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winner will receive a bottle of Mainbrace premium golden rum. Mainbrace rum embodies the courage, teamwork & friendship of those who love being on, in, or near the sea. Send your photos to mby@futurenet.com
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TOUGH ENOUGH
Having read Alex’s article on the Arksen 30, I wanted to query something: the article suggests that internal hull bracing is required to move the vessel from a RCD C to a Brating. I currently own a XO 270 Front Cabin (the predecessor to the EXPLR10 which the Arksen 30 is based on) and when I was researching the purchase I spoke with the man who arranged for the RCD test on the 270. He told me that XO would only pay for one vessel to be tested and they went with the open-bow version of the 270, which received a Crating.
Given that the sunken-bow seating area of the open 270 would capture any water thrown over the bow, this would have a dramatic effect on seakeeping and rating. The tester said that a separate test of the closed-bow design of the 270 Front Cabin would have got a Bbecause that water would wash straight off the decks (a fact to which I can attest, having had green water over the whole bow and cabin in F7 seas in my own boat!).
I’m sure hull strengthening may be useful but these aluminium XO hulls are already extremely strong and so any B rating change may well be more due to the testing of this closed-bow design.
Interesting stuff, and while I can’t verify your conclusions about the RCD rating, I can testify that the XO 270 always felt like an extremely tough and capable boat.
IT’S A DOG’S LIFE
We have taken our dog, Marley, across the Channel on numerous occasions. He is a rescue dog from Spain and has an EU passport, so could go backwards and forwards without his passport even being checked.
This year, however, all has changed. We went to Holland in March via Eurotunnel from Folkestone. Arriving at the terminal, we were told Marley’s documentation was invalid. His rabies vaccination – which at a cost of £150 was checked by an EU laboratory blood test to make sure it was valid – was not recorded in his passport. It was on a vaccination card supplied by our local vet. The validation by the EU laboratory, however, was on a separate letter.
