TheQ

Yes it based on the idea of the 2.4M but with a hull design more "Norfolk" keelboat in shape and 16ft long instead of the around 14ft of 2.4Ms

In Norfolk Broads terminology, there are, 3 groupings of boats , dinghies, keelboats and yachts. A dinghy which normally no ballast, a lifting keel or centreboard, they fall over if the crew doesn't balance the boat. A keelboat, which is larger and has a ballasted keel but no cabin and won't fall without its crew. A yacht which has a ballasted keel and a cabin. There are two main groups of yachts on the broads, Broads cruisers, which, have a fairly strict set of rules. http://www.rivercruiser.org. And as 3 rivers race puts it, production cruisers. either can actually be home made. There are of course boats which bend those general outlines, both the Norfolk punt and the Thames A rater, are much larger than boats that would be normally described as a dinghy, but effectively that's what they are. Giant dinghies. Much of the sailing including the 3 Rivers Race, on the Norfolk Broads is allcomers or handicap racing, sailing in one of the above classes, a home built boat would be assessed as to its class and performance and issued a handicap which it would then race, if it performed much better or worse than its handicap, it would be adjusted. All Norfolk Broads cruisers, a type of yacht, have their own handicap as very few are alike. There is the famous case of mock turtle, a home built / designed that looked as though it would sail like a pig, and was initially given a generous handicap. It turned out it sailed exceedingly well and won or did well in a few races before it's handicap cap was adjusted. Meanwhile I have my own home built / designed boat, under reconstruction, to change it from one grouping to another. Careful consideration is being taken as to what I do with it and how it would affect its handicap. This boat also bends the " rules" as it is so small it will be racing in dinghy classes, but is actually built like a keelboat and won't fall over if I fell out...

I morn the death of my Tesco hudl2 , faithful tablet of 5 years, it took a suicidal leap from the “ dashboard” of the motor boat, falling 6 foot to the metal edge of a step, destroying the screen. Long live the new tablet computer, this is being typed on, slightly. Less tablet shaped more phone shaped,. But it makes no phone calls… And so for the reason for the typing, my report on the 2018, yachtmaster insurance 3 Rivers Race… I got up at around 04:00 which is not unusual for me, breakfast at 5:00, then a semi snooze till 07:00 ish, make sandwiches, take the dog for a stroll round the garden, before departure For Hickling sailing club at 08:00. 15 minutes later arrive at the club and do some very careful reversing between boats to get the land rover near the jetty. There was a club member already there preparing for their own event, happily they got a rescue boat out for me, saving me some work while I unloaded the land rover. As I was now well ahead of schedule, I fitted the Ariel to the pole supplied by the 3RR, tied the pole, to the end of a gaff from my sailing boat, tied that to a fence, and tried a radio check. No answer, but it was early, so I retired to the clubhouse for a very nice bacon baguette, and coffee. During its consumption, i sent the last messages from the ex hudl2, it was then told to me that voices were being heard from the radio. So a successful radio check was carried out. I then waited, for the loan guardship, from Martham developments boatyard, which was late, when it arrived they informed me this was a replacement, as the hirers were late back with the intended boat. As it was we were supplied with a very nice Janet class cruiser, https://www.marthamboats.com/hire/motor-cruisers/9-janet-3 . The only problem for me was the most suitable place for me to set up was the aft cabin, but the only usb socket to keep the hudl2 charged was in the forward cabin. Hence it was placed on its extension cable above the companionway. The radio was set up, everything laid out on the table, coffee made, and we waited a short time for the start of the race. The gun went, I reached for the tablet, to type, they’re off!!! and the tablet, fell, without me touching it and the screen was destroyed. Having set up in a very humid atmosphere, we rolled back the roof, and settled down for developments, occasionally hearing of the slowly mobile traffic jam that gradually moved from horning ferry to Horning church. 11:00, first boats start, 13 are recorded DNS, did not start. 13:00 rain started, cockpit cover put back on. 13:05 Finally a sailing boat was seen entering the river Ant, 13:06, first retirement… 13:22 race officer shortens the course from stokesby to near acle boat dyke, just ¾ mile below Acle bridge. 13:20 first boat Thurne mouth 13:23 A rater at Ludham bridge. 13:40 very heavy rain ( later reports of flooding in Norwich and the airport having water coming through the roof) 14:00 punt under Potter Heigham bridge. 14:40 Thames A Rater at Martham. 15:00 reports of traffic jams of boats between cockshoot broad and the vicarage.. 15:16, first boat at Hickling, Thames A rater Lady Jayne. 16:38 11 boats have retired. 18:30 boats are still only just getting to Ludham bridge/ south Walsham broad. A distance at most about 5 miles from the start!!! 19:00 reports of heavy fog at Martham. 19:30 fog reaches us at Hickling sailing club. 20:00 a hire sailing boat departs the Pleasure boat Inn, Hickling, with half a dozen males of 20s age group. It to a couple of hundred yards down the channel, then curves of the channel and stops hard aground. We see them attempting to unstick, but then they retire inside, out of the rain/ drizzle and mist/ fog. 20:40 we cannot see much, even the buoy which is within hailing distance is mostly seen by its flashing light.. 23:09 first boat to finish lady jayne… 01:16 the last boat we see, white boat 96 chalkhill blue.. 02:30, everyone gets bored on the radio, a competition starts for songs, reflecting the race, I suggest “ the fog on the Tyne is mine ALL mine ALL mine”... 07:00 we start clearing up, loading the land rover with everything but the race sheets and the radio kit, shortly after we get the go ahead to pack up, with no wind and the tide going out nothing was going to reach us… 09:30 a very nice breakfast at Horning Sailing club, I decided to wait to see if Reedling RK4 will make it back… it didn't. 11:00 bed time…. We saw a total of, 33 boats, out of the 80 that started,

