Vaughan

Well Iain, you have certain been with some good ones! And all well known for their personal service as well as their quality. Maybe that is significant? At Hearts you must have met Brian Coley, who was a good friend of my family and a great manager. Also Karen Labrum, who took over when he retired.

I have only just come to this thread, but it is very interesting (and gratifying) to hear what you feel about the boats that you have hired. You have loyalty to those boats and that is natural - they have been your cosy home for a week or two of happy memories. But what about the boatyards? Did you feel loyal to them as well? I have almost all of Hearts Cruisers' old booking charts, going back to the 1930's, and we had a lot of regulars! In 1959, for example, the next season was already 60% booked up by the end of September, by people coming in at the end of the week, and leaving a deposit for next year. The rest filled up during the 2 weeks of the London Boat Show, so by the end of January, the yard had an average 27 week season, all booked up! Hearts were building a boat each year, which would be finished around July. Its first customer was always Mr Green, who insisted on being the first one to hire the new boat, for 2 weeks. He was well known as , by that time of year, it was Barton Regatta, and he would moor on a mud weight for the weekend while everyone rowed over to have a drink with him, and have a peek at Hearts' brand new boat. Another man, by then a widower, would hire a 4-berth, either the 5 or 6 of Hearts, for a week in high season, but would also come to spend 2 weeks in winter in a guest house in Thorpe, and he would spend the time with us, helping to paint and varnish the boat he would be hiring that year. I have fond memories of time spent with him in the boat sheds, sharing tea breaks and stories of his life. For us, a regular customer was the ultimate accolade. If they wanted to come back again, then we had done it right! Not only the boat, but the service that went with it. Did you feel the same way? The brand-new Princess of Hearts, on trials in the Back Reach in Thorpe, in June 1957.

The customers expect a lot these days - too much in my personal opinion. In my time I have watched all the extras arrive : fridge, electric water pump, hot showers, and such like, which have been a bonus, but I think when you get to microwaves and dishwashers, that is going too far. I think all boatyards would prefer not to fit all these things as they are expensive and are just something else to break down, but sometimes it is impossible to resist what the market seems to want. After all we have enormous competition from other forms of holiday, nowadays. This is certainly not a new subject - it has been discussed ever since the war!

Not necessarily....... If you fit another battery, this will save over-working the other ones, and so they will all last longer. (as long as your alternator is big enough to charge another battery). A "starter" battery must be kept fully charged at all times - as it is in a car. But a domestic battery can accept a slow discharge (overnight) and then a re-charge. This is known as a "deep cycle". Your average lead-acid battery will accept around 400 to 500 cycles before it is finished. In a hire boat this may mean less than 2 seasons. Peachments sell batteries called Elecsol which will accept around 1200 cycles, and there are also the excellent Optima batteries, where the red ones are "starters" and the yellow are domestic (slow discharge). These are maintenance free and do not require to be installed in a ventilated battery compartment. The boat builder must calculate the number of batteries needed to power all the equipment on the boat. If not, a small number of batteries will be overworked. At 12.7 volts a battery is charged. at 12 volts it is half charged and at 11.5 volts it is effectively flat. So if you have let your batteries get down to 10 volts, you are wrecking them. You may also be wrecking appliances in the boat, such as light fittings, due to volt-drop. Another important principle is that a deep cycle battery must be recharged at once, or the plates will "sulfate" if you leave it half charged for several days (or weeks). In this respect it sounds to me as though you could do with solar panels, as these will keep the batteries topped up when you are not on board. Modern electrics on a boat are complicated. It is all about "horses for courses".

Iain, As a CORGI gas fitter (or was) I counsel you not to use the cooker in your boat as a space heater. Modern boats are built to CE regulations of fixed ventilation in living spaces but all the same, the risk is too great. One cubic metre of Butane gas burned on a cooker will release two and a half litres of water into the atmosphere around it, and the rest consists of CO2. If the burner flame is burning with a white tip, then it is also releasing CO, which is poisonous. A possible solution is to fit a Trumatic gas room heater, which also has a fan for blown warm air ducting. This is a "room sealed" appliance which draws its combustion air from outside, and also exhausts to outside. We use one in our camper van and they are a bit heavy on gas consumption, but very effective. Can also be left on all night.

Not just a lovely boat but a classic of her type. She dates back to when GRP hulls were a new idea, and the rest of the boat was built like a "real one". The Elysian 37, with a deck and superstructure mould as well as the hull, came a year or two later. In my opinion, Collins were building some of the best boats on the Broads in those days. If she is for hire, I would go for it!

