Where were we?...Ahh yes

Ahh yes, it's Friday and we have a visit from George, Carol and dog Molly of Nb. Rock and Roll.  We invited them across to check out Yarwood's fit out as they are using the same team to build their new boat as we had for Yarwood.  We were full of questions about the progress of the build and after sitting everyone down with a cup of tea and a slab of homemade bread pudding Joe and I set about the interrogation with alacrity.

 George trying to draft the layout of their new boat, ably assisted by Molly

 Molly answered the technical stuff...

 After hours of applying thumbscrews to our guests to extract information we decided we needed a respite and dragged ourselves off to find a dog friendly pub in Harborough and preferably one that did lunch as well: we took the guests with us of course.

 Unfortunately the pub we found didn't do food but did do dogs and suggested that we went and got ourselves a sandwich or takeout and come back to the pub to eat our lunch and have a pint...How very civilised!  Our host was Nick in The Kings Head and a jolly kind chap he was too.

 Heading back after lunch Carol and I dived into Gilbert's, hardware store/emporium extraordinaire where I  bought a galvanised pail for Yarwood's ash can emptying and Carol bought ceramic jugs to match her new crockery.

 Joe with new hand luggage and  Molly checking out why her Mum is striking this strange pose?
We walked the three dogs after lunch and then the rock and Rollers took their leave and we went back into town for the usual Friday night boaters get together at the Sugar Loaf.

Come Monday...
We took ourselves off the Mercia Marina to have a look at a widebeam boat.  And the reason?  We are intrigued by what the boat building industry is offering, or apparently offering, a V.A.T free widebeam if they are for residential use.   The new boat Brigantine, being marketed by The New and Used Boat Company, is such a boat and we went and had a look around and asked a myriad of questions about the tax position re HMRC and how this boat met the criteria to be  'a qualifying ship' under taxation rules.  The rules state that to qualify the vessel has to be 15gross metric tonnes this being a volume measurement.  To arrive at this the metric length is multiplied by the metric beam (width) and then by the metric depth to the deck and then by 0.16.  If you achieve a figure of 15gt or more and you are going to live aboard then your new build is Ex Vat. which if you are thinking of going this route could be very attractive.

 Brigantine, 60' in length, 12' 6" in beam

Cat swinging territory...