Vaughan

Well, here's me getting grumpy again but I see this as yet another nail in the coffin. Mouldy is quite right. The BA have already quoted the charge for moorings on Ranworth island as their excuse for charging at the Maltsters. This new charge, on what used to be one of their free moorings, will give them the perfect excuse to charge at other places - Rockland short dyke might be next. In fact, it is not only the BA's fault : the real disease, in my view, is that anyone who owns a bit of land with a river bank now expects to sit back and make a living out of a captive audience. And don't say that there is no-one to take the money at Rockland - the local ranger can do that as he passes and at the same time ask everyone whether they have had a trial run or not.

Sorry to be late getting around to it but it is indeed, worth a read. at least that is what the quote from the article above seems to indicate to me. I certainly would have quoted this paragraph if Grendel hadn't already! This is surely a clear case for the dredging of the lower reaches to improve the volume and flow out to sea. I very much agree with the subjects that they have covered, except in one area, where there is a big difference between what I call a "washland" and what they are now calling "farmland". One is a traditional Broads grazing meadow which is deliberately flooded as a water retention basin during high tides or excessive rainfall : The other is a field that has had the water table deliberately lowered by "deep dyke" pumping, and must now be protected from flooding. It is becoming obvious that you can't have both. Especially as the constant pumping of these arable fields goes into the rivers and must also find its way out to sea. It is all re-claimed land and I fear that farmers have "stolen" a lot of it for their own profit, which they now complain has to be "protected". I had never thought before that the fall in the land between the upper Thurne and Yarmouth is only one metre but I suppose it must be, when you think of it.

I wonder where the public staithe comes in to all this?

But still most appropriate when considering the problems of tidal flow on the Bure. Another example is Penton Hook Marina, on the Thames near Staines. The whole mooring complex is situated in an ancient meander of the river, within its flood plain.

A good example of a meander (on the same River Bure) is at what is now Ant Mouth, where the old river turned sharply south over the marshes, before curving back north again by what we now call Fleet Dyke. The old wherrymen cut off the top of this loop by building a straight canal past St Benets Abbey, as a short cut. Personally, I believe the original river Bure then meandered round to the north side of the Abbey. This big crescent shape can still clearly be seen in the marshes, on Google images. The Bure would still meander like this today, if it were allowed to, but it is now all closed in with flood banks. The hydraulic forces that cause the meandering are still there, however, which is why the river continues to build up silt on the inside of the bends. Which is why it needs regular dredging!

Stokesby is a band of hard gravel which has been there since the ice age. There is a similar gravel bottom at Irstead Shoals, on the Ant. It is part of what Timbo has told us about the "glacial till" which was the formation of what we sometimes call the Great Estuary. As such, the gravel at Stokesby was convenient for a cattle swim. For me, the Bure Hump exists in the area around Scaregap farm and on a few bends just upstream of it, where the speed of the tide changes greatly as it rounds the bends. This slowing of the water allows silt in suspension to be dropped onto the bottom. It is also why an alluvial river is always shallow on the inside of a sharp bend, where the water is going very slowly. Edited to add : This is all part of what causes a river to "meander", except in this case it can't, as the outsides of the bends are built up with piling as flood defences. So the silt just gradually builds up on the inside of the bend.

It is also a very sad reflection on the values of our modern society, that saving a young girl in Africa from a fate worse than death would only cost you £2 a month.

So you are not a regular, then. I think you get allowed about one "click" every 3 days as some sort of incentive. Personally, I can't help wondering to what extent I am prepared to pay for the new "Local democracy" reporters and their standard of accuracy.

Especially on a trip by river down the Yare! That's how I grew up! By the way, do I detect a story behind your new choice of avatar?

After all, for £3 a month I could adopt a snow leopard or a polar bear. And they would send me a Christmas card and a cuddly toy.

Or you can open a new In Private window in your browser and copy the link to there and read it for free. You will still have to skip through the adverts, but they are in the business of journalism to make money after all! I have the same problem here, as I use the EDP website (and this forum, above all) as a means of keeping in touch with Norfolk from 1000 miles away. I had always assumed (as an old git) that these internet sites depend on advertising for their revenue. Also, that that revenue depends on the number of visitors to the site who "click" to read the articles. The more clicks, the more the advertiser will be prepared to advertise. I assume this is also how the new army of "influencers" make their money. So I don't see why I should have to pay on top of that, when I am one of those providing the necessary "clicks". Edited to add : That's why I too, can't read the article linked above.

Taking this suggestion a little further, if you are therefore slowing down the flow of the ebb on the Bure - which is an alluvial river - it will be dropping more of its silt in suspension, especially around the bends in the area of the "Bure hump" and Scaregap farm.