We have been talking on another thread, about batteries and solar panels. The panels, by the way, would make no difference to this situation. An 8 berth hire boat such as the Crown Classique, that we have in France, with 2 fridges, electric toilets, pressure water system, macerator pump, Webasto heating and 2 vent fans, will use about 190 amp/hours a day. Yes, it is that much. So you need a minimum of 4 domestic batteries, charged by a 90 amp alternator, on the principle that a battery can only be used to half its capacity in amp/hours. If you have a portable TV that can use another 50 amp/hours so another battery in the bank. A microwave (on AC) will need an inverter and two batteries of its own. All the laptops, iPads, computer games and things all need charging, so even more amp/hours. (charge these when cruising). So you are now talking about 2 alternators and a complex splitting system across 3 banks of batteries. But in science, nothing is free. If you want energy, you will pay for it. A 90 amp alternator will take around 4 and a half horsepower, so two of them on a Nanni will be taking almost 10HP off what is only a 40HP engine. Less power to the shaft and more cost in diesel consumption. (or a larger engine). A modern hire boat must run for at least 4 hours a day and preferably 6, which actually puts a constraint on your cruising habits. If you want to spend the day on a mud weight and play in the sailing dingy - you can't. Not without running the engine. Unless you find a mooring with shore power points, but you are telling me that hire yards, don't provide cables. I can safely say that all hire boats have them in France. So those of you who are saying keep it simple, when boating, are dead right! Oh, and air conditioning? Don't go there. You really don't want to know about that!

This is a classic. That is to say a classic example of what happens when traditional boat building and hiring businesses are bought up by huge international tour operators, more used to package tours to Mediterranean beaches, but who think they know better. It's not French actually, it is Eastern European, where they can get them built far cheaper than at Wroxham or Somerleyton. When I first saw this thing, delivered new to a base in south France, it was a "hybrid" - propelled by a large electric motor which could be powered direct from solar panels, or via a large bank of batteries (if you could find a charging point) or via a large diesel generator that could somehow be electronically clutched to drive the shaft direct. When I was shown over it, it also came equipped with a Czechoslovakian technician, flown in specially to sit in the bilges, plugged into a laptop to try and find out why none of all this actually worked! Its design leans heavily on the American "trawler-boat" type, including the extended cabin top to give shelter over the side decks. This feature - one solid moulding - is sure to be wiped off under the narrow - arched stone bridges of the canal du midi. It also had some hydraulic contraption that lowers the whole of the transom onto the quay, like a ramp. The high freeboard is also unthinkable, complete with all-round taff-rails. Imagine going through all the locks on the French waterways and having to clamber up and down the side of that thing every time. As it is such a large vessel, but only laid out as a two berth, I can't imagine them ever getting any return on capital but of course, they know better. All in all this ranks (way out in front) as the most un-suitable inland waterways hire boat I have ever seen in my life.

They say "Be you hair arly an we'll git us a good stut." So oim now orf ter Chuch.

Taken from a blacksmith's bill, long ago : "Ay for the orse, wa'er for the orse, A fetchin on im, a shooin on im an a bringin on im oom agin".

All of you are right in what you say, and there are some great ideas here. In the hire boat business in France, when asked, we always said that a child under one should be in its mother's arms, not just a life-jacket, and that means the mother cannot be involved in the process of mooring up. This may not suit just two people, but it is not a bad policy. The worst risk is when they are toddling, as they can vanish from your sight in a second, so a length of line tied to the steering column gives you peace of mind, and the child some freedom of movement. As you know I was brought up on a boat, full time, and so for me Peter's comment is the most poignant, as it applies to the child as well as the parents.

That in't roight Pe - er. Thass English loik what that orter be spook.

It's not so much the weight as the "holding ground". If you drop it onto a rocky or gravel bottom it will drag but if you drop it into Barton Broad overnight, you are lucky if you can recover it. If you want to anchor in a current, such as at Horning for fishing, then lay out some chain along the bottom, attached to the weight, just as a ship would do. The ratio is normally 3 times the length of chain on the bottom, to the depth of water. And what about Metacentric Height?

Do they seriously want to fit 12 people in that little day boat or is that another EDP typo?

Not a good day for the BA, is it? It never rains but it pours.

