current affairs

for the last week or two there has been a furious exchange of e-mails between the Newry and Mourne district council and several boat owners berthed at the Albert Basin in Newry. Obviously this includes yours truly. The basic problem being that very few people on the council appear to know anything about boats. There is a generally held opinion that it isn't only boats that the council know very little about!

The power supply for yachts at the quays run from some rather elaborate cast iron boxes, quite Victorian and very functional in a rather old fashioned way however in another wholly inadequate as they only hold two connection points each. In consequence many connections up to now have been supplied by splitting the supply cables so at least two boats could share a supply. As there are only 5 boxes that means 10 power points. There are presently 23 yachts berthed at the Quays!

Enter the electrician, unfortunately the large training boat Soteria has been tripping the circuit breakers having a total of five leads coming out of one box. The electrician they sent down pointed out that this was 1/ probably unsafe 2/ exceeding the supply amp age 3/ illegal as it contravened regulations for supply to boats. The crew of Soteria reacted poorly and the electrician reported back to the council who correctly then informed us all that what we were doing was, …well see above.

The threat was that we would all be disconnected however in a flurry of cooperation and chaotic rushing around we managed to get the supplys back down to ten boats being supplied from ten power points, the council representatives agreed to consider adding additional powerpoints and we as berth holders agreed to disconnect one boat before connecting another so that only ten boats were connected at any one time.

Lynne and I were also photographed for the local paper the Newry Reporter.

First time as a page three girl for Lynne!

So all's well with the world again……….and we have got to know a lot more of our neighbours here at the Quays.