Pandora owning Ed says

Hi Dylan,

Thanks for your note. I wasn't expecting recognition!
Sorry to hear about the centaur. Great boat and I'm grateful to you for bringing it to my attention. I'm on the mersey and small, solid bilge keelers are the way to go as far as I'm concerned, so inevitable tidal groundings can be turned into impromptu barbecues.
At the moment I'm working on getting a Pandora up to scratch for cruising/ racing out of Liverpool or perhaps preston (who do a brilliant summer marina deal). I'm not sure if i fit the typical demographic in that I'm 34 and, I hope, only at the beginning of my adventures on boats. It's incredibly encouraging to see that sailing is possible outside of the world of glistening GRP, azure seas and obligatory accompanying porpoises- none of which bear much resemblance to the grime, drizzle, algae and kinked hose pipes of my disused canal berth off the thin end of the Mersey- so thank you for that.
I'd love for you to be able to carry on. I'd love for you to make it round to this part of the world, too so I hope my fiver will assist you in this in some way.
Best of luck for the future, and maybe I'll see you at some point off the Liver Building. but good god don't stump up for the marina or you'll be back to square one!
Best wishes,
Edd
This is about Dylan Winter's Blog, Sailing around Britain.

2 Responses to “Pandora owning Ed says”

  1. 16 February, 2017 at 4:48 pmDave Barker says:

    Hi Ed, I hope Dylan doesn’t mind MOB’s using his site to chat to each other. I had one of the early Mk 1’s in 1972 built by Ridgeway Marine. A brilliant boat, well worth any amount of work that’s required to bring it up to spec.

    Now, Dylan can tell you that I have a habit of spreading doom and despondency, in his case regarding Centaur bilge keels.

    HOWEVER, if you intend doing some serious tuning for racing be very wary of over-tightening the rigging. There is no support under the mast inside the cabin to take the load down to the hull. The load is taken by the deck structure and the result can be side decks that slope inboard towards the cabin. In other words, the cabin is strong enough but the rig-tension can push the whole cabin downwards taking the side decks with it. Nothing actually breaks, the side decks stay attached to the hull but sag down towards the cabin.

    This didn’t happen to my boat (I was just a happy-go-lucky cruising type) but I did see more than one Pandora that suffered this way, in fact there was one here in Portugal a few years ago with the same problem. Some owners fitted a frame-work under the mast inside the cabin to spread the load down to the hull.

    I don’t know if this only applies to the MK 1’s or not. Hope you don’t mind my mentioning it.

    But it’s a terrific boat and you’ll have some thrilling sailing.

  2. 16 February, 2017 at 5:15 pmdylan winter says:

    not at all – v happy for you guys to say whatever you like on here

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