Graham R wrote:
Give him a break Guys, we were al new to boating once.
My first venture when I was 20 in the mid 1970s, a joint venture with my soon to be brother-in-law, bought after we'd been in the pub too long one afternoon; did not go down well with the females involved with us ! It was a clinker built timber 12' dingy with a "Seagull" outboard. Copious applications of GRP to (temporarily) replace the rotten timber, Looked lovely. Got as far as 7 miles from when it was launched once, to the Skerries, a region of fast tidal flow to the NW of Anglesey, UK; look it up on Google earth ! It just stopped, we had to row the whole way back, took over 9 hours as the current was against us for a good part of the time, even with coast hugging.
I went back to University in Autumn 1975; he swapped it for a 16' "speedboat" with no motor. Built of plywood on an oak frame, but with a hole in it. Mended that, but couldn't afford a big enough outboard to make it work. Sold for a break even price.
Got out of boating until 2000.
Then 13 years largely happy experience with Four Winns V8 powered Boats ( maybe 13 was a bad omen !). Then I bought a 2009 boat with no hull problems, but it has had issues with electronic units, wiring, shifting, trim, battery drain, trim tabs. Should I have known better ?
Difference is Graham is that he asked for suggestions/advice and specific questions all of which he blatantly ignored and acted as though the "repliers" were insulting him.
I made mistakes in boating and did some things prematurely BUT...when I asked for someone's advice or some questions about something I listened and heeded the information I got from the more experienced folks. Why ask a question when you will disregard the answer?