Vaughan

Oh God, what a muddle we are getting ourselves into, in our "civilised world". Oh happy band of pilgrims, look upward to the skies : Where such a light affliction shall win so great a prize. Hymns (A&M) 629.

So are we saying that this is all funded by advertising? Edited to add : Thank you very much for reply. I am not being flippant : I am actually very keen to see how this monster feeds itself!

Firstly, thank you Grendel, for starting this debate on what I might call the "open" forum. And now, here's the dinosaur in me : I just can't get my head around the economics of all this. In the business world that I am used to, you manufacture your product and then your customers come and buy it. If I view something on Youtube, I don't pay for it - it comes for free. But all these little bloggers can make what seems to be a good living just by getting lots of clicks for their "efforts". So who is actually paying them? The clickers certainly are not and I can't see how Youtube is, either. So how does this new multi billion Pound industry sustain itself? And how does Elon Musk make so much money, just out of everybody's silly little tweets? Or was my mother wrong all along, and money really does grow on trees?

Working with collaborative partners, again?

Sorry I can't recommend an engineer but this sounds a bit strange. I can only think that the "Silentbloc" engine mountings have deteriorated, which has allowed the whole engine to move forward. Might be worth checking this before anything else.

I can just remember the rationing and I have still got my ration card, somewhere in a box. My mother kept 200 chickens in runs in the wood on the island, with a licence to sell the eggs to the "Min. of Ag. and Fish."

I don't think either MM or Griff need to apologise to each other. They are both regular users of the navigation - and what little is left of its "facilities" - but they are seeing it from their own viewpoints. I think Griff's post was objective rather than flippant, since he is quite right. As a regular cruising boat owner, whilst he understands the circumstances that some of the "liveaboards" may be in, he is nonetheless put out by their mis-use of BA facilities and their casual attitude to their surroundings, which detracts from the beauty of the Broads rivers. Quite understandable. I would just say that most of this has to do with anti-social behaviour, which is a police or local council matter and not necessarily anything to do with them living on a boat. MM is living on a boat, so he is very naturally looking at it from that perspective. As such, he has had much more opportunity to get know the characters personally. My own perspective is that of a commercial boat hirer, who has grown up to love the Broads as well as to earn his living there. If the Broads were not a beautiful and attractive place to come on holiday, we wouldn't have any customers and the BA would not be able to afford to maintain the place! So I try to set aside the "symptoms" of the problem, such as overstaying on BA moorings, and look more at the root cause of it. It is the BA who have overturned the traditional way of life on a Broads houseboat by banning residential moorings. Why have they done this? With my knowledge of the 10 years of saga at Jenners, I would point the finger and say their attitude has been snobbish and overly class conscious. Their Chairperson even described residential boaters as "Feral people in a shanty town" and for some reason, was never obliged to resign. That speaks volumes in itself. The BA have created this ugly scenario by their own hands. It is now up to them to face up to the fact that living on a boat is an ancient Broads tradition and to allow it to continue in peace. What about all the wherrymen and their families ; the eel catchers ; the wildfowlers and indeed the boatyard owners themselves? This is the persecution of what has become a perceived underclass and it is time it stopped.

I remember, on another thread, when you were lamenting the building of housing on what used to be boatyards and questioning why this should happen in a "national park"? So look upon this latest eyesore, and weep!

God, what have they done to Porter and Haylett's boatyard?

Perhaps the ranger's launch can do that, as it is the BA who do not allow them to have their own moorings. As it is, suppose the local land-owner cleared a bit of river bank and allowed a boat-owner to pay a small rent and live there? What would the BA do? Probably spend many more thousands of toll-payers money on forcing an eviction.

Steady on there, old chap . . . . The only help I can offer is my verbal support on a platform such as this, which I hope you feel that I have? In fact, in conjunction with JillR, my two brothers-in-law and several others, I fought the BA for 10 years to gain the recognition of the old Hearts boatyard in Thorpe as residential moorings - before I ever joined this forum. And quite right too! I grew up there from the age of 6 months, on a boat. Until I got married at the age of 28 I had never known another family home. Of course people have the right to moor and live there! Unfortunately we were not able to achieve the same result a while later, in Jenners basin. Something that I still view as a gross and disgracefully unjust persecution. I grew up in the days when there were hundreds of people living on boats on the Broads, either motor boats or houseboats, but all with a mooring of some sort. The Commissioners also issued a houseboat toll, for those without engines. Nowadays it is hard job to even hire a houseboat for a holiday, as the BA have decided they don't like them. I understand what a lot of members are saying about homelessness and dire straights but for me, the issue is more fundamental than that. There should be no reason whatever why one cannot live on a boat on the Broads, on a private or rented mooring but the BA have set themselves against it and I regard this as bad management of "the navigation". It is high time they sorted this out as they are very largely responsible for it.

