Vaughan

I would suggest that too much wild mooring has been lost because the landowners of any simple piece of river bank have learned how to be greedy enough to expect people to pay for it. If you are looking for something that has grown "out of control" - that is it.

I have suggested above why the Broads situation may be entirely different, owing to bank ownership. In my own memory, however, it "pales into insignificance" compared with the number of houseboats in the 50's and 60's. Just because we wish to allow the current inhabitants the chance to find their own affordable arrangements doesn't mean there is going to be an increase out of control. Unless, of course, the current slump in hire boat tourism leads to a follow-on slump in the price of second hand cruisers. As it has always done before. And in that case, the Broads will have a lot more to worry about than this!

I appreciate what Fred, Dom and Cheesy say but there is one salient point : All the river banks on the Broads are privately owned and there is no towpath, since they were originally made navigable for commercial traffic by sail power, not horses. This alone, makes the Broads unique. On all of the canal system, both the waterway and its banks are wholly owned by the waterway authority. So they have complete control over who moors there and under what conditions. The Thames also has a public towpath along all of its length. Marinas on the Broads already provide facilities for mooring customers : water, shore power, shore toilets and showers, car parking and waste disposal - even wifi - all included in the rent. So living on a boat there (as opposed to spending a week on one's boat on the same mooring) does not put any extra strain on the facilities at all. You think I keep going on about Jenners Basin? Let's consider it for a moment : An off river, quay headed basin, built with full planning permission exclusively for private moorings. All the land around on an otherwise un-inhabited island. Access by road for island parking over its own private road bridge. Drinking water from artesian well. 10 minutes by bus for those with jobs in Norwich. Boatyard facilities such as diesel and pumpout easily available at the other end of the island, since all boats were tolled, insured and had a current BSS. Yes, they did! They weren't doing anyone any harm at all and were not even disturbing the badgers that live in the railway embankment, nor the foxes, nor the pheasants. It is a lovely, tranquil and private place to live. I know - I grew up there. But their peace was shattered by the BA, whose then Chair decided they were "feral people" and set about 10 years of deliberate persecution until they were finally thrown out onto the river system and the landowner himself had to sell up to pay his legal fees. And now we sit here, wondering what to do about "the live-aboard problem"? @BroadsAuthority need to embrace the fact that their persecution of Jenners moorings has, sure enough, rebounded on them and allow flexibility in the use of residential moorings, which have been a tradition on the Broads for literally hundreds of years. It's not a problem. Unless they want to make it one.

You can always moor on the BA pontoon, just on the Yarmouth side of the Breydon Bridge, which is there for boats wishing to wait for the tide in the Yacht Station. We have often used it before.

How about Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey, from Gotterdammerung? I was up and around about 3 hours ago as well, but I slunk off back to bed without disturbing any of you . . . .

Which I most certainly don't ; never have done and don't intend to. Unless they are drawn to my attention by this forum. I cannot see any relevance whatever, to that iconic moment in honouring one of the country's most famous comedians. Unless you are suggesting that all this internet blogging is just slapstick comedy. Which, of course, it is!

And even that is not the main point : these little "peeping Toms" are actually earning a living out it. This is a rather nasty form of voyeurism.

I wouldn't say that was stupid. You researched the tides and you kept very good contact with the rangers, who I am sure would have recommended not going across if they thought it was too rough. All the same, Breydon can be pretty "aggressive" at times! What bothers me a bit, is what effect this is going to have on hire boats, if the tides are so far out of time and much higher than usual.

Oh God, what a muddle we are getting ourselves into, in our "civilised world". Oh happy band of pilgrims, look upward to the skies : Where such a light affliction shall win so great a prize. Hymns (A&M) 629.

So are we saying that this is all funded by advertising? Edited to add : Thank you very much for reply. I am not being flippant : I am actually very keen to see how this monster feeds itself!

Firstly, thank you Grendel, for starting this debate on what I might call the "open" forum. And now, here's the dinosaur in me : I just can't get my head around the economics of all this. In the business world that I am used to, you manufacture your product and then your customers come and buy it. If I view something on Youtube, I don't pay for it - it comes for free. But all these little bloggers can make what seems to be a good living just by getting lots of clicks for their "efforts". So who is actually paying them? The clickers certainly are not and I can't see how Youtube is, either. So how does this new multi billion Pound industry sustain itself? And how does Elon Musk make so much money, just out of everybody's silly little tweets? Or was my mother wrong all along, and money really does grow on trees?

Working with collaborative partners, again?

Sorry I can't recommend an engineer but this sounds a bit strange. I can only think that the "Silentbloc" engine mountings have deteriorated, which has allowed the whole engine to move forward. Might be worth checking this before anything else.

I can just remember the rationing and I have still got my ration card, somewhere in a box. My mother kept 200 chickens in runs in the wood on the island, with a licence to sell the eggs to the "Min. of Ag. and Fish."

I don't think either MM or Griff need to apologise to each other. They are both regular users of the navigation - and what little is left of its "facilities" - but they are seeing it from their own viewpoints. I think Griff's post was objective rather than flippant, since he is quite right. As a regular cruising boat owner, whilst he understands the circumstances that some of the "liveaboards" may be in, he is nonetheless put out by their mis-use of BA facilities and their casual attitude to their surroundings, which detracts from the beauty of the Broads rivers. Quite understandable. I would just say that most of this has to do with anti-social behaviour, which is a police or local council matter and not necessarily anything to do with them living on a boat. MM is living on a boat, so he is very naturally looking at it from that perspective. As such, he has had much more opportunity to get know the characters personally. My own perspective is that of a commercial boat hirer, who has grown up to love the Broads as well as to earn his living there. If the Broads were not a beautiful and attractive place to come on holiday, we wouldn't have any customers and the BA would not be able to afford to maintain the place! So I try to set aside the "symptoms" of the problem, such as overstaying on BA moorings, and look more at the root cause of it. It is the BA who have overturned the traditional way of life on a Broads houseboat by banning residential moorings. Why have they done this? With my knowledge of the 10 years of saga at Jenners, I would point the finger and say their attitude has been snobbish and overly class conscious. Their Chairperson even described residential boaters as "Feral people in a shanty town" and for some reason, was never obliged to resign. That speaks volumes in itself. The BA have created this ugly scenario by their own hands. It is now up to them to face up to the fact that living on a boat is an ancient Broads tradition and to allow it to continue in peace. What about all the wherrymen and their families ; the eel catchers ; the wildfowlers and indeed the boatyard owners themselves? This is the persecution of what has become a perceived underclass and it is time it stopped.