Vaughan

The scene is set in the battleship HMS Hood, during the famous battle when she was sunk by the Bismarck. She was a Portsmouth ship and down in the number three boiler room, two old Pompey stokers, - three badge A.B.s - are sweating away, "doing all that thou art able". All of a sudden a shell from the Bismarck comes straight down the funnel and all is blown to pieces. Anyway, about a week later, down in Hell, one stoker comes across the other, picking their way through the fire and brimstone : "Ere George" says Lofty ; I thought you was one of them good holy sort of blokes, what would 'ave gorn "Up There", like? Well Lofty, as a matter of fact I did go Up There. After we cleared through Purgatory and I climbed up them awful long stairs, I met St Peter at the Gates. He looks me up and down for a minute and then he looks at his big list. "Oh yes, you. Ordinary Angel Orchid, isn't it? I know all about you, Orchid! Get yourself over to the stokers' mess cloud and your first duty for the day will be 'arping!" So I goes off to the stores and I draws me 'arp, and me Pusser's bag lunch, and I goes off and me I gets 'arpin. And I 'arps from 0800 to 1330, when I 'as me bag lunch ; and then I 'arps again from 1345 to 1750. Well I didn't think a lot of this but next morning we all falls in on the parade cloud and me being a new bloke, like, I falls in on the right. The Chief Regulatin' Angel comes out of his office : "Party, SHUN! Square your wings off!" He looks us up and down for a minute. "Duties for the day. From 'ere to the right : 'arpin!" So I goes off again and I 'arps. From oh-eight-double-oh to seventeen-fifty. On a cold, damp cloud. So that evening on the mess cloud, I sees an old mate from right back before the Royal Oak went darn. "ere Chalky", I says - you been 'ere a fair while so tell me, 'ow do I get out of 'arpin? ' Well, he says, you're a new bloke so you fell in on the right. Try falling in on the centre. So next morning, the Chief Regulatin' Angel comes out : "Party, SHUN! Square yer wings off! From 'ere to the right - 'arpin! Great, I thinks, I've got away with it. "I'll 'ave three volunteers - you, you and you - scrub out the Archangels' mess! I'll have five men, that's you lot in the rear rank - Pearly Gates ****-polishing party! And you, grinnin' in the centre rank - Archangels' mess billiard marker! And all of the front rank - angel wings plucking' party! And then he comes to me - all alone in the centre. "Oh yes, you. Orchid, isn't it? I know all about you, Orchid. Get 'arpin, Orchid! So I takes two paces forward and I stands at ease and I says "Chief?" Yes, Orchid? " I'm sorry but I've 'ad 'arpin!" WHAT? You 'orrible little angel - when I tells you as 'ow you is to 'arp, you bleedin' well 'arps! Report before the Archangel of the Day! So I goes off and I cleans into No 1 wings and I falls in outside the office. Chief Regulatin' Angel comes out: "Ordinary angel Orchid. Before the presence of the Archangel of the day, quick march! One, two three four halt!! Square yer wings off! Orf halo's! Ordinary Angel Orchid, Sah! Is here charged with conduct to the prejudice of good order and Heavenly discipline, in that he did refuse to 'arp. Sah! The Archangel says "now why, did you refuse to 'arp, Orchid?" Well look 'ere sir, I bin 'ere 3 days now an all I done is 'arpin. There's lots of other jobs to do, like, and I aint a musical sort of bloke, an' even cloud scrubbin' is better than this. Quite frankly sir, I've 'ad 'arpin! Orders is orders, Orchid, and when the Chief tells you as 'ow you is to 'arp', you 'arps. Sentenced to fourteen days Hell. On halo's! Aybout turn, quick march! An that's 'ow I got down 'ere, Lofty!

I was going to say "Cor, that takes me back a bit"! Good old bog standard hire boat. Even got the water key hanging on a hook. I'll bet you an awful lot of people have had great holidays on Sandswift. I wouldn't throw that gas fridge away either! Much more efficient than electrics. If you ignore the obvious need of a clean, it looks in very good order to me. That 1.5 engine is one of the early ones and will be a bit noisy, but you can see it has had routine work done on it, including a new heat exchanger. It even has two weed filters and a very good flexible shaft coupling. As Admiral Somerville once said, when seeing his Pacific Fleet for the first time : "Well never mind, there's many a good tune played on an old fiddle". For someone who wants to do a bit of DIY, I reckon that looks well worth buying.

Oops, I forgot that one. But I don't think she has much of a wide beam anyway.

Well said! And welcome to the forum! There are no replicas since it would be impossible to build them now. But there are very fine preserved examples, all of them a lot older than any of us!

Maybe because you have not been a boat hirer, having to produce a brochure. This sort of silly error, on boats costing a small fortune to hire, could well result in litigation. It has done in the past.

Well, what I posted as a little joke seems to have got into a tennis match of legal definitions. So let's put it this way, if we are being serious : Is it reasonable for Hoseasons to publish photos in a boat description, which seem to be taken in a place where the the boat is not allowed to cruise?

