Hockham Admiral

Wow, Jill, I didn't know you're a technocrat! Surely hydraulic drives are inherently far less efficient than a prop-shaft?

Wherever you go in Friesland there is no tide, unless you lock out into the Waddensee or the North Sea. All the hundreds and hundreds of moorings are fixed and the same height above water which makes mooring that much easier! (On Sabine there is about a one foot step-down everywhere we have been so far). And there are so many of them, everywhere, mostly all free to us as we have the yellow flag at the masthead. This signifies that Sytze Heegstra has paid for the use of all these moorings in Friesland. Around the many lakes are small islands, also with moorings, and we saw many boats tied up with fishing rods in abundance being used. Mostly the boats are steel and similar in style to Sabine, although she is now quite an old lady! When I asked Sytze about pump-outs he just shrugged and said that she was an old boat and so didn’t have to comply with new regulations…. I refer back to my comment on that useful Dutch word which I must look up and write down here! The Dutch are all so friendly and their boats are mostly family crewed; so far we haven’t seen a single lads or gals party pass by. They are actually strict about drinking and driving, whether it be a car or a boat and we haven’t seen a single canny being waved about! There seem to be very few hire-boats about although it’s difficult to tell as they don’t have a registration system such as the BA impose on us at home. And there are certainly very few “Engels” about! (As we are known over here). On a note, some may think that 75bhp is a lot for a 10.3 metre boat but as she is steel she must weigh a heck of a lot and she takes a lot of stopping even with half-throttle reverse power. She has a rudder-position indicator on the upper helm and is quite twitchy on the steering compared with our Alpha. With full lock, about two turns from neutral, she will spin round in not much more than her own length; very useful on the two occasions so far we’ve needed to turn around. She has a bow-thruster but with her small turning circle we’ve not really needed it too much. Back to our travels yesterday and we passed several barges carrying all sorts of heavy materials. They certainly load them to the Plimsoll Line over here! This part of Friesland has a look of The Broads, except there are so many moorings everywhere you go! Sabine has three different air-heights: Mast and stern ensign up it’s 3.80m; both down and it’s 2.50m; with the spray-screen and forward burgee down it’s 2.30m. In the pics below you can see her with all down except the forward burgee to get under the 2.40m bridge before we arrived at Kollum for our first night’s stop. And I’d made a mistake about bridge heights on the charts, they’re in decimetres! At this last bridge there was a height gauge quite unlike anything we have over her and very accurate, I’m pleased to say! I was so busy concentrating on getting her lined up and then kneeling down on the upper deck that I quite forgot to take a pic of it. Kollum is a small town but with a host of supermarkets between the marina and the centre. (All closed on a Sunday). There is only one marina and here we are tied up for the night: Mary-Jane and I had a leisurely tea with the odd glass of rose for her and white for me. She then decided to have a quiet evening reading and I went for a walk into town….. To find just one bar open, appropriately named the Paradise Bar! I asked for a beer in Dutch and was heard by a party of three locals who were all Anglophiles but had never heard an Englishman speak Dutch before! After they had insisted I talk to them in my version of Dutch for a few minutes we soon got the conversation onto beer and football. They had all visited the UK on several occasions, mostly Liverpool and Glasgow. One of them, Bert, is the owner of Nijmegen FC and had just been over to Scotland to buy Motherwell’s centre-forward! My knowledge of English and European football was put to good use but I had to struggle to keep up with the bottles of Heineken which kept arriving in front of me…. My attempt at the one joke I know in Dutch was greeted with hilarity by my three new chums and I had to re-tell it to the rest of the bar on their demand. A good evening was had by all!

Anna brought us a roses posy to wish us a good journey! Sunday morning and the wind had completely died down but the sky was black and menacing. Not to worry, a slow breakfast with many cuppas and we were ready to start. Warten has a municipal brug! (Dutch for bridge). If you can call a community of a few score of houses a municipality! And they charge to open, with a village lady manning the brug 09-12, 13-16 and 17-20hrs. She opens as soon as she sees you or you hoot 3 times… then, as you slowly cruise by, she hangs an old wooden clog out on a fishing rod and you put your money in! Let’s hope BR don’t think of this! (Except for opening whenever you arrive!). Soon the clouds disappear and the sun comes out…. Then it’s on to the Princess Margaret Canal with a 10kph (6mph) speed limit, 1100rpm on Sabine’s 75hp engine and hey, ho! Our first vessel we saw was a large Dutch Barge, Tonga, which followed us for a few kilometres before deciding to overtake…….. Some wash, and the engineer was painting as they passed us by!

