wave hi everybody, long time no see, seeing that picture is a little worrying, at the angle he's going at , but i don't think everybody needs a pilot to go through wroxham bridge, i think it's all down to common sense, & looking at the height level before going through the bridge,as alot of people have hired boats before so they know what to do & are usually sensible about it, although the people who hire ARE lucky to be able to have a pilot if they want one,we've just been on the broads with george smith at wroxham, & they told us that they did'nt have a contract with whoever runs that scheme,:ie. either the pilot or hoseasons/blakes, they told us that if we wanted to go under wroxham bridge, then we we're on our own, but to be careful,the boat was called sallyB with a height of was 6.10 , so we checked the bridge height which was only just under 7.ft ,as the water was a little high, so we slowly went under chains & there seemt plenty of room but actually going the through bridge we found we only had an inch spare but we were sensible & took it through slowly & got through ok, the people at the yard also told us that they were fed up people damaging their centre cockpit boat & it was in the shed being repaired again, as it had been damaged 4 times since they'd had it, so i guess it just goes to show that not everyone IS sensible, i don't know where you have been john ,but you don't get your damage waiver back anymore, that stopped years ago. but just to tell another bit of info, when you hire from them you don't get your fuel money back, it's all included in the price,with your damage waiver etc, & the only downside to hiring from them is that you have to take your own bedding, but on a good note, you don't have to take the boat back til 4.30 pm, so you get a lye in , nice as they hire by the day not night like hoseasons/blakes. lori
here is a pic of sallyB just to show you how high she is,