Surely the BA are leasing the mooring at Ranworth from the landowner, not the Council? Said lease having been taken over from Blakes, who never charged for moorings.

I still suggest that a trade plate does not negate any width restriction on the boat itself.

Which must be why I have never seen or heard of them! Like Fred, I can't comment as I don't know them but I would just say that the BSS is an installation safety standard but not a building or manufacturing standard. There is a big difference.

This is a very good point. The paragraph quoted specifically refers to "any staithe" but not to a BA maintained public mooring. Only a small part of the Maltsters' Quay is a public staithe, which has already been declared "free to parishioners". I don't see that this paragraph concerns BA moorings.

Still subject to the same regs. A trade plate is just a commercial river toll, which can be displayed on any of the business's boats. But not (unlike Perci Percival) on 3 at the same time!

John, my friend, I think I might take you a lot more seriously than you may think. But then, I have had the pleasure and privilege of meeting you on a few occasions, either at forum meets, or just while cruising about the place. We have shared a few drinks and a few great discussions while "putting the Broads to rights"! I also very much understand the way of life you have chosen on the rivers. I was raised on a houseboat myself. That was a bit different, as it was attached to a boatyard, but I knew an awful lot of people back in the 50s and 60s who were living on boats on the rivers. It is a perfectly normal thing to do, from my viewpoint. Does anyone here remember Charles, who lived in Dydler's Mill, up from Horning, on the way to Salhouse Broad? He was a great character - much like yourself in many ways - who was always great company in a pub of an evening. His little outboard launch, rather like a faithful horse, could find its own way back to the mill from Horning Swan, in the pitch dark! I agree about the forum as well. I have been a member for a few years myself now and it has given me great pleasure, being able to keep up with events from a distance and contributing odd bits of history here and there. There are many friends I have met as a result and hope to meet more. Others I may never meet in person, but they all feel like friends, just the same. I do get a bit grumpy at times but I hope that is only over serious subjects, that I might take a bit too seriously!

I wouldn't mind betting that one gets breached fairly regularly. Funny you should say that . . . . Some of the photos in the Hoseasons link posted above by the OP seem to have been taken on Surlingham Broad.

Incidentally, this boat in the photo is a luxury 6 berth version with air conditioning and an Onan generator, built specially for hiring on the Hudson River in New York State. It was shipped across "the Pond" and I took delivery in Albany, to commission the boat and prepare everything for its first week's hire, at the same time training up a local man to be the new base manager. Unfortunately a decision was made to stop the operation after a couple of years, before it had a chance to get going, so I ended up with the two boats coming back to France on my base at St Gilles, in the Camargue. And lovely boats they were, too. Lots of American customers!

It suits the Shannon in Ireland as well but it is just not a Broads boat and was never meant to be. The interior layout looks enormously expensive and I wonder if it was originally commissioned as a private boat. It is laid out with only two cabins and so that high hire charge is shared by only 4 people. I rather doubt that is commercial but who knows? The Classique built by Crown is laid out as an eight berth in 4 cabins but it was still a luxury boat, with loads of room! That hire price, shared by eight people, would perhaps be more viable.

Ah, but . . . . . It was the river to Norwich, yes. Ever since Timbo's Viking relations denied the existence of the Great Estuary! But the original efforts to "Make Norwich a Port" by Samuel Morton Peto in 1844, concerned a new navigation through the port of Lowestoft. Hence the building of the New Cut at Haddiscoe and the "Back Reach" behind the Island at Thorpe. This navigation was built because the Burghers of Gt Yarmouth wanted to charge too much toll money for vessels to pass up the Yare through Gt Yarmouth. I have read differing versions of history, which say that the Back Reach may have been dug (for the navigation) a few years before the railway was built, or that the building of the railway created the need for the Back Reach to be dug out. One way or another, the Navigation was established through the Back Reach in Thorpe a long time before Norwich finally negotiated a deal with Gt Yarmouth to allow navigation up the whole of the river Yare, which thus superceded the original navigation down the Waveney from Lowestoft. An agreement was reached whereby the River up to Hardley Cross was maintained by Yarmouth and from there on upstream, by Norwich. A ceremony used to be held every year at Hardley Cross, attended by Bishops, Lord Mayors, asorted dignitory's and surviving relatives of King Canute. The point here is that the river round the bend through Thorpe Green ceased to be the Navigation to Norwich a long time before Norwich took on responsibility for the maintenance of the navigation from there to Yarmouth. So if they "own" anything, it is the Back Reach behind the railway and not the old river through Thorpe Green. There is also the question of when the Yare ceased to be a Maritime Navigation (which made Norwich a sea port). Even after the creation of the BA it was several years before they actually took over the responsibility for the Yare from the port of Gt Yarmouth. So if Norwich CC now wish to claim ownership of the river bottom all the way to Hardley Cross, perhaps they would like to pay to maintain it? But that still doesn't give them any claim to the river through Thorpe Green. Not as history would have it.

I also wonder what Horning would be like today, if Tom had survived to carry on the business from his father.