WOW! Wifi at last! Here's our first report: We exited Hollandica at 08.30 local time after a pretty patchy night’s sleep…. The bunks are comfortable enough but we seldom seem to get sufficient time in them as reveille is at 05.30 our time. Our destination, Warten is 138 miles to the north of Hoek van Holland, just SW of Leeuwarden, the capital of Friesland, and we weren’t due to pick up the boat until 14.00; so it was a steady 60mph cruise up there. We stopped off in Lemmer to visit a “hole-in-the-wall” for Euros… I admit that I was apprehensive as to whether our bank had cleared our card for foreign travel (they said they had, but…). No problems and we’re in good financial shape! Next a stop at the garage and I was pleased to pay £1.20 a litre for our diesel. Our arrival at the boatyard in Warten, at 11.15, was greeted warmly and personally by Anna and Sytze Heegstra, the owners. It is only a small yard and you can look it over at www.yachtcharterheegstra.nl Sabine was still being prepped so we drove into Leeuwarden for supplies. We found an Aldi with the satnav’s help and spent a very untypical early Saturday afternoon shopping! It was a pleasant surprise to by a nice Cape Sauvignon Blanc at about £3 a bottle! HIC! So we bought quite a few…. At 14.00 Sytze came onboard to explain Sabine’s technical details. His English is better than my Dutch but that’s not saying much and a complete novice to boating might possibly have been confused! The Dutch just do things completely differently to us. They have a word (which I can’t even spell, let alone pronounce) which translated means “It’s the law but we don’t take much notice of it”… this seems to spill over into a rather relaxed attitude to most things! For example, in our e-mails with Anna, I had mentioned that we have a boat, and Sytze just waved away my mention of a short river trip together. “You have boat, no problems!”. Sabine has 28V electrical system and the sockets for accessories look (and are) exactly the same as 12V ones we know. So beware! Plugging in a 12V charger for say, your i-phone or tablet, could have disastrous results! This wasn’t mentioned but I noticed that the battery meter was a 24V one and that the two inverters supplied were indeed 24/230V ones. She doesn’t have television (we wouldn’t understand much if she did), the radio is an FM one, entirely in Dutch and wifi is not a usual commodity in rural Friesland! Hence why I’m so tardy with these blogs (and very pleased we brought all those library books)! By 16.00 we had all our gear stowed away and the sun was shining but we had decided to spend a few hours planning our route for the next three weeks before setting of tomorrow. So, with a glass of by now chilled wine, we sat down to do just that. Friesland is big; there are literally so many rivers, lakes and canals that you just can’t do them all. Not even in three weeks!

Well, here we are at last onboard the Stena Hollandia, enjoying the first glass of the day! An easy journey down of 1.30 hrs and then nearly straight onboard (early). It's been a long day, mainly waiting for the next thing to happen. I had an early morning journey to the barbers at 08.30 to start the morning. Later in the morning it was time to pack..... I can't believe just how much we needed to take. Duvets and pillows because they only supply sheets and blankets, in this weather that would be far too hot! Towels, two large and two small, take up a bit of room. Oilies and lifejackets (we prefer our own) take up more. Enough electrical gear to keep me happy including VHF & charger, iPod dock & charger, cameras & chargers, the list goes on! Library books (11) we do like to read, small 230V fan. it's hot at night over there, cool box, full, my (small) bag of gear, Mary-Jane's (large) bag of gear, laptop, car stuff (first-aid, warning triangle, spare bulb set, headlamp beam adjusters, dressing-gowns..... I could go on! Now it's time for another glass, then bed... 05.30 wake-up tannoy tomorrow.

Your guess was correct, Fred!

Here's one, any ideas?

Thurne, at Thurne Duke! When it comes up it is large enough to see the pub sign!

Salle or Booton, Jill?

Well, it seems as if a date around Whitsun (Fri-Mon, 23-26 May) would be about right for the Spring Meet... any suggestions on venues?

Good Morning, Mr C and welcome aboard the NBN from us. Let's hope for good weather to introduce your new "1st Mate" to Broads Boating!

Wow, Stow! How does ours (IPS) rate, then?

I nearly cried (with laughter) when I saw this... I'm used to the American use of it!

That's a good idea, I think, JTF. Perhaps a new topic (In Members ?) to sound out opinions?

And me! But I do have to click on the top left button to get them sometimes (To the left of the rubber)

Keith, Hi, nice to hear from you again. Where are you moored nowadays, pls?

Probably a silly question, Bob, but looking at the triple-moored boats I have to ask: just where do you all sleep?

Wow, Andy! She looks beautiful! Look forward to some more pics, please.

That's cruel, Alan!

She does look nice, Lori, I agree. But like other new boats I think it's a shame they are being built to exclude peeps from so many lovely parts of our waterways.

Wonderful, just wonderful, Fred.

The Shorts Belfast I used to fly had a 4000psi hydraulic system and we pressurised the accumulators with Nitrogen (at 4000psi). The Nitrogen came in the heaviest and strongest cylinders you can imagine! The sheer size and weight which would be necessary would actually probably help a Broads Cruiser by lowering its air-height significantly!

Well, Bob, lovely pics, I bet you stirred those cruisers somewhat.... You are certainly an adventurous lot and I do admire you all!

Not designed to go under the bridges,eh?

You make valid points there, Robin! Beta Marine have long been associated with boats and electrical power. We have a Beta 1500cc diesel which directly drives a 10KW genny, giving us 42A at 240V. It's all automatically controlled; you just turn a key for 15secs and it all comes to life. They're an impressive and innovative company! http://www.betamarine.co.uk/gensets/betaset_generatingsets.html