The Last Post

Hi Folks.

Just dropped in to say that "Dogma" has been sold, and our aquatic adventures, have finally drawn to a conclusion.

I still absolutely love boating, the boat, the way of life and have never felt so free. The captain of my own vessel and the master of my own destiny. Wehey!! dreams can come true. But, the parasites who jump out of the bushes and demand 12 English pounds from you whenever you want to stop anywhere have sucked 9/10ths of the enjoyment out of it.

Rampant greed has increased it's weaseling for a few years now. 5..8..10..12 pounds.. for a field with no services. Add in the covid fiasco, and the situation will (no doubt) degenerate even further. When was the last time the river was dredged? 10 years... 20 years ? But the license fee never goes down, does it? Can't move for 8 months, because of the red boards and annual flooding? Tough. You must pay full price. "not their problem". There are no hoses on the waterpoints anymore. The pumpout machines are invariably "broken", when you need to use them. Lock houses sold off. Lock keepers made redundant, or stretched between three locks. It's all quite sad, really.

The places we used to stop, and enjoy for a night... Dorney lake, Wallingford meadows, Lady Lindsey's lawn... will be jammed with selfish pricks who choose to never move their boats at all. They'll dump all their sewage in the river, whilst simultaneously virtue signalling their 'green' credentials. pfft..

It was all Great Great fun.... for a while. And then it wasn't.
A good friend of ours, Kaye, said...

"It is time to move on, before it gets bitter."

In closing, we met some beautiful souls on our travels.... it was a great privilege to be able to live on, and navigate the heart of darkness. We have many precious memories that will last us a lifetime. So, thankyou to everybody, who ever wrote, smiled, waved, or just said "hello" on the towpath. Appreciated that. We leave the river Thames, knowing there are still a few decent human beings out there. And that makes us happy. Cheers....

Dogma is now home for a nice couple, with a young child and a dog. She'll be staying on the River Thames, for the most part. If you see her out and about, give her a honk and a wave. She's a good old girl... who did us proud. We'll never forget her.

Summertime

Bryn and Olly have been enjoying their daily dunks in the river Lymm. I have missed not being on the boat this summer. But I remember how scorching it was last year. It hasn't rained for 6 weeks now.

An interesting historical fact

On this very day, 369 years ago..

 

 

England was declared a Republic.

Sail Ho!

back in the old days, i harboured an ambition to become a multiplayer developer and game sysop. i was pretty good at it actually. my home server was always stuffed. but you know, these things take fat wallets and a room full of people to do properly. so i kept it at the "purely for personal amusement" level.

a couple of years back, i stupidly opened my 3D modelling tools again. i was interested in the advances made in cloth physics and character modelling. then it was "it would be great to see these things bobbing about on a convincing ocean".

next thing you know, i am reading up on how to implement euler angles, archimedes (his laws of buoyancy), atmospheric scattering, changable windspeed and direction, procedural generation of island biomes and strato-cumulaic cloud densities. so... i can now calculate trajectories, vectors and velocities in 3D space. and transpose that into 2D coordinates, should the need ever arise. (stumbled with quaternion maths 12 years ago).

it's been fun learning to wear all the different hats necessary to design a naval game from start to finish, but my chances of releasing this as a commercial venture are a roundabout zero. no worries. the thing i'm the most proud of..... is that it runs fine on my cheapass chinese laptop.

Well, here we are..

2018.
I hope it goes well for everyone.

Bryn is 8.
Fit and happy.
Such a lovely chap.
He makes us laugh every day.

I spent far longer than was anticipated down in Devon. Had a great time with Sheena and the lads. A nice bit of pack bonding, with some lovely woodland walks along country lanes and bridle paths. But there is a backlog of boats waiting to be craned out and use this particular spot, so I've had to come back and get a shift on..

On the refit front, things are going well. the new engine fits in the hole, like it was made for it (which it probably was). The supports for the old engine have been cut away. Nice sparks! And bar a bit of jiggling, swearing, shimming and knuckle scraping, we are almost there.

We're also replacing the deckboards, because the old ones had become squishy, waterlogged and blown. The original plating underneath was in remarkably good condition. Quick grind with a wire brush. a splash of Vactan (the river gods brought the sun out for 2 hours.... 10 degrees... perfect!). good to go, for another few years.

Busy. Busy.

The chaps

I haven't seen them in nearly a month.
They are going to go ballistic.

Scandinavian Shininess

hellig hestekræfter.