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Hockham Admiral

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Posts posted by Hockham Admiral

  1. cheersbar

    Lou, Hi

    Yes, we did indeed enjoy ourselves. Holland is such a marvellous cruising ground and it averaged out at about £11 per night at the various clubs we visited. And that's on a floating pontoon with water and electricity thrown in! Also, invariably, a clubhouse with bar and cafe, plus showers, toilets and laundry facilities.

    But it will be our last trip to Holland until, or if ever, the £ gets a lot better against the Euro than it is now! In a small bar or 'petite cafe' a glass of wine for Mary-Jane, a beer for me and a schnitzel/salad meal each wouldn't see much or any change from £50!!! So we ate a lot onboard! Wine was also plentiful and cheap at the supermarket; a litre of South African chardonney cost about £2.50... so we got through a fair bit of that!

    Off to the Southern Broads meet now; so won't be back here until Monday.

    cheers!

  2. The link below will put you through to our Snapfish album of our recent holiday on-board Friday Girl.

    http://www3.snapfish.co.uk/thumbnailsha ... napfishuk/

    We left Burgh Castle in mid-May and went via Oulton Broad, Shotley and Ramsgate to Holland. We then cruised the inland waterways of Zeeland before returning to the Broads via the Orwell and Ipswich.

    From Ipswich we returned to Burgh Castle via Gt Yarmouth, picked up Jim, our dog, and set off again on the Southern Broads up the Waveney and then the Yare to Norwich before finally back to Burgh castle and home in late June.

    Friday Girl is a Beneteau Antares 760 (25ft) with a single Volvo 3.6L turbo-diesel. We steamed for some 50 hours and covered 403 NM (about 460 miles).

    To best see the pics select "play slideshow" and then click on the icon immediately right of the full-screen icon to bring up the captions.

    cheers!

  3. cheersbar

    This takes me back a few years when I was showing our grand-daughter how to start the outboard (attached to the unsinkable/uncapsizeable tender we had...)...

    Well, it didn't sink but actually pitchpoled backwards-on with me in it! YES, I had my inflatable LSJ on.. which inflated whilst I was under the inverted tender but to such an extent that I was like the original Michelin-Man... arms forced outstretched and unable to get at the deflation tube (which I really didn't know where to look, anyway). I don't know if this was typical of auto-inflatable LSJ's but it was a very well known brand.

    It was very difficult to get out from under the tender and impossible to get out of the water (in the marina) because I could neither get at the deflation valve to let some air out, nor could I pull myself up because my arms were so stretched sideways out.. fortunately this was in the middle of a Sunday afternoon and grand-daughter's cries eventually attracted two fit young men.

    Had this happened at night, with no-one to help, then I hate to imagine the consequences...

    Moral of the story.. find out, and be able to locate, your deflation valve!

    Good Luck to all Failies! (and apologies to Sailies!)

  4. cheersbar

    Nigel and Julie, Hi

    I'm not too sure about libel laws and so I won't name the one I wouldn't use again... but it's the one fitted as new to our Beneteau Antares 760! It doesn't have a shear-pin fitted and when we ingested a passing rope it bent the shaft and we had to have a replacement. (about £1000...). It relies on the fuse blowing but this obviously didn't happen quickly enough. BTW it's a good idea to keep a spare fuse for your B/T as they are not universally available.

    We had a Vetus B/T fitted to our previous boat by Goodchild Marine at Burgh Castle and they were very competitive with other yards we tried.

    With the B/T when mooring alongside we always motor astern into the prevailing wind/current. I then step off and tie down the stern and Mary-Jane just uses the B/T to bring the bow in for me to reach the fore-line. The following Utube links help.

    Good Luck!

  5. cheersbar

    Thanks, Jill, here's another one.

    They were taken at Vlissingen (Flushing) last year in June when we spent a fortnight in Zeeland. We arrived via Shotley and Ramsgate overnighting and Blankenburg for refuelling. We had meant to stop off in Dunkirk but the weather was so gorgeous, calm seas and a following tide, that I pushed on to Blankenburg to refuel before continuing to Vlissingen (a mistake because fuel was cheaper in Holland than Belgium!).

    Entry to Vlissingen is quite easy directly from the sea except at LW +/- 2 hrs when the bar is restrictive. It's a lovely little seaside town and the marina used to be the fishing harbour. You can see some of the many bars and cafes in the background; some or most we managed to visit!

    We later motored on to Middelburg where we stayed for a week at the yacht club, meeting lots of old friends from previous years. Middelburg is another smashing place to visit and though we had meant to go further inland we found lots to do there.

    It finally took us about 6 hrs at cruising speed to get back to Lowestoft.

    With the £/Euro we are most likely to be found on the Broads this year!

    post-508-136713475991_thumb.jpg

  6. JM, Hi

    Coincidences! That must have been you overnight at the WRC moored next to us? We had a super time in the pub on NYE; not too many people but good music from the group and so very friendly faces.

    Also GCM where we will be moored this year after we come out for the rest of the winter tomorrow (at GCM). We were there in 1985 for a while and have had much work carried out by Alan and his team over the years... a top-class marine workshop, I don't think you will find better on the East Coast.

    Look forward to seeing you again in the Spring

  7. cheersbar

    Again many thanks for all those helpful tips and suggestions.

    We were not making light of the passage problem and did do it previously in 1980. However we knew little or nothing in those days about boating; I was a recently retired pilot in the RAF, so navigation wasn't a problem but with only an aeronautical chart we set sail to Grimsby and later up the Humber to York.

    The trip to Grimsby was quite long as our boat then was a Colvic 30 capable of 8-10 kts; we didn't have any nav kit apart from a compass but I recollect it was a relatively calm day!

    The trip from Grimsby up to York took us all day and basically we just cruised up the river with a following tide until we arrived at the lock; then on to York.

    Coming home we came via Lincoln and had to part flood the bilge in order to get under the Glory Hole! Through the Wash was mainly foggy and we picked up a crab pot off Wells (but I had a wet-suit on board and managed to cut it free...).

    Ah, the stupidity of (relative) youth!

    But hopefully we have learned some lessons in the past 28 years boating, mainly sail but now motor, and the ideas gleaned from all the posts in reply to our topic have been most appreciated.

  8. cheersbar

    So many thanks to you all for all that excellent advice.

    We have motored to Holland (yes, in a 25ft boat) many times and understand the problems of sea-passages; so up the coast to Grimsby won't be too daunting.

    All the www's have been so helpful and that's exactly why we joined this net.

    If it would be interesting we will post a short blog of our trip when we return?

    Good Boating in 2009 wherever you may go.

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