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Vaughan

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Posts posted by Vaughan

  1. In all seriousness, I understand that the idea is that bats tend to follow the same route along the sides of woodland or hedges when out hunting at night. I know that they actually hunt in a regular course pattern, going round in small circles.

    The bat crossings are supposed to give them a trail to follow, where the road building has taken away the original course of the woodland. This therefore keeps them at a safe height above the road.

    As what little is left of their woodland habitat will soon become several square miles of housing estate I think the whole idea is spurious.

  2. The Broads National Parkway (which I am sure they wanted to call it) is not a Norwich bypass nor a northern ring road and was never designed to be.  It was built as a feeder road into what is fast becoming a vast and all-enveloping dormitory housing estate.  It is what the planners are calling the "Growth Triangle", which is already beginning - and is planned - to smother the whole of the countryside  between Norwich, Wroxham, Brundall and Acle.

    So in the future a journey from Norwich to the Broads by car or train, will be undertaken entirely through a landscape of random "affordable" little boxes, each with its wooden barrier fence around it, while all the surrounding roads, pavements, driveways and patios will just cause all the now polluted rainwater to run off into the Broads rivers.

    When I think of the beautiful central Norfolk farmland that I grew up in, it makes me weep.

    If you extend the NDR you will simply extend the total devastation and rape of all the land around it.

    So where will the bats go then, I wonder?

     

    • Like 4
  3. 29 minutes ago, Smoggy said:

    This is my chopping block, admittedly it's not been used since I got a leccy logsplitter, but it's got some very pretty shrooms on it.

    Don''t let that lot anywhere near your boat!!!!!

    • Like 1
  4. TI.7.thumb.jpg.61350b64abf54291041af9c0f5eb959e.jpg

     

    In this picture, from 1948, Morning Flight has just been towed under the bridge, with all the superstructure stripped off and is being converted into a houseboat. Behind her, there are cruisers moored on Hazells yard, as well as the old houseboat that I think they lived in at one time.

    I am afraid I am pretty sure I don't have any others of the yard itself but if I come across anything I will post it.

    • Like 13
  5. 32 minutes ago, justbuildit said:

    Please see the red propeller in the picture,  the last owner claimed that it used to be from Morning Flight- what's your thoughts Vaughan?

    No, it certainly wasn't, as Morning Flight had her engines and stern gear taken out by the boatyard in Rochester where father bought her. He gave them all the machinery in return for hauling her out for repairs and painting and then towing her from the Medway to Gt Yarmouth. Many years later, he rather ruefully reflected that he had given away three Rolls Royce Merlin engines!

    I don't remember the propellor from "my time" but it could perhaps have come from one of the old motor wherries at May Gurneys, on Griffin Lane.

    The shed looks much as I remember it and the site looks good too. I wish you well!

    • Like 6
  6. hazellcruiser.thumb.jpeg.424dd2d1c79bc5b8bd82698578112ae7.jpeg

     

    Afraid I can't find any photos of Hazell's cruisers but they had about 3 of them and they looked more or less like this.

    I notice they were no longer members of Blakes by 1939.  Which, as I remember them from the 50s, does not surprise me!

    • Like 10
    • Love 1
  7. Good morning and welcome to the forum.  Welcome also, to Thorpe Island!

    To introduce myself, I am the son of Cmdr and Mrs Ashby, who owned Hearts Cruisers from 1947 to 1966. They then continued to run it it for several years on behalf of Jenners and then Ladbrokes.  They finally moved off the island in 1989.

    It is worth remembering that the Island was created by the building of the railway in 1844.  Before then, it was the south bank of the main river and was thus part of the meadows on the Crown Point estate.  Since then it has been owned, in strips, by the houses opposite along the Thorpe road.  In your case, the land was owned by Steward and Pattesons brewery, who owned the pub, then called the Thorpe Gardens.

    Up until the 50s, the land was a boatyard run by the Hazell brothers, who had been members of Blakes well before the war.  They ceased their activity in the mid 50s and the yard, with its slipway and boatshed, was rented by the then landlord of the pub, Tony Loweth.  In the mid 70's it was taken over by Brian Coley, who by then was the manager of Hearts, which was then owned by Pennant Holidays.  Brian used it for private boat repairs and also built a couple of launches in the shed.  Who has owned it in the interim, since Brian died, I don't know.