We did a lot of research into this in France (where the sun shines) but there are still not many hire boats that have them. A modern boat with all the goodies, and two fridges, will use around 190 amp hours a day and solar panels can't contribute much to that. But at least a hire boat is having a good run every day, so that makes up for it. The real problem with flat batteries is that the installers of all the "bolt on goodies" have not done the calculation between ; The amount of current that is going to be used in a day - The number of batteries needed to supply this - remember that a battery can only be discharged to half its capacity, so a 100AH battery will only give you 50AH usable (unless you want to wreck it). The alternator capacity needed to put back all these amp hours in about 4 hours running. This is a crucial calculation if you don't want to overcharge the batteries. On hire craft there is also the eternal problem of the hirers' children jumping up and down on them, or maybe someone dumping a bicycle on them. In other words they are not "hirer-proof". On a private boat though, they are a very good idea, if for no other reason than keeping the batteries topped up at all times when left on a mooring and thus avoiding "sulfation" of the battery plates. Yes, there are modern "whizz bang" space-age batteries these days but the principles of the installation are still the same.

This is a bad photo (by me) of a lovely painting by David Dane. In the mid 1970's, David was the skipper of the Broads Tours flagship launch "Her Majesty" (the only one with a varnished hull). His employment was mostly in summer, so he came to me in the winter to paint boats on my yard. He it was, who taught me sign-writing. One day, he turned up for work with this on the back seat of his car, already in the frame. He showed it to me and asked me what I thought, as he reckoned if he could do this, he might try to go professional. So this is the "original" David Dane painting. Suffice to say I bought it on the spot - right there in the car park! I assured him that wherever I was in the world, this would hang over my fire-place, and it still does. His style nowadays is almost un-recognisable from this, but you can see where it came from. He painted it from the hill beside Thurne church and you can see the Bishop's bungalow and St Benets Level mill. The rest contains a lot of artistic licence, but that storm brewing over Horning is so real that you want to go looking for your oilskins, before it arrives. I haven't seen David for many years but he is a great artist and a true Broadsman.

Well, I did say that these were my "old" memories! Shows how quickly things change, over the years.

Good idea for a topic, 1drab1, and welcome to the forum. I won't repeat what others have suggested as they are all good places. For me, some old memories : St Benet's Abbey in late September, when you can get up at dawn, in the mist, and pick mushrooms for breakfast on the marshes of St Benet's Level. Pleasure Island, in the middle of Barton Broad. A chance to hear a bittern boom, in spring. Thurne Dyke, with a great pub, and a walk up the hill to the church in the morning, where you can see all the way to Beccles on a clear day. Surlingham Broad, on a mud weight. If you can still get in there.... The Beauchamp Arms at Buckenham Ferry. Right out in the marshes, with huge Norfolk skies. Up the Wensum in Norwich, through Bishop's Bridge and up to New Mills. Only possible in a small boat. The Commissioners' Cut, just before Thorpe. A peaceful mooring in the meadows, with a short walk over the railway to the road, and then a short bus ride to the centre of Norwich. Coltishall, with a very pleasant cruise on the upper Bure from Wroxham, a picnic on the village green, or some very good pubs. Dare I mention Thorpe village green, where you might meet some fellow "forumites" in the Buck?

The locomotive is an ex LNER class L1, designed by Edward Thompson, in the original British Railways livery. This would date the photo as between 1948 and about 1952. Now call me an anorak if you will!

I am 1000 miles away and do not know this boat, but the two photos here show clearly that she has been sunk down to the cabin top at least twice, and has been sitting with water over the floors for a long time. You only need to look at the green waterline to see that. I cannot see any practicality in trying to restore an old hire boat in that state. It really would be cheaper and quicker to take line drawings off it and build a new one.

In the photo of Horning Ferry by Springsong, the boat at right is called Monarch, built by Norfolk Holiday Boats (N.H.Banham of Horning) and still in Blakes catalogue of 1976, on hire from Southgates. The other three are almost certainly Landamore Vestellas, not Vestas as they appear to have 3 windows in the aft cabinsides.

Actually, Norfolk Nog's photo is a Vesta not a Vestella, but it is one of the very early ones with portholes in the forepart, which is what confused me. In which case this is a very old boat, maybe built before the war.

The photo by Norfolk Nog on page 1 of this thread is a Landamore Vestella - the 6 berth version of the Vesta. (and looking well on it, for such an old boat). The photo here by Strowager is a Juliette class from Martham Development Co, one of their later builds.

Talking of Thorpe Narrows, here is a cutting from the EDP of 1997. The Narrows were demolished in 1956. The little boy with his mother is me. Broadscot, it seems your memory was correct - the Kings Head was once Steward and Pattesons.