Vaughan

Hello Alvaro, My father was the owner of Hearts Cruisers but I can't say that he built the Six as I am personally convinced she was built before the War. They say she was built in 1946 but I don't think there would have been time as they were building the Ace of Hearts then. For more information and some photos you are welcome to send me a PM. I don't know her weight as we always hauled out on a slipway, so weight didn't matter. If you are ordering a crane I would allow for 10 tons. Welcome to the forum, where you will find lots of advice from friends who are also custodians of classic wooden boats. Here is a photo of the Six at Hearts, taken in 1947. She is one of the two on the right.

I think the Brundall Bay Marina has its own clubhouse? It certainly used to.

I went and took these photos yesterday, to try and explain what used to be done, when they drain the canal in winter. Homps was one of Connoisseur's first bases, on the town quay, before the Mairie built the new big basin. You can see that the bottom of the canal is a flat v shape with a small stream left in the middle. It is not mud, but a hard gravel bottom. I notice there is no sludge from fallen leaves now, since they cut all the plane trees down a couple of years ago. Before the canal was drained, they used to take the boats out in the middle in rows of 3 abreast, with each 3 tied tightly together at bow and stern. As the water went down, the incline of the bottom leaned each 3 against each other and they propped themselves upright. You could even walk out with a ladder and work on them quite safely. Not perfect, but miles better than what we see now! The double lock below Homps is having two gates replaced, so it may well be March before the canal is filled again. Not long till Easter, after that!

I fear that is probably fair comment. There is no passing trade from the river for the Yare, as there is at Surlingham, since there is nowhere left for passing boats to moor. Brooms will let you stop if you ask, after a pumpout, but that is about it. The riverside stores is long closed and the walk to the shops in the town is strictly for the young and fit! It is another place which used to be a bustling boating centre, until the hire boatyards closed. They are replaced by private marina moorings but do they bring enough trade to support a pub? Maybe not.

Just a little tip if you are mooring a Horizon 35 stern on - always clip open the front saloon doors before you start. That way, if you can't see behind you, just leave the wheel, nip out onto the step in the front well and you have a clear view over the cabin top.

I agree with Andy on that. A Nanni will accept a small amount of air in the system and keep running, which the BMC certainly won't. Hopefully just a worn cam striker on the lift pump but I have known injector pumps to fail as well.

Your boat in your photo is an Elysian 27 which is an offshore, semi-displacement hull, more able to withstand drying out, and in any case, you are talking about the turn of a tide, not a whole winter un-supported. These are GRP boats which are not designed for this treatment. When they float again, you will find that doors won't close, drawers won't open, window frames will leak unless they are removed and re-sealed and sliding hatches will jam on their runners. Luckily most are hydraulic drive, or the engine would also be forced out of line with the prop shaft. Andy's comments above are also very true. Most of those boats are probably not even winterised yet. You may have noticed the boats shown are the second row out from the quay. There is another row grounded behind them. How do you send mechanics or cleaners out to work on them, in winter, like that? It is a lamentable lack of basic seamanship.

There's nothing wrong with the heat exchanger or the bell housing, I trust? The rest of it is Japanese . . .

Do what your mother always said - it'll never get better if you pick it! Seriously though, don't do anything, is best. They say if a boat is going to get osmosis it will happen in the first 2 or 3 years of its life. After that it won't get any worse. One thing you must not do is leave the boat out of the water in winter. If the bubbles freeze, they will burst and then you have problems!

Perhaps I should add that my photos were taken from the public road, at the side of the canal, so I was not invading their privacy. You can see that they have their own 10 ton gantry, a large area of parking and a boat trolley with tractor, and yet only about 10 boats were out on the hard. The authorities announce their winter maintenance programme months in advance and only empty certain "pounds" between locks at a time. It would have been a simple matter to move the boats up through the next lock, which is still full and moor them on the tow path up the bank, where there is still good vehicle access. This is what almost all the many private boats in Homps have chosen to do themselves. Other parts of the canal always remain full as there is a constant flow downstream to keep them topped up. I fear this is what happens when corporate management tries to run a boatyard from a computer, somewhere in America. It makes me very glad to be retired.

This thread is called basic winter maintenance. It doesn't get any more basic than this! A large number of the boats you see here cost just under a quarter of a million pounds each -cost price - to build and they have just been dumped here like this until the canal authority decide to fill the basin again, in the spring. And they hope that someone or other is going to be hiring them again next year, for upwards of 3500€ a week.

