Vaughan

I can't remember a pool but it is all a long time ago now. Around 50 years. I think I remember it more from the land side than the river and then, only at night after dark! For a big open air swimming pool where they did barbecue evenings, you may be thinking of Ranworth Hall Country Club, now - sadly - in private hands.

From Hoseasons catalogue of 1971. It was down at the bottom of Marsh Rd in Hoveton, on the river front just downstream of the opening into what used to be called Daisy Broad. Sometime that Saturday night a fire started up in the loft under the thatched roof and by the time the fire brigade could get down there and attack it, it was too late.

Yes indeed! I was drinking in the Bure Court with lots of local friends from the Wroxham boatyards on the night before the Bure Court burned down and I was one of the first, along with Tom Percival and Pete Sabberton, to drink in the newly opened Salhouse Lodge county club after Tom Farrell had bought it and done it up. It was a great place for a drink on weekend evenings in those days!

Cromer crab salad as well, by order in advance!

As we haven't heard back, I hope that maybe the comments made on this page will have answered most of them. For me, the issue of a very small number of boats "hogging" the leccy posts is just a very minor thorn in the side. The real issue is that, for the various reasons above, the northern Broads are seriously overcrowded and there are nowhere near enough public moorings. Below the bridge in Wroxham - "The queen of the Broads" - there are none at all! One of these days the BA are going to have to see that something has to be done, to stop the enjoyment of cruising gradually losing its attraction. It is a very expensive hobby these days, both hire and private.

Well, well! Perhaps it's because I have so often heard it used in such a thoroughly derogatory context. And that means, on this forum. But never mind. What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.

This sets me thinking of some of the many people I knew - and still know - who lived on boats back in the "old days". Some names you may have heard of : Brian and Jill Thwaites, founders of Barnes Brinkcaft, who spent the first years of their marriage on the pleasure wherry Goldfinch, moored on Thorpe Island close to the Town House. Mr & Mrs Tony Sanderson, parents of Colin and Steve, who lived for several years post war on Reedham Quay in a converted RAF rescue launch, before buying a house on the front, close to the boatyard. Jim and Peggy Cole, who opened the riverside stores in Brundall, parents of Jim Cole, founder of the NYA. They lived on a pleasure wherry (Bramble if I remember right) before building a modern bungalow on their yard at Tidecraft. Tony Webster, who lived for many years on the wherry Dragon, on a pub mooring at Thorpe Gardens. He was one of the Commissioners' river inspectors! Cyril Fiske, foreman painter at Hearts Cruisers, who lived for years on a permanent mooring with the parish council on Thorpe Green, on the ex Gorleston Lifeboat, Friend of All Nations. Harley and Maggie Miller, well known Broads artists, who lived on the lovely old houseboat Iolanthe, on the south bank just upstream of the Swan corner at Horning. As well as Pete Bearman, known as Pete the painter, who lived on his boat on the Thurne, close to Womack dyke. Talking of artists, how about Batchelder and Rackham, whose watercolours from the 20's are greatly valued these days. They both lived on small sailing yachts and "continuous cruised" together while doing their paintings. In fact you will often see a painting by Batchelder which features Rackham's yacht moored up, and vice versa. There were literally hundreds of boats like these around the Broads in the 50s, when housing was still in short supply after the war. Living afloat was a sensible thing to do. This is a blow-up of my avatar, which is the first river toll disc on the old gun-boat Morning Flight, after she had been re-fitted. They had tolls just for houseboats in those days and you can see what it cost, to live on a 72ft houseboat!

By the way, while we are at it, could we perhaps try to avoid the appellation "live aboard" which I have always found rather disparaging. One of our best known and loved moderators, JillR, was chair of the Residential Boat Owner's National Association.

Ask away. I am one of the oldest surviving ones (from the age of 6 months and for 41 years) so I might be able to answer some of them.

If I were running a 1KW heater on a boat all night, I would expect to have to pay for it!

