Time to meet the people and get the flags up. On the port side we have our own house flag and then 2 parts of the royal standard from the royal yacht Britania (dated 1954). On the stbd side we have the Belgium flag then my company flag DOF followed by the Norwegian flag, these are in honour of my work place for the last upteen years.
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At the rally we had meet and greet buffet, a book swap, a boat jumble, a parade of barges on the Meuse and the Sambre, a barge handling competition, a last night meal and a man overboard discussion followed by demonstrations by two barges with an invitation for others to take part. Lots of people showed a big interest in the man overboard discussion which shows that it must be a subject that worries a lot of us without it normally being discussed. Anyway, it was a good chance to see Phil from ‘Avalon’ looking like a proper ‘Bargie Bill’. The problem of getting a heavy person from the water to back on deck was discussed but not practised as it is different for every barge and could be the subject for another talk sometime. |