JawsOrca

It seems a bit of a rock and a hard place. Parish Council trying to save costs but still try and improve things for their parishioners and the BA who do seem incompetent with everything really trying to save money so they can spend on their own egos and who have no doubt asserted their egos on the parish councillors a number of times. Surely at the end of the day it's a mooring for the general public and these government organisations should just leave their egos at the door and do their job and sort it out with the less cost to the general public.

it probably has an accumulator so it basically recharges the water system to keep pressure up.. it helps make the pump last longer.

I hope that's not a sign that they are moving away from the woodies :(

I've seen the same on a number of occasions... I won't say too much but I'm looking forward to day I meet one who has the right idea.

More reason that its in the wrong location if the boats using it now are more unsuited for safely using it. I certainly agree there should be more signage there, traffic signals perhaps if its clearly unsafe to attempt to moor from the direction the boat is currently going, and clearly indicate, turn now or do not turn keep going type thing. Although painful it keeps to still consider the competence of the average waterway user and the poor design of a boat. Personally I disagree that pushpits should help, they would soon smash off when the stern hits the wall with 6kts of current and a crew throwing the boat in reverse as they panic to avoid crashing..

I do feel this report is missing a glaring point... that being the location of the GYYS itself. It's positioned far too close to bridges, which on ebb tide can create a cause of panic, the river there is far far to narrow to even considering trying to turn to moor. The strength of the current there is obviously the strongest on any of the broads and clearly very different from anywhere where initial handover was done. Whilst it may always have been there it is certainly in the wrong location and really should be closed, the river there should only be used for passage only. The old marina keys spot would be a far better location. Anyways I know it's been said many times before and it wont be moved for every reason under the sun. But everything crossed one day it will be as sadly this will happen again.

I thought it was beccles too, did you do something to St olaves or am I imagining that too? (Although I've hit that more than once)..

Paul, you know he has hit his head on Beccles, and potter (and obviously ludham).. Don't be surprised if he somehow manages it!

Is a good little boat and far better suited really, you really need to venture under all the bridges though. Can't believe you have ended up so close but at least if you get bored you can wash Orca!

In answer to the OP question; We have/had just general 12v bar car type spot lights: https://www.12voltplanet.co.uk/rectangular-led-work-lamp-3000-lumens.html which we use on dark nights where the general light levels are so low that the reflection of the night sky isn't reflected on the river so you can't navigate from that (and/or back in the day looking for unmarked channels), so these just light up the path. It's better than a powerful spotlight and makes it safer than nothing. There is nothing stated in the byelaws nor COLREGS in doing that is against these rules. OP just be aware that your alternator will need to keep up, ours struggles on slower speeds and the voltage alarms go of.. :( ) Also times where a spotlight is needed but indeed a rechargable portable handheld searchlight just for that quick flash is probably a more suited option and of course that ideally shouldn't be run all the time and the battery probably wouldn't last too long anyway. Indeed most of the time just navlights is ok and obviously on the broads you should be following the byelaws (which is rather cut down from normal COLREGS and of course the byelaws overrule COLREGS, there is an in-depth bit there about lighting and indeed you will probably see most broads boats don't follow them! (I.e anchor lights)).

Oh geez, It's nothing, I wouldn't normally say anything but the way I had to tie I thought you may had wondered who's been on! plus you had lines in the water and your lifebelt was trying to escape! I always have a good check on any boats our side though neighbourly care and all :) (And all looking good if you are moored in "our" basin and no obvious issues those on the hardstanding).

That's not fully there. We was aboard for about 13 years. We had a wide beam barge (thing) in salt water which was causing a maintenance nightmare (But part of that was to do with the location and the marina) so we sold that and brought the Broom which although looks good on paper it wasn't intended as a livaboard so it was colder in the winter. We had a hens tooth of an official legal resi mooring. It had it's good points; It was cheaper, Summers were amazing, people were lovely, it was secure. It had it's bad points; Maintenance costs, Our residential marina was very restrictive with certain things and took the edge of the enjoyment and slowly it got expensive, in some way were a bit stuck. Heating was expensive in the winter (£100 a week easily). We only moved ashore; 1 due to one of our jobs relocating during covid. 2. the wanting to move up to norfolk which is where we clearly spent most of our time. 3. One of us not quite liking the boat. But I still miss the boatlife bigtime and in an ideal world we probably would have looked to living aboard a different boat up here if such option existed. (I can't knock house living though, it's really nice to own land here in north suffolk now it's taken a lot of stresses away and has provided security, I think it's also lucky that I've found a good job locally too :) but yeah I still miss parts of it) Would I recommend it? It depends, it's not an easy life, it's not a cheap life, security is an issue, both in terms of property and ability to find a mooring. Laws and rules are restrictive, Marina owners can be tough. It's really not an option to use as a base, certainly not in this country and the only real option is continuous cruising. Certainly focus on heating, a log burner is a must. I was very reluctant to move onto a boat at first but I saw it as an adventure and I only look back with positive thoughts.. go for it :)

Don't you Northfolk come down here and take our NHS dentist.. geez.. Not that there's any anyway.. I'm still going back to Kent to use mine.. Glad you sorted with your docs, I'm just doing ours, it's just a little walk the corner, just past the butchers, bakery and the pub thankfully..