You're right, I was going from a foggy memory, after almost 36 hours awake a lot of it stareing through the fog. minor point I saw someone on a forum ( but now can't find the post) somewhere suggesting the race be moved to march avoid the build-up of non competing traffic. 1 he/ she obviously forgot about Easter which can be any time between 12 march and 25th April +- a week for the school holidays 2 before easter risks leaving the competitors out over night in snow and ice. 3 Early May, has its own Holiday, 4 16th June is the start of the fishing season. 5 all races on the broads are coordinated between clubs, having a moving date would cause massive programming problems, there are races every week thoughout the year often overlapping as it is..

Morning All, you may have noticed my sudden radio silence, at 11:00 Saturday morning, the gun went off, I reached for the tablet, it leapt off the area just inside the windscreen, down the companionway impacting on the latest metal step. Successfully committing suicide by smashing the screen. I made a full list notes, which I'll turn into a race report later once we've been shopping for a new tablet., This is SWMBOs which I found had 47 outstanding updates hence no race report yesterday.. Also I was a bit tired having spent the night peering into the fog for anything arriving. I can state, 93 entries, 80 starters, 15 finished, 3 A raters, 5 Norfolk Punts,. 7 broads cruisers. The provisional winner Lady Jane Race number 43, which is a Thames A rater..

Martham are a good boat yard, I'm sitting at Hickling awaiting a hire cruiser they are loaning to us for guardship duties.. two of our crew should be on they way up with it now...

Morning all, I'm sitting at Hickling awaiting the guardship, gears ready, rescue boat ready, bacon baguette had courtesy of Hickling SC. Here's a picture of the view ...

It's going to be warm so you don't wear water proofs you'll get wet, you do wear water proofs and you get hot sweaty and wet... I've just been to the sailing club and the light you'll be looking for on the buoy is orange as is the one on the guardship, so if you arrive in the likely fog , make sure you go round the buoy, as we'll be tied up to the Hickling sailing club pier..

It's coming up to Fixmas, down in the Falklands the military celebrate Fixmas, Falklands Island Christmas on 25 Jun, just 'cos it's in their winter..

Just found a little video of preparations for the 2013 race, it shows the sort of thing that will be going on round the club this afternoon.

Thank you...

Well, this is the last Bump for this as the race is tomorrow. just under 27 hours to go..Enjoy the viewing folks...