I very much hope that @BroadsAuthority are reading this thread carefully. Their continued resistance - and legal persecution - of "residential moorings" - that is to say a private, paid, off-river mooring where you can live in peace on your boat - has, sure enough, led to this situation. They spent an almost 6-figure sum in legal fees to evict "live-aboards" from Jenners Basin, whilst labelling them as "feral people" and this is the result. Where else are these folk supposed to go? I am not saying the BA are at the root cause of this problem but they have just aggravated it, by their intransigent position with regard to "house boats". They need to address this problem seriously and work with it. Otherwise, they will continue to appear pathetically toothless about issues which really matter.

Pride is the word for it.

I well remember my father, calling out to a friend on another boat passing, which had a fender hanging over the side : "Excuse me, but your slip is showing!"

I know that Morning Flight's engines would give her 38 knots, using just over 4 gallons of 101 octane aviation spirit per minute - on each engine!

I can confirm that Morning Flight was 71' 6", and was a prototype design by Hubert Scott-Paine of the British Powerboat Co, one of about 4 built in 1936, to try and gain the Admiralty contract for the "Short 72" fast patrol boats. This contract was eventually won by Vospers, with their prototype, MTB 102. Scott-Paine then took his design to the U.S., where it became the Elco PT (patrol torpedo) boat. Vospers used Isotta Frachini engines, until Italy put a spanner in the works by entering the war on the wrong side! After that, they were fitted with Packard "Merlins", built under licence in the U.S. There is differing opinion as to whether the Packard was a Merlin, or a similar design by Packard, with lighter cylinder heads. Morning Flight, as a prototype built before the war, had supercharged Roll Royce Merlins. This production was later given over entirely to aircraft.

So you may have been "a shadow of your former self".

A report in the EDP has just appeared which notes that Hunters Yard regard it as a drama rather than a crisis. Marshman has already reminded us of a sudden gust of wind, known on the Broads as a "Roger". Apparently the boats had been hired by a Christian community group for their annual holiday. So perhaps, before any more speculation, we can write it off as an "Act of God"?

Those North Sea fog banks, on a clear still night, are also a death trap when they roll in across the Acle Straight. I don't mind fog on the river too much, so long as you can see the shadow of both banks beside you. When one bank starts to look a bit darker, steer away from it!

The Good Doctor also said it was climate change!

Just wait till you go out there from Yarmouth in late September, on your own but towing 2 other boats, in the failing light of the evening. This was in the days of Jenners, when we were towing home the "dead" ones! A nice clear sky and no wind - so no problem. Until you get half way across and watch a fog bank, literally rolling in across the marshes. And then it hits you, until you can just see a post about 50 yards ahead but once you get to it, you can't see the next one. I think that must be the loneliest place I have ever been on this Earth. For some reason I could still see the lights of Yarmouth, so I kept them in the same place relative to the stern and kept going, until I got to the "Dickey Works" where the channel curves, and managed to see enough of the old quay heading posts sticking up, to get round the corner to Berney Arms. Once you have done that - you never do it again.

That is something, in my life, that I have only done once, when late on the tide and will never do again. Setting out onto Breydon in the dark is folly.

Even so, this is a hire boat with a much reduced gaff rig. They take a great deal of sinking! The keel falling off is about the only thing to cause it, unless they got the gaff caught up in a tree while "running free" . The last Cruiser I heard of that lost her keel in a race was Queen Mab, a famous yacht of the same class as Maidie, which capsized straight on to the committee boat during a race on Wroxham Broad, carrying well over 1000ft of canvas. But that was before the First World War . . . .

Capsised? It takes an awful lot to capsize a Broads keelboat. In theory, it's impossible.

I quite agree with you but all the same : There were red kites around the marshes of the Yare in the 1950s and they were quite common. I saw them with own eyes.