The only things I would ever do is certainly pop in an SSD although reinstalling windows can be a pain. Also increase the RAM, I certainly wouldn't bother with upgrading processors and boards, if you are looking at that then it's really a new machine. Sadly capacitors fail so before upgrading a machine make sure they look normal and not bloated on the board. I've brought a few really good "refurbished" machines via ebuyer and they are very reasonable specs for a really good price, worth a look.

Take care Tim. Many thanks for all the hard work and good luck to the new team.

Where's the pictures of the cooker?

I never got ours to work when inside the hull.. It used to work on our other boat but anything which attached to it would throw it out.. (I don't believe it needs setting up other setting the hull offset - I believe other causes for misreadings is electrical interference from electric circuits, they really like to be some distance from such.. Good luck..

Brings back some memories. I was largely involved in releasing this to the UK market. It is good stuff and it's still pretty cool to see boats with it installed. Go for templating yourself. If you get stuck and on the northern rivers I maybe able help with templating.

That certainly is a lot of money for a few days.. I felt weird spending £380 for 3 nights with Marthams so I would never justify that. It maybe a tad unfair to conclude it's profiteering from the pandemic though considering if you search on the website it shows the same price for next year, so perhaps that's the cost the boat justifies although again I can't see how. These post on facebook do seem to always face negative comments which can be quite funny to watch considering some are clearly aiming for positive advertising.. Personally I don't understand why such last minute availability isn't offered with a heavy discount, surely it's far better to get something from the boat than have it sitting in the yard? but what do I know.. Perhaps yards could do the odd deal though perhaps to our key workers who have worked so selfishly over the last few years.. Bust always follows boom.. I know I'm looking forward to jetting of to the sun next year (or the year after)!

Pops just don't touch the machines! Mum said they changed the machine to one that doesn't beep as much but we will have to get the straight jackets if he does touch this one... Hopefully you will at least get some sleep today. Mum seems in a good enough spirits too, she said she's going to do some things around the house on sunday as he's not there! (Personally I think they are losing it).. No doubt you will he home soon, get the house all done and dusted and get you up here... Thanks everyone too, him and ma have certainly had a rough ride.

Let me know if you want to me to talk to David. I'll even move it up if we have to ;)

I received a link to Clippers skippers guide. It's kinda publicly available online and I'm sure Martham won't mind sharing as it makes for interesting reading. Any probs with sharing shout and/or remove. https://www.marthamboats.com/pdfs/Clipper.pdf

Thanks MM.. We had a falmouth gypsy and she was a bit like that, just had to slowly let the wind take her around but she needed miles to turn.. I think thats what I'm kind of wondering on the broads! how on earth do I find miles of waterway to get a slow tack in when I'm about to crash into a day boat.. We will see! Appreciate any more tips! Broads sailers are certainly brave I feel!

https://planning.broads-authority.gov.uk/PublicAccessDocs/planningdocs.aspx?appType=Development Control&appNumber=BA/2021/0145/FUL My views for what irrelevance they are worth. I kinda prefer parts of the first plan! The second building just looks too big now and too commercial, but it's hard to judge I guess. Ludham bridge in my view is a bit of dump and certainly needs work, it did go through a stage of being a bit trendy with little pop up shops and a bar I think but they next time we went back it all seemed gone? So I'm all for improvement of this place.. I totally feel for any developer as it's impossible to please anyway and it's clear to see the BA typically have little clue what on earth they are doing. Here's what I'd do I think.. Fishing place and little shop stay for sure, Riverside cafe (clearly not helped by the bank, but terraced platform for the cafe). Personally I think the broads are being overrun by holiday lets, I don't like them personally, but how about a hotel or B&B instead, surely these bring more to the community?, or as mr speedtriple some neat log cabins (somewhere),although I guess space is tight :(. It seems the sticking point will be the holiday lets which I can kinda see and these taking up the riverside area I think is what's not keeping with the area as I think it will give the appearance of urbanising that part of river (albeit slightly) although the BA's acle bridge plan has kinda destroyed that idea too (has that been scrapped now?). Good luck all involved. Nice to have some redevelopment on the broads though!