Taking the Duck Punt to Water – Dylan Winter blog Jan 16 2012

I have been moving the duck punt around on top of the Polo and have devised a roof rack made out of fenders and rope.  When I started building the Duck Punt we had a 100,000 mile old escort with a towbar and roof bars - it was just long enough for me to bed down in the back - which has been extremely useful at times.

Now I only have access to the Polo. I needed a temporary roof rack for it and being an innovative sort and the owner of a fine collection of fenders I created a brilliant little roof rack.

Works for me anyway.  However, I am only using it for short trips to the lake or the Aylesubry Canal. I am not that keen on using it for long drives cross country because there is a good chance that I might come across a bored traffic policeman on the trunk roads between here and Wells.

I had not realised quite what a toll KTL would be taking on our cars - one heck of a lot of miles in shuttling back and forth between home and boat. We need two functioning cars and keeping eight wheels on the road has been rather more expensive than I had budgetted for.

Jill's mum died over Christmas so I was down in Dartmouth for the funeral and also to pick up Jill after she had written off the old Escort. It was two ladies meeting almost head on in a narrow Devon lane. It was not that much of a bump - and does not look much - but the car is 12 years old and has over 100,000 miles on the clock and is not worth repairing.

So if anyone has an old set of polo roof bars they know of I am sure the duck punt will ride better if the air can get between it and the roof. A proper roof rack will also keep the police happy. All this assuming the Polo passes its test.

Dylan