Moderator: Bob
I'd long suspected many motorhomes were the result of a pension age crisis running into snares set by the dream sellers. I suppose economies turn on trade like this, and for some that motorhome was exactly the right thing to do, but i'll bet the most happy purchasers had tried it before and/or given it a lot of thought before jumping in. A hasty pension-potter and his money are soon parted, to adapt the old adage. Sometimes however, i think you have to try something and accept that only time will tell if it was a mistake (marriage for example ha ha). When that happens, you dust yourself down and remind yourself it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. As Mark Twain wrote (and Bob has similar as his strapline):Bob wrote:Slightly off topic, but a pal of mine saved for years to buy a large motor home on retirement.
£120,000 More than 10 years ago with 3 fixed double beds, we asked why since it was just the two of them... For when the grandchildren come on holiday with us.
Guess how many times that has happened... Yep - zero, and it hardly ever gets used due to size, thirst, many sites won't take it, difficult to get in and out of storage...
It would have been cheaper and more practical to book a hotel with the family once a year and have a 2 berth camper which got used.
Fabulous and oh yes you can do it, provided you've the experience and the sea is calm (and with a current not exceeding the 6 knots or so that NB propulsion maxes out at). But for the unwary, if the trade winds are blowing....Bob wrote:Some years ago I Set off from the safe port of Sharpness in my pal's narrow boat for our home port of Bristol.
No problems but there's a tale for the camp fire.
You're right Bob but you're assuming you must be worthless since you were on itBob wrote:It isn't mine.
I know - truly tragic. It did get me thinking though how poor several tons of ballasted bouyancy bag free flat bottomed would be at surviving the sea coming over the gunwhales. It would vanish very quickly.Bob wrote:I saw that,just awful, but to go back into a sinking boat to get cash, which would still have been there anyhow...
Just need to modify the wording a bit if talking about boating, so you're not wishing you'd sinkBob wrote:The old adage, "Better down here wishing you were up there, than up there wishing you were down here", applies to boating as well.
I do that too, not the decorating, the Scotch bit, been a test pilot for Whyte & Mackay for many years not found a bad one yetBigPanzer wrote:Hi,
I seem to remember hearing and seeing something about an NB being recovered. It is a sad fact of life and very tragic that every year there are fatalities around our coasts and on our inland waterways. However, many of the incidents are avoidable if people obeyed some common sense rules and stopped treating water as a friend. I used to know a guy who was on Sea Kings at Culdrose and you would not believe some of the stories he told me after a few pints of Guinness of people floating out to sea on inflated condoms with no safety equipment whatsoever. Another really sensible bloke I knew was crew on the Brixham lifeboat and though he didn't talk too much about what he did, he made his feelings known.
I've mentioned South Devon Watersports before. One of the members there owned a Huntress, which is how I know what a beautiful soft rider they are. The Huntress was used as a marshalling boat at the Torquay end of the Cowes - Torquay race and one year (around '81) I got VERY lucky. The course came in quite close to Torquay, there was a very sharp turn to starboard before heading out to open water. Our job consisted largely of keeping the course clear of idiots in their dinghies and ski boats and one ski boat was being a very persistant pillock. We could hear the competitors coming as they rounded Berry Head (Brixham, about 4 miles away) and we would chase them off the harbour buoy, they would pop up somewhere else equally dangerous. Contents of said boat - a 14ft Shakey - consisted of two blokes, 2 dolly birds. No lifejackets.
One of the first of the competitors came through. Apache, and I remember it as if it was in slow motion and everybody who saw it was certain it was deliberate. The target Shakespeare was maybe 50 -60ft away from the buoy, Apache did a tight turn round the buoy with the nose well up, then hit the throttles & the trim. The contents of the Shakey suddenly became very much wetter.
It was not until some time later that we found out who the owner of the Shakespeare was - a certain well known comedian who was doing a summer season in Torquay and making himself and his bodyguards unpopular in most of the local nightclubs and with many of the local girls. Rumour has it that he wrote the Shakey off. I know he used to park his Roller, top down, outside the front door of my local club and people used to spit in it.
Sorry everybody - woffling again. "er in drawers bought me a bottle of Scotch as a reward for finishing decorating the lounge (OK, it a very big room) and I had to to test it!
Cheers
Peter
