What's New on the Site

The SeaHawk site has a new address. Please update your bookmarks/favourites or other links to the SeaHawk site to:

https://www.seahawk17.org.uk/

The old site, hosted at PlusNet, is no longer being updated will show a re-direct for the next month or so before going dead.

You may notice that the site at the new location has a different site search provider. This was forced on us as the one on the PlusNet site ceased operating at the end of March 2013.

In moving the site a number of broken links have been found and updated.

As usual, further updates made to the site will be reported at in the What's New on the Site topic on the SeaHawk Forum.

Today I have uploaded a substantially re-written and expanded page on the Pedro.

This is the first update of the page since 2009, and includes a dozen new photographs and other images plus a link to a PDF containing a 1975 Price List and Brochure.

Visit the page at:

https://www.seahawk17.org.uk/boat-related-pedro.php

Exciting news has emerged of a possible new manufacturer of the SeaHawk.

Details are given on the History Page at:
https://www.seahawk17.org.uk/boat-history.php#since2010

See also this Forum Post.

I have today made changes to the layout of the site's forum.

The areas within the forum now appear in the following order:

Announcements and FAQs
Introduce Yourself
Gallery
My Boat
For Sale
Help Desk
General Discussion

The Gallery section is a new feature. It is intended for largely self-explanatory pictures with no more than a one line caption. Replies are not allowed. Questions or discussion about the images posted should be conducted in the Help Desk or General Discussion areas.

Within the next few days you can expect a major rebuild of the site to be released.

The main goal has been to make the site "mobile-friendly", so those who visit the site using phones and tablets will, at last, be able to do so without a lot of pinching, spreading, and scrolling. It should also lead to the site being much better ranked by search engines used on mobile devices.

For those using laptops and desktop computers, and perhaps larger tablets, things will look much the same and probably it will only be a change to the menu system that you will notice.

Because the revised site uses new techniques for delivering the pages (Web geeks will recognise it as driven by PHP) you may find that your existing bookmarks do not take you to the expected page. Hopefully, everything will be caught by the new "Oops! I Can't Find That Page" page, where there will advice on what to do.

With the major structural change in place, it should make it easier to keep the site updated. I plan to work my way through all the pages - there are over 110 of them containing a total of almost 600 different images - and update any with information that reflects the best current knowledge.

Once the new site is on-line, feedback about any pages that appear to hold information that conflicts with that on another page will be especially welcome, so they can be given priority treatment for update.

GregSeaHawk wrote

Within the next few days you can expect a major rebuild of the site to be released.

It's happened and quicker than I expected!

The newly constructed site is now running, with the new home page at:
https://www.seahawk17.org.uk/index.php

You should get re-directed automatically if you use the old address which ended in "index.htm".

Now the new site is on-line, I'd welcome feedback about any errors you find or any improvements you think could be made to make it still easier to use with phones and tablets.

Also, I am aware that some pages may hold information that conflicts with the contents of another. It's the consequence of the site having been built up slowly over ten years. I'll be trying to hunt them down in the next few weeks. Please do let me know if you spot any such conflicts.

I've had an email from Clive Marsh who reports:

Clive Marsh wrote

Hello Greg,

I have owned 2 SeaHawks in the past. The solution to the sticking centre plate was to replace the lifting wire with thin galvanised steel so the plate could be pushed down as well as pulled up.   In other words don't just rely on gravity.

Best

Clive Marsh

I've incorporated this recommendation into the page at:
https://www.seahawk17.org.uk/owners-maintenance-fittings-keel.php
adding a link to Clive's Review of the SeaHawk, which was published in Practical Boat Owner, and which has featured on the site for a while.

I have finally got round to upgrading communications with the site.

You'll find that you'll browser will report that all communications are encrypted. (You'll see the address is now prefixed with "https:// and most browsers will show a "padlock" icon.).

It should mean that you'll not get the warnings that you used to see when logging into the forum.

At long last I have added photographs of the cabin of Marsh Marigold (#323) to the Cabin Customisations page in the Owners Section under Customisations. There's also a commentary from me on what I see and can glean for the images.

Many thanks to Victoria Helby for the photographs.

Since the site became "mobile friendly" four years ago I have always been aware that the menu system introduced at that time didn't work well on small screens and those using lap/desktop computers found the menu that was provided for large screens also awkward to use as it was primarily designed for those using touch screen devices.

A re-vamp of the site has begun. Today's changes feature a new header image, changed menu system and re-ordered sections on the forum page.

The menu now works in the same way on both large and small screen and whether using a touch screen or keyboard and mouse. Hopefully this will make the site easier to navigate.

The forum areas have been rearranged to bring those most commonly used closer to the top of the page.

There are plans to introduce some further less dramatic refinements in the coming weeks.

The site re-vamp continues.

Today's changes feature further revisions to the main menu system. Some options have changed position.

From now on replies to forum subscription emails will be rejected. You will receive an automated response advising you to return to the original email and to click/tap on the link in its footer. This will take you to the post that appeared on the forum and you can respond there.

The problem with email replies to forum posts is that they normally contain the text of the original post. If lengthy email threads develop then search results produce innumerable duplicate results making it far more difficult to find the information wanted.

Work will continue over the coming days to improve the display of header image and page titles. Given the new design and range of visitor's screen sizes, currently not all display without overflowing the image.

Today a large number of page titles have been edited so they display without overflow of the header area on small screens.

Further subtle changes have been made to the main menu system and, for desktop users, additional entries have been made to the "Related Pages" panels on various pages to further assist with navigation around the site.

I also believe I now have the settings sorted on the Site Search facility, so it produces good results from both the forum and pages on the main site.

Today the site header has been given an new logo/banner. The position of the main menu button and search box have also been tweaked so they fit better on all sizes of screen.

A new page has been added on some Jib Furling Systems. It can be reached via the menu options:

OWNERS > Customisations > Sailing > Furling Jibs

Thanks to Brian and Victoria for the photos and information on these.

With over 130 pages on the main site and more than 600 topics on the forum - growing at one a week since the COVID-19 lock down, some have said it can be difficult to find the information that you want. In response, additional information has been added to the Home Page about how the main menu is arranged which should help you navigate the site.

I've finally managed to solve an issue with the main menu when using a mobile phone or other small screen device. The [+] button to the right of many options, through which you access deeper levels, tended to disappear off the edge of the screen. It now stays where it should!

I've also re-styled the headings on each page so the "up-arrow" graphic, which is a button that takes you to the top of the page, is now a little larger and easier to tap.

GregSeaHawk wrote

I've finally managed to solve an issue with the main menu when using a mobile phone or other small screen device. The [+] button to the right of many options, through which you access deeper levels, tended to disappear off the edge of the screen. It now stays where it should!

It seems that in the one case where the menu reaches down four levels the position of the button was still not as it should have been!

Today I fixed the [+] button at:

OWNERS > Maintenance > Other > Paintwork

It is now positioned correctly.

The page at:
https://www.seahawk17.org.uk/owners-maintenance-rigging-boom.php
has been updated (for the first time since 26 October 2011).

Thanks to a post on the forum, there's now better advice on freeing seized aluminium alloy components.