Wednesday 28 January 2009

BSS

Drat and double drat - my boat has failed its Boat Safety Standards inspection, on 9 counts! Most of the items are changes in regulations, like needing metal fuel drain plugs rather than plastic ones, a side-flick isolation valve on my gas cooker rather than the wheel-type one that's in place and needing to replace the fuel pipes with modern ones. Also, the fire blanket needs replacing and some parts of the gas pipes need clipping in place, etc. I'm also annoyed at myself for forgetting to wall mount one of the fire extinguishers I'd replaced. Hey ho.

Today I saw a kingfisher, a little grebe (or dabchick), 3 moorhens, 2 ducks, a wren, several blackbirds (hurray!) and a few long-tailed tits. I missed out on the national Garden bird-watch project this weekend, so this is my own personal inventory.

4 comments:

Stop Hitting Me Officer said...

Sorry, but couldn't help but picture you being stopped in your tracks by an Inspector sent to make sure that they have enough safeguards in place for them to allow you to live independently.

It's a bit like a recall of covered wagons charging across the mid-west so that they can be given their MoT.

May I just say before we begin, a great big thank you to you all for backing your horses and wagons onto the ramps for inspection so carefully. Well done. Yah, OK, now look chaps and chapesses - frontier's over there but we're going to have a staggered silent start (no gun-noise pollution, natch) so that there's no mad rush and please people, don't forget your gloves and eye protection. Everyone wearing sunblock? Gooood. Safe colonising everyone and if you could please let Eric or Mavis have your log sheets back by the end of the day. ...

That said - get your durn fuel system serviced Ma'am so that I don't worry about you!

Simon said...

hmmm - mine is due in July, I think I'm going to have a first run in May to give me time to sort everything out... good luck, anyway.

Llosgi said...

Ha! SHMO, you're right, though I guess the worse that could happen for a wagon would be for the wheel to come off. (I'm basing my understanding on every western I've ever seen - you'd think they'd have sorted that out).
Reminds me when I was teaching and wanted to take a few kids over the road to paint in a field: Risk Assessment - 1) Busy road. Possible risk: getting run over. Measures to avoid risk: Look carefully both ways.
Hey Simon. I've got a few weeks left before my BSS runs out but what's annoying is that I have to get it re-tested by the same person, (for an extra £50), otherwise I'd have to cough up another £150 with someone new who might find different things wrong. Which means I'm sort-of tied to the same area until I'm re-tested.
Good luck with yours too!

Simon said...

I'm relatively lucky - the resident BSC inspector at the moorings will do a free 2nd visit to check things have been done. I'd actually asked for an informal pre-inspection as early as possible, but that should be OK - total might still be the same as yours, of course. The trouble is I've changed so much, I'm worried there might be some big fundamentals I'll need to deal with. I'll do a self-inspection as much as I can, though.