    I have not heard it called Fields before, as Stephen Fields' yard was out on the main river on the other side of the railway bridge, where there is still a large old slipway and there used to be a boatshed.  It is now part of the land owned by the boatyard and marina, in a basin behind the Frostbites Sailing Club.  In the 1800s, Stephen Field had a yard on the Wensum by Cow Tower, where he was a neighbour of John Loynes, before John moved to Wroxham.  He built and hired rowing skiffs and half-deck yachts.  When he moved his business to Thorpe he also built a wherry on the slipway.   He later ceded his business to John Hart, who was then the Landlord of the Three Tuns.  The Rushcutters has had several different names in the past!   John then hired out the skiffs from the pub, using the long boatshed which was part of the building in those days.

    After the railway was built, John moved his business over to the island, where he created the yard of J. Hart and son, which later became G. Hart and sons.  When my parents bought it, they re-mamed it Hearts Cruisers, although the hire boats had always had their "Heart" names.  Several generations of the Hart family lived in a bungalow on the island, which is now the site of the old office building.

    So you can trace the history of the land's use as a boatyard for quite a long way back!

    In the history section of this forum there is a thread called Vaughan's posts of memories of Thorpe, which you might find interesting for a bit more history of the island and of the other yards, Jenners and A.G.Ward.

    p.s. I have just looked up Blakes catalogue of 1916, where both Hart and son, and G. Hazell, are listed as member boatyards.

     

     

    • Like 13
  8. 9 minutes ago, floydraser said:

    So most probably early fifties for the lettercard?

    Yes, and in which case it would be rare to have colour photos.  I imagine this might have been printed by Jarrolds, in Norwich.

    • Like 1
  9. 1 hour ago, grendel said:

    it has the look of a delight, but the back deck is curved not flat and I dont see the steering quadrant that a delight would have on the back deck.

    Hmm . . .

    Possibly another "clone" then.  It was fairly common in those days for yards to copy the designs of others.  I know for a fact that Stalham Yacht Station's big old cruisers, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, were direct copies of a Brooms Admiral!

    • Like 1
  10. Looking again at Oulton Broad, I see that the yacht moored on the central pontoon is the famous River Cruiser no 7, "Forester".  There also seem to be a lot of yachts moored on the buoys outside Trumans yard and the maltings.  So I would guess this was taken during Oulton regatta week.  Moored to the left is one of the Foam class from Jack Powles and on the other side are a couple of varnished Windboats.  A lot of yards had their boats in varnish in those days but in the Ludham bridge photo, the boat coming in to moor, towing a dinghy, seems to be a Herbert Woods Delight, in varnish.  I don't remember that!

    • Like 2
  11. What a lovely memento and thanks a lot for posting it.

    For a date, I think it is pretty old, probably the early 50s.

    I notice no boatyard buildings in the photo of Ludham bridge and It also seems to be before the boatyard development, at Acle. There is a predominance, it seems, of yachts over motor boats and a lot of those smaller cruiser designs were gone before the start of the 60s.  In fact, a large proportion of the boats were built before the war.  At Acle I notice a Sabrina class yacht and the ex Gorleston lifeboat, "Friend of All Nations".  One of the boats at Salhouse is the 5 or 6 of Hearts, also built pre-war.  At Oulton, there are still rowing skiffs for hire.   And look at all those boats moored on mud weights, on Malthouse Broad.

    What strikes me most is the river banks. All the popular moorings were just earth banks, with a footpath through the grass along the top of the bank.  Hence the expression "along the rhond".  I like the cattle, grazing on the bank at Thurne, right next to Curtis's Stores on the staithe.  Quite a common sight then and you had to watch out for deep holes in the bank, where their hooves had sunk into the soft earth.

    This was the Broads of my childhood and it was a wonderful place.  I sometimes feel privileged to be old enough to remember it when it was at its best.

    • Like 12
  12. This lamentable impasse is known as "might is right" and it happens all over the Broads wherever a boater is confronted, in an isolated spot with no witnesses, by two or more burly and thoroughly offensive individuals.  There is usually no choice but to go and find somewhere else to moor.

    1/. The Ant is a navigation, so fishermen have no priority over river traffic.

    2/. They are correct that this part of the mooring is not BA.  It is, however, the parish staithe for the use of boats and I cannot believe that the parish would have sold fishing rights to these two "beasts of burden" to the exclusion of those who have the right to moor boats on the staithe.

    3/. Forgive my ignorance, but is fishing still allowed at this time of year?