Not Chris Packham this time, but perhaps a public opponent that he should look out for! According to an EDP article of yesterday, Dr Rose O'Neill of the Campaign for National Parks (there's a new one on me) has stated that not enough of the area is open to the public. She states that only 0.5% of Broadland is freely accessible, which means only 150 hectares out of 30,500 in the area. What "area" precisely, is not defined. She wants the Broads included in the definition of "open access land". What definition, again, is not defined. The BA have responded with the usual stuff about all the work on footpaths and walkways (which is quite true) and especially that they are "working with" the Whitlingham Charitable Trust - which recently terminated their lease - to create a "path for all" around the gravel pits (sorry - country park) that the Colman family dug out of the Crown Point meadows several years ago. I thought that "scenic feature" already had a path all round it? They go on to reply - and here's the quote of the week - The Broads are not technically a National Park. Now there's a tactical withdrawal if ever I saw one! I wonder how this idea sits with some of the biggest landowners in the BA area - namely the RSPB and NWT - who have clearly announced that they want to close all their land off to the public, in order not to frighten the birds? Or, for that matter, with the Blofeld family, who want to keep all the fish (let alone the public) out of Hoveton Great Broad? I wonder what she thinks of Chris Packham, who has also dictated that car parks in north Norfolk should be closed off in order to discourage the Great Heaving Public from rampaging all over the precious natural areas in which other "ecologists" are introducing non native species such as sea eagles and beavers. I can't help remembering, back in the 60s, when Henley Royal Regatta was starting to introduce "corporate entertainment" with tents and stands along the meadows at the side of the regatta course. One year, just before it started, a rather fearsome local lady (Margeret Rutherford springs to mind) arrived on foot, armed with a Stanley knife and slashed an opening into the canvas sides of every marquee and stand, which stretched from Leander Rowing Club half way to Remenham, so that she could make her way along the public footpath - and towpath - at the side of the Royal Thames. As far as I heard, they were never able to prosecute her for it.

It's strange to think that Richardsons no longer hire dinghies. When I worked there in the 70s they had 300 boats and I reckon at least half went out with a dinghy, either rowing or sailing. They had 60 boats hired on a Thursday and all the rest went out on Saturday. The shed with a curved iron roof, on the main river nearest to the staithe was known as "Billy's hangar", where Billy Webster and "Old Ernie" looked after all the dinghies. They varnished and rigged them in the winter and sorted them all out every week in the summer. Every morning they set out with a day launch and towed them round to the hangar and after lunch, towed them back to whichever cruisers had also hired a dinghy. Do you remember in the big London railway stations, where they would have an electric tractor, towing a long string of luggage trolleys around the platforms? Each one was hitched up so that wherever the tractor went, even through a ticket barrier, they all followed behind on the same course, as though they themselves, were on rails. The same thing happened with Billy's dinghies! The trick was to lower the centre plate about 1/4 down, so that they all kept straight. With a string of at least 20 dinghies, wherever the launch went, in and out of the basins, the dinghies all followed exactly and never hit any moored boats. In the afternoon when we came to do trial runs, if the clients had also hired a dinghy, lo and behold, there it was, moored on the bows, either sailing or rowing according to the booking. It was a great operation and I never knew it to go wrong!

I can also say, in my experience, that the northern Broads are just as overcrowded now as they were in the 60s. The difference is in the infrastructure (lack of boatyards) and the reversed proportion of hire boats to private boats. There were 3000 hire boats in the 60s and now they say about 700 (depending who is counting) but now they say there are 3000 private boats - all looking for overnight moorings! I also feel it is a bit sad that we are having this debate at the beginning of December and would like to take this opportunity to wish all those living aboard in this Festive Season of Goodwill - a very happy and peaceful Christmas!

Having read through some of the comments here I am left with the impression that a lot of opinions come down to one set of initials : NIMBY. If you cruise on holiday in your boat and spend several nights aboard on public moorings then you are a live-aboard. All the rest is just a matter of "scale" and you have no more priority on a BA mooring other than first come, first served. If all boats registered had to have a mooring there would be no more short visit toll income to the BA and no more visiting boats from other waterways - or countries. The Midlands and Thames canal system is different as there is a continuous public towpath and all land at the canal side is owned by the canal authority. Said authority in that case, obviously has a rather more practical and reasonable approach to the problem, than the BA. The real problem, which gets worse every year, is mooring availability. No more wild moorings as landowners have learned how to fleece people (and so have pubs) and no-where near enough public moorings to redress the balance. And, of course, hardly any boatyards left. And I trust you would have handled it a great deal better than the utterly disgraceful attitude of the BA planning department over residential moorings on Thorpe Island, where deliberate persecution of the (paying) occupants of Jenners Basin over 10 years, resulted in them being evicted out onto the waterways to try and find somewhere else. While the owner of the mooring basin (with exclusive planning permission for moorings) was left with no option but to sell up to pay his legal fees. I also assume you would have objected to the then Chair of the BA who referred to them in public meeting as "Feral people living in a shanty town". As the BA have long decided to resist residential mooring on the Broads (including holiday houseboats) and have viciously pursued anyone who tries it, it is really not very surprising that "continuous cruisers" have no choice but to shuffle around whatever public moorings they can find. Neither we, nor the authorities, have the right to view them as an underclass.

