Vaughan

To be more precise, I should have said "if you crane me onto one of those things in a sling". My joke about BA statistics is more serious, however, as this is how they end up with all their lists of accidents and near accidents every year. The term "drowning near miss" when you fall in, is theirs not mine and sure enough, it gets listed in statistics. They got "caught out" for this one year, when it was found that they were listing capsizes during dinghy races on Wroxham Broad as near drowning accidents. Despite the provision, by the sailing club, of two rescue boats.

Naturally but if you fall in, you have not done it deliberately. You set off on a paddle board in the almost certain knowledge that you will end up in the water. In fact you probably want to, as part of the fun of it. If you put me on one of those things I am damn' sure I would be straight off it, into the drink. So in that case, would my "accident" be classified by the BA as a "drowning near miss"?

I think this is a very good analogy and don't forget that cyclists also, don't need reg. numbers or insurance, despite the number of accidents that they, themselves, are to blame for. In fact cyclists, don't even pay a toll! Surely there are easily enough BA rangers patrolling in season, to enforce no-go areas for paddle boards once they are defined. It just needs the authority to face up to the reality and take positive steps. Or perhaps, as usual, we should just sit and wait for the first fatality, blame the boatyards (as the easiest target) and enforce yet more over-bearing legislation. By the way, I thought we weren't allowed to swim in the Broads rivers, for safety reasons. Are paddle boarders exempt from that rule as well?

That's a very nice job! When I was at naval college, we had to practice until we could drop the monkey's fist into a dustbin, at about 20 yards. As you say, there is a knack to it!

Let us re-consider the published words of Dr Packman. What he is clearly saying here is that, even in his "gut feeling", there are other locations where it is not safe.

Indeed. In which case we can casually sit back and wait for what myself, Daniel Thwaites and others in the business predict, when the first innocent paddle boarder is driven under and drowned (if they miss the propeller) by a 40ft motor cruiser navigating entirely legally between Wroxham and Horning. Sometimes I am reminded of what I maybe have always known ; that the hire boatyards are perhaps more genuinely aware of the needs for safety, and their implications, than pretty much anyone else. Perhaps because it is us, who have the bitter experience of how very easily the simple pleasures of boating - and paddling - can suddenly go disastrously wrong.

You can't waterski through Wroxham or Horning for very obvious reasons and that is the point.

The Broads Authority is there to manage the navigation in safety. This doesn't mean "encouraging" them ; it means telling them where or where not they will paddle, for their own safety. In consideration also, for the other users of the navigation who have been there for literally hundreds of years longer and who pay a vastly larger amount for the privilege of cruising the navigation. Are they an Authority, or just a discussion forum? The Chief Executive of the Broads Authority, in my view, is not employed for his gut feeling.

At last, we are getting some serious recognition of this danger. Daniel is quoted as saying : We restrict water ski-ing, we restrict other things, we have got to start doing that. It's only a matter of time before we talk about a paddle board person getting run over. And also : As soon as someone gets run over and killed, we are going to have to do something. Ladies and gentlemen, I have been warning and railing on about this serious danger, for more than two years now. Look it up, in the forum archives! At last someone of influence has spoken out and it seems even Mr Mogford has been moved to give it some thought. And the Good Doctor's response : My gut feeling is that actually what we ought to be doing is trying to encourage them to go to the locations where it is safe. I wonder how much soul searching it took for him to come up with that statement, in view of his obvious dreams to turn the Broads "national park" into a haven for paddle boards, canoes and cycle paths. Let us hope that, just for once, common sense will win out.

Looks as though you deleted both posts. As they say in Norfolk - "hatta start agin!"

I remember years ago when I was based at Marchwood, on Southampton Water, there was a chandler's on the River Hamble where you could buy the fibreglass casing for a Decca 101 radar. You could then have this mounted on the mast of your yacht, so that all other members of the yacht club would think you had radar fitted.

Excuse me but that is not a fair comment.

You must be in Messac, by the look of it? I remember Josselin as well, which was the limit of a week's cruse from Messac and back. A beautiful area to cruise but sadly, not connected to the rest of the French canal system.

I have had experience of this and I would suggest - don't go there. I used to work for a company in France that had hire boats on 12v for the engine and 24v for the domestics, all on a common negative return. The French do love to complicate things if possible and they even had a new Kabola heating and hot water system that needed 12v for the fans, 24v for the boiler and 220v via a 24v inverter for the electronics. There is a basic principle with batteries : If you connect two 12v batteries in parallel, you will double the amp/hours capacity. If you connect them in series, you will only double the voltage. This doesn't sound right, does it, but I assure you, it is true. Edited to add : 24volts is for when you want "cold cranking amps", in other words, power to turn over a big Diesel engine. This is why trucks are on 24 volts.

