JennyMorgan

My wife, long after the event, told me that her father was horrified when I turned up late for a first date riding a 1920's 'sit-up-and-beg' pedal bike, wearing shorts, a fisherman's slop and riding bare foot and was complete with beard & shoulder length hair. I was clearly a waste of space & she was wasting her time on me, that was forty five years ago! Never judge a book by its cover!! Heaven only knows what she saw in me but I'm glad that she did!

Very true, Fred. I well remember going to the Isle of Wight 'pop' festival when Jimi Hendrix was performing, an incredible experience all round. Not that I ever took drugs but there were quite a few comatose bodies dotted around the Island in the aftermath. I can't really put my finger on it but it seemed different back then, We were far more naive back then, what ever we did was an adventure. I tried smoking, was as sick as a dog, never again. Likewise I drank myself into a stupor, just once. Perhaps there was an innocence back in the sixties that has long since disappeared.

In days of old was it anti social behaviour or high spirits? I think that I can safely say that by and large society still respected respect back then. As a kid I well remember tobogganing down the side of a steep railway cutting on a tin tray, or riding my soap-box cart down the stairs of a railway bridge, wasn't brave enough to do it on a push bike as did some of my friends. We had our kicks, but not out of a bottle, we couldn't afford it!

Aww, come on, the Broads are at their very best come September & October, apart from the Webasto roar in the mornings!

Soon be the autumn shoe sales

Lowestoft Bridge gives priority to commercial shipping but not pleasure craft, perhaps understandably. Network rail just does not maintain its bridges. Time for local MP's to act on our behalf. This is what is required of the railway companies: 15User of bridges. Where the company constructs a bridge with an opening span, it shall not be lawful for the company to detain any vessel, barge, or boat at the bridge for a longer time than may be necessary for admitting a carriage or engine traversing the railway and approaching the bridge to cross the bridge, and for opening the bridge to admit the vessel, barge, or boat to pass; and the company shall be subject to and shall abide by such regulations with regard to the user of the bridge as may from time to time be made by the Board of Trade. If the company detains a vessel, barge, or boat longer than the time aforesaid, or fails in any respect to abide by any such regulation as aforesaid, they shall for every such offence be liable to a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds, without prejudice to any remedy against them for any loss or damage sustained by any person.

Naa, I was perfect! For all the stupid things that I did in my formative years I like to think that at least my boatmanship was generally beyond criticism . At least I didn't behave like this, that famous RIB footage:

Might have been written in jest but there is a ring of truth in Vaughan's comment, witness the tragic RIB crash at Oulton Broad Regatta last summer. It isn't just holiday makers who, on occasion, behave like low grade morons. Don't forget that infamous YouTube footage of an out of control RIB and a Hampton Safari.

A few spare fenders dangling over the front bumper & wings could prove to be a wise precaution.

It has long been the case that some 'wise' clients pick up the booze and excess crew members away from the boatyard. In my days at Fowlers Boatyard at Oulton Broad, if we had any suspicions, then we would nip round to Everitt Park where they inevitably headed and insist that our terms and conditions, e.g. six hirers on a six berth boat, were upheld. We would also point out that there is a network of hire yards on the Broads, all of which talk to each other, which they did back then. It didn't always work, we did have one boat trashed.

Regretfully it has long been the case that there are folk out there that see a trip on the Broads as an excuse to be total, irresponsible prats. Fun is one thing, indeed I do partake on occasion, but to come here with the general intent of creating alcohol fueled mayhem is not acceptable. I have always liked the Broads for the fact that it is a holiday resort and that people come here to enjoy themselves but there has to be reasonable limits as to what is acceptable.

In that case a wooden sailing boat porn section would be more than wholly justified.

Thank you, Robin, for your constructive and apt comments. A pity that reality is seen as BA bashing.

Rest assured that the Authority is constantly reminding Network Rail of its responsibilities. Whether the time is right for a legal challenge is open to debate but cost has to be a factor.

Keith, just in case you missed this, by the way it was written by a F.R.I.C.S. http://www.thebroadsblog.co.uk/2017/06/thorpe-island-planning-policy-update.html

If I, and others, understand things correctly then a covenant is not a planning issue. A covenant is between the purchaser & the vendor. That aside, if it goes to court, then it has to be shown to be reasonable. A previous judgement was that the purchasers should quite reasonably expect to see moored boats on the river. Anyway, all that aside, it's up to the courts to decide, not you or me.

Well, actually I do think it fair. Whilst some moorings have been approved others have not.

Back then, Steve, the Broads had far more hire yards than it does today. These all provided reciprocal moorings for their clients but those days have long gone. On top of that there are many more private boats, most needing two moorings, one to go from and one to go to. Then, of course, we have a Broads Authority that, for whatever reason, is having problems negotiating with various land-owners and seemingly, if we consider Thorpe Island as an example, a reticence in providing or authorizing moorings. And there is more, the Environment Agency Flood Alleviation project has lost us several scores of moorings. No need to cap the number of boats, just that the fleets need to be spread out across the system, not just up North.

The point is, Alan, that even with a credit card payment, the facilities that are served by the mooring are not earning money, e.g. the crew aren't in the pub. The other problem is, from a business point of view, is that folk reserve a mooring for Saturday night for example. Granted that they'll possibly have a meal but they'll also hog the mooring for most of the weekend thus preventing folk who actually want to use the pub from mooring. It's up to the landlord, their business, but turning passing trade away doesn't seem sensible to me. I have moored outside a pub on the Yare for a lunchtime pint when we decided to stay for an evening meal only to be told that we will have to move our boat, only there was no where to move it to! We have never been back. Perhaps a £50.00 upfront mooring fee to include payment towards an evening meal is a way forward? Whatever, I don't see an easy answer.

Do the pubs concerned reserve spaces in their car-parks? We once sailed up to the WRC for a lunchtime pint, all reserved moorings, bar humbug, so we carried on up to Beccles. Late lunch and a few pints at the Waveney House, lovely. Sailed back past the WRC early evening, still an unoccupied 'reserved mooring' that presumably had been unoccupied all day, I really do not see the logic, from a business point of view, of loosing trade by offering reserved moorings.

But there are extremes! We were drawn into their merriment, a good session it was, but we didn't become legless. My question of 'why' is, I think perfectly valid. Why are people drawn to boats and excess boozing? Merriment, great, all for it, being incapable, well, I had grown out of that before I was legally able to visit pubs!

That said, Loo, we didn't drink to near extinction! Got to agree with that!

Last year I was moored up at the Commodore at Oulton Broad when three WRC dayboats came and moored up. The cockpits were awash with empties and spilt ice, the crews were hammered. Granted that we all had a laugh both with and at their antics but their behaviour did beg the question, why?

Out of curiosity I have just trawled through a month's worth of comments on Trip Adviser only to find just one person complaining about reserved moorings. If I believe what has been written then I really don't see the comments as nasty and if what the complainer has written is true then he/she surely had good reason to comment.