Tom was the son of H.C. (Perci) Percival of Horning and was a very dear friend of mine, although a few years older. He was killed in a power boat racing accident in Belgium in 1984, at the age of 42. A lot of people of a certain age will say they remember exactly where they were when they heard that President Kenndy had been shot. An awful lot of people in Norfolk can say the same about Tom's death.

These boats are moulded from the 42ft "Classique" design, by Andy Wolstenholme, built by Crown Cruisers at Somerleyton for Crown Blue Line in France. They were an exclusive design and Keith Gregory only ever allowed one boat to be built for a private owner. Funnily enough, it is still moored on the Canal du Midi at Homps, about 5 minutes from where we live. Crown built about 60 of these boats for France and the other 3 versions of the design (Crusader, Clipper and Grand Classique) must bring them to well over 100 boats. They are surely, about the finest design of inland waterways hire boat ever built. But they were never designed for the Broads and until only recently, have never been hired on the Broads. Here is the same boat, cruising the waterways for which it was designed.

Far from being done to death, it seems. I am amused to read an article on today's EDP website that repairs to the leakage of sewage into the river in Thorpe will now be delayed by legal complications. Apparently, the council have sent down divers (back in February) who found that the pipe was not delivering all of the sewage into the council drains on the Green. Which I guess is technobabble for saying it had a hole in it! Said hole being possibly - or probably - caused by the last lot of river dredging. The Council are now saying that they can put the work in place to do repairs but although they expect Roger Wood to pay for it, he is refusing. And that legal proceedings may take a year or two. Well now, there's a surprise! After all the time they have known Roger, do they now expect him to lie down and meekly submit to their demands, after the persecution he has suffered at their hands over many years? It seems to me that the Council are demonstrating the same innate hatred that they have always had for anything that happens on Hart's Island in Thorpe. Which has not everything to do with Roger Wood. You should have heard what my father always had to say about them! I think I am safe in saying that their generally obstructive attitude towards "commercial activity" formed a large part of Richardsons' decision to close down the boatyard and sell the property. But now we have a new ingredient being "stirred" into the smelly river, since Norwich City Council were coerced by the BA planning dept into claiming that they own all of the river bed going through Thorpe. Although the City boundary has always ended at Harvey Lane and Thorpe has always fought to be in the "county" and not in the city. The council appear to be using this argument over other disputes concerning the use of the Green and the public staithe, which they have conveniently closed off to the public, in order to persecute Roger and his business clients, who are those on the moorings. So in that case Roger certainly doesn't own the river bed, as the NCC wish to claim it is an ancient public highway from Yarmouth to Norwich. Which it never was, but that's another subject. If the drains running from your house develop a leak in the road outside, where they meet the public sewers, do you have to pay personally for repairs? Of course not. And you are only responsible for a leak in the water pipes under the road if it occurs on your property, on your side of the meter. So if the NCC now own the river bed through Thorpe, let them attend to the proper maintenance of their drains.

These are called KABOLA and I have used them on hire boats in France. It is indeed just like living in a house, with radiators in each cabin. They are a very expensive and very complicated installation, sometimes on dual voltage (DC and AC with inverter) and would only really be fitted in a boat being built new. They also have an electronic control box which breaks down too often.

As an ex hire fleet operator I would still recommend Webasto. They are solid and reliable, although, in my opinion, they are noisy and produce excessive pollution from exhaust gases - especially on stern moorings. If you are going to make a change, have you considered gas? I am aware that you are living on your boat full time and so you require more efficient heating than just for a holiday in "off" season. I have worked for a company hiring boats with Trumatic - TRUMA - heating and I am very impressed with it. It is used almost exclusively, by caravans and camper vans and comes in versions which provide a hot water boiler as well as central heating. The central heating can be either blown air (by your existing pipework) or by hot water radiators to each cabin. It is very quiet and needs much less electric power than a diesel heater, so less need to charge batteries. And no need to run the engine to get hot water! The exhaust gasses consist only of CO2 and water - there are no diesel particulates and no CO. I would suggest that for your purposes, it is well worth looking into.

Bingo!

A screwdriver! When you take off the front plate, be very careful not to lose the little screws in the bilge. If you have to get new ones they must be genuine Jabsco spares as they use a special thread which does not correspond to metric or others. If you try to put a different screw in you will wreck the threads and then it is a whole new water pump! You can remove the impeller by placing a screwdriver about halfway down its central body and gently levering it out. If you have room, you can use one screwdriver each side. Be very careful not to damage the edges of the front plate of the pump as it is only brass and any gouges will later make the pump less efficient. Inspect the front and back plates for wear. If badly worn they can be turned and re-used. I always fit a new paper gasket, but the important thing is plenty of water pump grease, on the gasket as well as plenty on the impeller itself. Most chandlers sell a water pump grease called Morris 99. Also good for grease caps on stern and rudder gland (if fitted).

It is sensible to have two filters and they are normally sited one on either side of the keel. They will both be connected together, somewhere before the raw water pump. Turn both seacocks off and then pour antifreeze mix down one filter with the engine on tick-over. If you have a hydrometer, test the antifreeze dilution to somewhere around minus 15º . Something like a medium size watering can - about 5 litres - should do the trick.