That's a good old Godwin pump. There were hundreds of those on hire boats in the 70s. They work well but the only problem is that they are a turbine pump, rather than an impeller type. They are similar in operation to the old Stuart Turner pumps. Remember them? The problem arises if you get a bit of air coming in from somewhere they will not prime themselves if the batteries are getting a bit low. They work very well but you need to have the "Square D" pressure switch correctly adjusted.

And it is when electric toilets get low on voltage due to weak battery power, that they block up solid. But it so much nicer than having to pump a handle. Isn't it?

They might be, if your customers next year find they can't moor anywhere without having to pay through the nose for it. I am not trying to be flippant, especially when quoting someone of Clive's sound business experience. His business model is definitely the right one, in my view. But other have talked of the Broads "holiday", which doesn't just mean hiring a boat. It is a holiday destination ; a "package" in itself, if you like. I have said before that I am very concerned for the future as I believe the Broads, as a destination, are losing their appeal. The BA need to seriously address this problem, and indeed recognise it, rather than seeming to think that paddle boards and cycle paths will be the best way to open up their National Park to a "wider public". Whilst trying to stop the RSPB and others from "re-wilding" the whole place and thus closing it off to a "wider public". I am sorry, but I fear for the future.

Don't forget they are building their own boats as well and have to make enough to invest in that too. Somehow, on the Broads, we get away with hiring boats of 40 years old or more. Largely because, as a whole, they are kept in very good condition but then that level of maintenance is also very expensive. After all, you wouldn't hire a 40 year old car from Hertz, would you? In Crown Blue line, before we were bought by Le Boat, we were trying to build at least 36 new boats a year, just so that the average age of the whole fleet would not go above 17 years before they were sold. When you build a boat it takes around 9 to 10 years to pay off the finance. Once it gets to about 15 years the boat is due for a complete re-fit, so another capital cost to be repaid. So there is not much of a "window" to make a profit out of a boat. Then there are staff costs : In very basic terms, one man in a small business can look after 7 hire boats (as long as he is young and fit!) but if you get to 8 boats, you need to employ a man. This will take you to about 12 boats, then you need another man, to take you to 18 boats, and so it goes on up, in steps. This is partly why the larger yards are more successful as they can make a more economical use of their staff. It's a very costly business, I am afraid.

I have always found that on the Norfolk rivers at night, you cannot see through glass, and most especially, Perspex. Take the windscreen down and rely on the Mark One Eyeball.

See if you can find some natural fibre "light line" known as COIR. Especially as it floats on water. I believe they still make it on the rope walk at Chatham Historic Dockyard. Tow boats in "my day" always had a dinghy, so that you could row a light "messenger" line across the shallows to the boat aground. From this you can pass across a heavier towing line, to allow the power of the towboat to take a purchase. Quite right! You always tow a boat off the mud in the reverse direction to which it arrived. Your "ledge off" was of course, a typo for kedge off. IMHO, if the "Spirit of Boredom" does not carry a dinghy aboard, it is pretty useless for salvage operations on Breydon.

By the way, an example of this big difference in business model can be seen when a group of large yards is bought out by a global package tour operator. The two schools of thought find themselves locked in almost mortal combat. We passed by the Canal du Midi bases on Friday and it really didn't look as though Le Boat had more than a handful of boats on hire. I haven't seen them with more than half the fleet out, for two years now. I wonder if I can guess why that might be?

Perhaps I ought to keep out of this as, since a similar discussion on another thread last week, I am made to feel like a right dinosaur. All the same, "bums on seats" means the business model of the package tours. They charter an aircraft to a beach resort, where they pre-book a number of hotel rooms. Once they have filled half the aircraft and half the rooms, at the brochure price, they have covered their costs. Any more bums they can put on the aircraft after that (pun intended) at whatever discount, is where they get their profit from. The Broads business model is not at all the same. For a start it is strictly seasonal, for only 32 weeks of the year. The rest of the year, you make no money, and spend huge amounts on maintenance. Customer loyalty is indeed very important, as well as regular customers booking in advance. If you have plenty of advance bookings on your chart in February, you can take that to the bank for an overdraft! Discounting has always been heavily avoided but I agree that this business model is changing. I think this is largely because the internet allows people to book so easily as well as so close to the actual holiday date. It also allows the yards to easily offer and advertise a late discount. In the old days of Blakes Brochure, you couldn't do that. So I tend to agree with those who say the yards should have set the prices more in line with trends, in the first place. It's what we always had to do in the past - once you had set your prices in late September and printed the brochure in October, you were stuck with them!

A very objective and reasonable review, from the "riverside" point of view. Thank you very much.

And one of the first things to understand is that Norwich City Council's claim to own the river bed through Thorpe Green is spurious, to say the least.

So do I!