Morning Awl, this time Tomorrow I will be about to depart for Hickling Sailing club, to get one of their boats out for use as a rescue boat. Get a brush to brush the goose carp off of the pier, so we don't trample it into one of Martham hire boats especially as they have lent it to us at no cost.... Two others will head that way and collect the boat from Martham to bring it up to Hickling. Then four of us will set up the radio, do radio checks back to the club, and settle in to wait for Boat to arrive, Normally that will be about 14:00 this year….. The forecast For Horning Tomorrow Sat 2 Jun Hour Wind Avg. Gust Temp. Rain Cloud Press. 10:00 SSE 3 mph to 5 mph 19 °C 3.9 mm 66 % 1018 mb 13:00 WSW 5 mph to 7 mph 20 °C 8.7 mm 100 % 1017 mb 16:00 W 3 mph to 6 mph 20 °C 2.3 mm 90 % 1017 mb 19:00 WSW 2 mph to 5 mph 20 °C 0 mm 92 % 1017 mb 22:00 SW 5 mph to 6 mph 17 °C 0 mm 31 % 1018 mb Sun 3 Jun Hour Wind Avg. Gust Temp. Rain Cloud Press 01:00 WSW 7 mph to 10 mph 15 °C 0 mm 0 % 1018 mb 04:00 W 6 mph to 7 mph 14 °C 0 mm 0 % 1018 mb 07:00 WNW 6 mph to 8 mph 16 °C 0 mm 12 % 1019 mb 10:00 NNW 6 mph to 7 mph 20 °C 0.1 mm 64 % 1019 mb 13:00 N 8 mph to 8 mph 21 °C 0.1 mm 27 % 1019 mb I hope to be able to send the odd Picture and comment tomorrow as we the guardship , will be closer to the clubhouse this year, unless we get told to shorten course and move nearer the entrance to the broad… Good Luck every one…

It's something we are keeping an eye out for on the dozen guardships, as do other competitors. Mobile phones are good for recording errant behavior. It's also why we record the times of every boat that comes past a guardship, these are sent back the the club house and recorded. I believe more than one competitor has in the past recorded a suspiciously fast time between points when everyone else ground to a halt. They have been spoken to ... I had a chat about using trackers and the type that use the mobile phone system are £10 to 15 per boat for the weekend, but on board, low down in a small dinghy or keelboat they unlikely to work around much of the course. Attaching to the mast would be difficult as they have to go through all the bridges, and would probably be knocked off during the raising and lowering..

I first heard a cuckoo about 3 weeks ago, from my garden within sight of the Norfolk Broads area. that is unusually early for me I normally hear the first one during the 3RR. I also heard one from the Garden on Sunday..

Well the weather forecast continues to evolve, now showing a westerly 8mph at the start. Interestingly it also shows it dropping from 6mph at 13:00 to 1mph at 19:00 that should slow the A raters down.. They may see what darkness is!!

Yes it was still there at around 16:00 when I went past on the way home from the big orange shed. Just before then I nearly got hit myself just before roundabout the Norwich side of the NDR, a silver car was exiting the roundabout towards Norwich just as a Black range rover exited trying to overtake. Of course with very short merge exits on these roundabouts, 2 into one didn't fit with much blaring of horns the rangie scraped it's expensive alloys on the centre triangle kerbs then leapt onto it heading towards me... by me moving over and the rangie brakeing and pulling in behind the silver car we didn't meet but it was close.. A friend suggested why these roundabouts are so poor, he thinks as the road is a distributer road not bypass, they've been designed for low speed 30 mph traffic. Pity they built them like that on a 70mph NDR with normally 50 to 60mph roads crossing it...

There is a piece on |Radio Norfolk about the NDR and problems with roundabouts on Now (07:30 30/05/18) . Also on the Wroxham road NDR roundabout, one set of signs that had been partly demolished from the Norwich direction, have been finished off from the A47 direction overnight..

The forecast is up to 9mph at 11am for the start north westerly through to 16:00 easterly 19:00 Southerly 22:00 south westerly 01:00 Westerly 04:00 through to 07:00 then back to North easterly.. if it's foggy as well they will not know where they are!!

http://www.riverside-rentals.co.uk/norfolk-broads-holidays/

Not a hundred yards from the Hoveton and Wroxham station (BR), is the wrongly named Wroxham station of the Bure Valley railway (it's in Hoveton) https://www.bvrw.co.uk/timetable to which they are refering, more narrow gauge than Minature , a few hundred yards from the river and public morings.. Almost opposite the station in Hoveton, is Wroxham Minature Worlds https://wroxhamminiatureworlds.co.uk/ a model railway exhibition, in Wroxham is the Barton House railway http://www.bartonhouserailway.org.uk/ which is minature, which has it's own moorings I believe.

Acle or Potter? if it's Acle no jumping up and down in front of the camera, the Acle Bridge camera is courtesy of the Inn this year and it's already up and running..

This mornings forecast has gone up to a whole 6mph, a huge improvement, I think it's going to be an A rater / Punt / tall cruiser race unless it keeps increasing.. and a very long night for most... At this low wind speed the many boats will miss the window for going to Hickling first and have to go down with the tide to Acle, then back to Hickling..

No news on the guardship details, Worryingly the forecast for Saturday is showing only 3 mph northerly at 11am, The first boats are already tied up on the club frontage.