    4/. One of the men pushed the bow of the boat off but he did not interfere with mooring lines, so that may not be an offence.  What most clearly is an offence, with video evidence is, at the very least, "conduct likely to cause a breach of The Peace" and should certainly be reported to the Police.

     

    • Like 1
  13. 100_1351.thumb.jpg.492451db7af6232c56e11544d2320d06.jpg

     

    100_1353.thumb.jpg.e51b3091c8fff405c9b8e0c91b342ac9.jpg

     

    They won't see the canal look like this again for another 50 years, even though they have re-planted a lot of areas - with more or less success.

    There is still a lot of dispute about the cause of this fungus and whether it could have been treated.  It is strange that trees along roads which run alongside the canal only 50 yards away are still there un-affected.  And yet they insist the disease was not transmitted by the water!

    Very bad for business I am afraid. Tourism on the canal has slumped in the last few years.

     

     

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1
  14. 8 hours ago, dom said:

    Sailing yachts, typically 3' 6"

    Classic Broads River Cruisers such as Maidie, Ladybird and Raisena - among many others - draw 4' 6" or more.  These are traditional Broads boats built before the war.

    The pleasure wherry Solace ran hard aground in the lower Bure on her way to Oulton regatta a couple of years ago.  A trading wherry such as Albion would draw 7ft when loaded and nowadays, I guess she draws around 5 feet.

    Sorry, but if a Norfolk wherry can no longer make passage on the main rivers without grounding in the channel, then the BA are not fulfilling their obligation to maintain "The Navigation".

    • Like 2
  15. 11 hours ago, Karizma said:

    When we did Karizma for the first time last year, we used a coat of underwater Primer (where needed if the antifouling had completely disappeared),

     

    11 hours ago, Karizma said:

    “……to prevent corrosion problems, do not use copper based anti-fouling”

    Just a couple of points here :

    If there are areas of bare gelcoat, especially near the waterline if you have altered the height of the line, you must get a good "key" on the gelcoat, by sanding it with 100 grit or by applying a coat of GRP etching primer.  Preferably do both.  Antifoul will not stick to bare gelcoat.

    Copper based antifoul can cause problems of galvanic corrosion to metal fittings, even on a GRP hull.  This is why Vetus don't want it near the thruster as it may corrode the bearings.  A lot of bow thrusters, especially hydraulic ones, have their own sacrificial anode, for this reason.

    • Like 5
    • Thanks 2
  16. 2 hours ago, Meantime said:

    I think you're just baiting now Vaughan. So in the words of the Dragons.  I'm out of this discussion. 

    Oh dear! 

    Please don't duck out now, since you are the one who says" this should serve as a warning to us all".

    I feel sorry for Hylander, who posted a link to Youtube in all innocence and now look what has happened.

     

     

     

     

    • Like 3
  17. 46 minutes ago, Smoggy said:

    I'm sure the bylaws already cover it but without a set level.

    I think you will find (where's Paladin when we need him?) that you can't be "done" for drinking and driving on the Broads.  You can, however, be done for "dangerous navigation" and it has happened in the past.

    Perhaps I am over-reacting myself, but I confess I find it rather two-faced that we can all make jokes and have amusing repartee between certain members, on several threads, about Prosecco, the size of wine glasses, etc., until someone innocently makes a link to what must surely be considered a one-off incident somewhere totally un-related to cruising the Broads. 

    Now, sure enough, and from the same sources, we are to be castigated about the perils of the Demon Drink.

     

     

    • Like 4
  18. 12 minutes ago, Meantime said:

    It should serve as a warning to all.

    I stand duly chastised in the face of your clamouring from the pulpit.

    7 minutes ago, Meantime said:

    But the case I'm not supposed to mention for some reason!!!! Did happen inland on a Broad.

    So how long ago was this and how often has it happened since?  I simply asked that we should not dis-interr it after all these years, after it was systematically dissected in yet another trial by forum, at the time.

    • Like 2
    • Haha 2
  19. 31 minutes ago, floydraser said:

    When I think about it I'm surprised it's not part of the safety certificate, one for each berth for instance? Easy for me to say as mine came with 6 lifejackets.

    In France it is law that a boat must carry the same number of adult lifejackets as the number of persons for which the boat is registered.

    I imagine this applies to passenger ships as well???   At least, since 1912 . . . . .

    A simple precaution, in my mind.

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