tornado 5mtr, which just fits in half my double garage, without removing the detachable draw bar. I always thought that I would need to take the draw bar off but when it came I just deflated the tubes a little to make them soft and pushed. I think I probably could just get in a 5,3 given that the drawbar would definately need to come off then. The other advantage of a smaller boat is that they legally live on unbraked trailers, I think a 5,3 would probably just come into that as well.

With mine I had a pal weld up an A frame that again just fits under the top of the door.

Mine goes OK with a 60hp 2S but the max hp is 90 so even quite small RIBs can be very quick.

DJ

[Shaz]

I have to admit, I'm not as sold on this being a great place as I was before I bought the thing ! I live near Thornbury, so really close to motorways and extremely easy to get to most places. I thought 'there are loads of brilliant launch sites within an hour or 2, and some really special ones within 3/4 hours'.

The 3 to 4 hour ones (Saundersfoot, Dale, Solent) are well worth it and if you've got a whole weekend or longer definitely make the summer. The 1-2 hours haven't been as plentiful as I'd have liked but that may well be because I faff too much.

I've not been brave enough to launch into the muddy bits as pretty much every warm weekend there's another news story about some fool getting killed or nearly killed, which is a bit off putting. I've met people who are in the coastguard at Weston & Burnham and it would just be embarrassing to have to be rescued by them if I made a slight miscalculation, so I haven't really tried to explore places like that. Maybe I'm missing out, or maybe I'm being sensible - I don't really know.

Portishead is expensive, and Bristol docks is fine for a potter around but the Merc won't cope with pottering so that's off the menu, but you may be ok with either of those.

There may be a bargain scruffy looking SR4 up for sale if I find a really good deal on something slightly bigger which I can dry stack at Cardiff, as I'm finding most of my playing out is done around there anyway! I'd offer you a go but not sure when I'm next free other than the Falmouth trip and you'll probably have bought something by then anyway.

Having said that, now I've started on the slippery slope I don't think I'd want to spend a summer without a boat, when things do go right it's so much fun.

Best of luck with finding the right one.

[bosun]

I took our 34 foot beneteau yacht up into Bristol in June, it was easy enough but on a rib you'd need an auxilary outboard! By god that Avon is muddy,hardly anywhere to land and from what I saw nowhere to launch between the slip by Bristol Marina and Portishead marina???
But if you had room for something like a 5hp auxilary engine alongside a decent main outboard it could be fun.
Whats the launch situation like further up the severn after the bridges?

[bosun]

Oh and maybe with those tides you might think of dayskipper theory as well as PB2?
They're not quite as scary (not quite) once you understand what is going on.