Hmmm . . . . Perhaps I am beginning to understand why the admin here doesn't like "mixing it" with Facebook. A different sort of medium, it seems. It is a pity as this has become an informed and useful discussion with good opinions being offered. We have discussed the official soundings posted here on another thread and I noticed that the considerable scouring at the Haven Bridge occurs upstream of it, as far as the mouth of the Bure. Downstream of the bridge, the bottom flattens out immediately and becomes more shallow. This (incidentally) also shows the fact that the ebb, on both rivers, is a lot stronger than the flood. The flow downstream into the harbour slows down greatly as it widens out, so although the volume of water flowing is the same, the speed is very much slower. So even though the Herring Bridge is now a restriction, it would not cause as much scouring, in a much wider harbour area - in my opinion. I still believe, however, as I described above, that if you restrict the outflow from the harbour area, you must also be restricting the inflow and thus, passing less volume of water through the Haven Bridge.

Excuse me, but that is rather a "sweeping statement" all in one sentence but with nothing to back it up. If you want to post an opinion like that for discussion on the forum, perhaps you would like to expand on it, so that we can join the debate ?

I got thrown out of Stokesby a little while ago, as she didn't like the way I had moored up and wanted me to move. I said that the way she wanted would be dangerous when the tide turned ; she got stroppy so I pushed off. Along with two other boats, who saw this happen and didn't like it. That was the second time I was thrown out of there. The first time, I got thrown out of the car park, when I was there on a breakdown, in one of Jenners vans!

all the more reason not to accept the anecdotal evidence in the face of the inconsistencies Or perhaps, all the more reason to consider the anecdotal (historical) evidence rather than the spurious theories being put about by various experts. It is all very well to come up with new theories but they may not stand up against the proven history of how this lowland basin has managed its drainage and water levels, over the centuries since it was artificially re-claimed from a peat bog. One is tempted to think that the Dutch knew much more about it, back in the 17th century, than we do now. One way or another, the Broads are now suffering more problems of flooding due to rainwater retention than all of us can remember in our own life-times. So something, somewhere, has gone badly wrong.

Try thinking of the river in Gt Yarmouth between the two bridges as a water tank, of a given volume. If you restrict the outflow from the tank you will therefore restrict the inflow, since you can't compress the water and you can't fill the tank any higher than the level of the tide. Water does not flow uphill. Archimedes, and all that.

I think Neil makes the strongest point here. Something or other, has happened to cause this latest flooding. Google tells me that the Haven Bridge was opened by the Prince of Wales in 1930. He, that would be, who became Edward VIII before he abdicated. So it has been there for a great deal longer than "the last shower of rain"! There is also no doubt, however you see it, that the Herring Bridge has narrowed the river at the Fishwharf by just over a third of its previous width. The main principle of hydraulics is that you cannot compress water. A given volume of water in one place will be the same volume when you move it somewhere else. The Haven Bridge is a restriction to the ebb tide but from then on, the water flows straight out to sea in a wide river with more or less parallel banks. So whichever way you look at, the Herring Bridge will be a constriction of this flow. As it has nowhere else to go, there will be a back pressure in the water upstream towards the Haven Bridge, which will further restrict the flow through that bridge. You get exactly the same effect in a boat's cooling system, where a restriction in the flow at the heat exchanger will cause a back pressure in the raw water pipes and strip the blades off the pump impeller. Conversely, the Herring Bridge will also constrict the incoming tide by a third and may help to lessen the incursion of North Sea surge tides.

Sorry, I meant shoulder high!

That'll be my car, then . . . .

I can certainly relate to that. If you look at old photos of farming in Norfolk, just after the War, the "standing corn" was around waist high. I remember all the "stooks" stood up in the field to dry, before the "troshin' machine" arrived. Where we lived in the Petit Camargue at St Gilles, are several square miles of managed reed beds, among the rice fields. It is a quite a big industry, considered to be second only to the Norfolk reed and it is wholly exported to Belgium and the Netherlands, for thatching.

I reckon there will still be worse to come yet. You know what they say in Norfolk : Fust that blew then that snew then that thew an' then that tun aroun' an frooz roit hard!

Thank you for entering the debate, at this late stage. One way or another we are talking about an engine of the mid 1950s, with a Bowman heat exchange conversion which caused modifications to be made to the pipe work. Some such modifications were successful : some maybe not. Maybe a supplier such as Peachments will have developed a better solution to the problem, if someone asks them?

Not the first time this has happened lately - I noticed it myself. Still, it keeps the memory cells ticking over, at least!

Just had another thought : Barnes Brinkcraft still have a company on their books called Barnes Marine Units. They used to sell re-conditioned BMC 1.5 engines, fully marinised, to boatyards in the 70s.