Or get one of these! They clip onto the battery cable, or any other single wire, and read off the magnetic field created by the current. I have found them just as accurate as electronic ones and the one on the right is nearly 50 years old, going back to my days on Womack Water. I bought these from Panks electrical in Norwich but I imagine they can still be found. Also, if you wave one over the top of a running alternator and the needle goes right over, then the alternator is charging. If nothing happens, the alternator is not "exited". As you say, simples!

Absolutely! And a "pod" motor would be a sensible installation. Dayboats are a whole different ball game, to a six berth cabin cruiser of more than 10 Tonnes. Nothing new about electric dayboats either - The Phoenix Fleet at Potter have been building and hiring them for almost 50 years. It is perhaps significant that NBD said in the EDP back in the spring, that they have had a couple of electric day boats for 10 years or more. So why only two? The idea hardly "took off", did it? But then of course, there are Brownie points to be gained politically these days, from "green incentives" . . . . .

There is a big difference between the Vetus system and the conventional Broads arrangement, which is still in use today. Karizma's photo is definitely of the Broads system and I notice that the stuffing box has a copper water pipe which provides "forced water" lubrication to the cutless bearing, via the shaft tube, from the raw water cooling of the engine. This is because the outboard bearing is mounted on the end of the keel and so does not have its own flow of water. Some outboard bearings have holes, like a fish's gills, in the side, which allow water to flow inside the bearing. If you have these, they must be kept clear of mud. A cutless bearing mounted on its own separate "P" bracket is lubricated naturally. The Vetus system has neoprene and rubber bearings at both ends, with the stern gland as a form of rubber sock, so this needs forced water lubrication. I have used these with hire boats and they do work all right with a small diameter shaft, although I question whether they are sturdy enough for a hire boat. They also have no adjustment, so if they start to fail you have to replace them, which means uncoupling the shaft from the gearbox and removing the flange coupling, as well as the thrust block, if there is one. By the way, when re-fitting the outboard bearing, we always used to seal it with Boss White, which I believe is still available. If not I am sure there is a more modern equivalent but be careful to use a supple form of mastic which does not fully dry out. Never use a mastic which is also any form of adhesive (most especially SIKAFLEX) or you will never get the bearing off again next time! On older GRP boats, be careful that the fixing bolt heads and nuts may be in Whitworth sizes. After you have launched the boat again, be sure to have the alignment checked, between the shaft and the engine.

Yes, and you may have trouble in a GRP boat to get a spanner on the bolts inside the keel, especially the one under the shaft! Several extensions of a socket set may be required. Plenty of mastic in the hole when you re-assemble it, or you may get leaks.

The outboard bearing is threaded onto the shaft tube, which is also threaded onto the inboard bearing (stuffing box). The cutless bearing is held in place by grubscrews, which must be loosened before withdrawing the bearing. Sometimes these cannot be freed and even then, the bearing may be very difficult to get out, so it is best to remove it from the shaft and then remove the cutless bearing on a hydraulic bench press. No need to remove the prop shaft unless it has been damaged by wear in the bearing. Strangely, the worst damage to a prop shaft in this area is caused by fishing lines.

That would have been their last brochure. They sold up that year.

I was still in the Army at the time, but I heard the stories of it soon afterwards!

Thanks very much Liz, I hadn't seen that before. Nice to see Dougie Blewitt on the mainsheet and I noticed David Bray as well. Dougie was chairman of the trust at that time.

I have just thought : do they propose electric dredgers, serviced by electric cargo barges? Or battery powered chain saws, for clearing fallen trees? If they are really going to go "zero emissions" they are going to have to give it rather a lot of thought. And no doubt, spend rather a lot of our money, tilting at windmills.

So there is no point in quangos like the BA trying to make green "national park" publicity by banging on about it. You will only persuade the public to change their ways and longheld habits, if it is an attractive and practical proposition. Spending thousands on something which will be less efficient and limit cruising availability by probably half, is certainly none of those! As the BA rangers' launches tend to be kept in isolated wetsheds in remote locations, such as Irstead, this sounds like a rather expensive installation coming up. Guess who will end up paying for it.