I remember, when I was about 10 years old, coming home one morning on the 79 bus, a double-decker out of Norwich, to Thorpe. All of a sudden, just outside Thorpe Old Hall, the bus stopped in the road; the driver turned off the engine, climbed out of the cab and stood to attention in the road beside his bus. All the other traffic took this "signal" and stopped also, while nothing moved for two minutes. The driver then got back in his cab, started the engine and drove off. Quite commonplace in the 50s - everybody did it. But then everyone, like that bus driver, had "been through it".

In the 60s, before the building of the Hotel Wroxham, Jack Powles and John Loynes yards between them, owned pretty well all of both sides of the river from the bridge to the first bend. All available for the mooring of hire cruisers and yachts. Broads Tours in those days was upstream of the bridge, on land later owned by Porter and Haylett (Connoisseur). Here are some of the yards in Wroxham in the late 60s, from memory, and all offering free moorings to hire and (almost always) private craft : Windboats. Barnes. E.C.Smith & Sons. Burecraft. Faircraft. Sabberton (Sabena). Jack Powles. Norfolk Broads Y.C. Porter & Haylett. Royalls. John Loynes. Summercraft. R.Moore & Son. E.C. Landamore. E.R.English. Brinkcraft. Dawncraft.. C&G Press. Earnest Collins. These are some I remember. Those with better memories may be able to add to the list? What is missing nowadays is that infrastructure of yards, where all hire boats could always find a mooring and all the services : refuse bins, showers, toilets, water, breakdown service, toilet pumpout, etc. In those days there were 3000 hire boats on the Broads. Nowadays there are only about 700, but now there are 3000 private boats, a lot of them ex hire boats and all looking for moorings and service when they go cruising. I have no idea what the answer is but the problem, to me, is "as clear as mud".

This morning, for the first time in 2 years, we will be attending a small parade and service at the war memorial in our village. How nice to be able to pay our respects again in the normal manner, without being told to keep away and stay at home. I often wonder what my parents' generation, who fought the last World War, would have thought of social distancing, and face-masks? I shall be there, with my shoes "bulled up", my regimental tie and my medal. Yes, only one - in the 70s there were no medals for the Cold War. Or the Cod War, for that matter! I still have plenty of fallen friends and comrades to remember all the same, in Cyprus, Oman, the Yemen and of course, in those dreadful dark times of The Troubles. Armistice Day is not just about the veterans of D-Day : younger generations have plenty of reason to remember those who are still losing their lives today, in defence of freedom and peace.

My Goodness! That takes me right back to the early seventies. Even the galley looks original!

There is a report in today's papers that British Airways want to recruit 4000 new staff members to be ready for next summer. Mind you, they lost 10,000 during all the lockdowns.

Thank you Grendel, for a well considered and objective post. I have suggested before that if it were not for global warming, what we now call the Broads would still be under the glacier that created it.

It's just that I learned it in RAF Mazira, in Oman, when re-suppyling the base with an RFA freighter.

I hope you are right - in a lot of ways. But we shall see . . . .

So do I. Nothing will stop the Great British Heaving Public from rushing off to a Mediterranean beach for their "Divine Right" to a holiday in the sun. Even though they know perfectly well they will have to stand for 5 hours in a concrete airport with no toilets, seats or food (until you get through border control) they will still do it. We have seen it happening for the last 2 years as soon as it looked as though you could get back to Spain again. I don't understand this at all but it is now in the public mentality and I don't think a "staycation" is going to tempt them away from Tenerife in future. So I think Broads businesses should realise that this is all going to get back to normal again soon - it has to - and plan their fleets and their pricing accordingly.

GISITS. Now there's an old RAF expression that I haven't heard for about 50 years! I agree with what John says and I made a thread called basic winter maintenance, a couple of days ago. You don't have to follow all of that, as what I posted is designed for hire boats, but you can select the "best" bits from it. In my experience, the key word is VENTILATION. Let plenty of air flow through the boat.

Brinkcraft were famous for having rear view mirrors on top of a small flag mast. I have driven one of their front drive boats and the mirror was surprisingly useful. You can't have them on the sides on a hire boat, or they won't last a week before they are broken off!

I am very sad to hear this Tim and I had noticed that you had not been posting for a while. It will not have been a decision that you have taken lightly. We have had some fascinating discussions here about Broads history, which have been a great education for me as well, I am sure, as many others. You also helped the forum through very stormy waters a few years ago and we are all grateful to have been steered safely back into harbour. I look forward to seeing you again in person on the Broads and please don't be a "stranger" on here. Look in and say hello when you can. Meantime, perhaps I can now expound my theories on the existence of the Great Estuary without fear of incurring your wrath! All the very best, and hearty thanks.

Barnes have had one of those for several years. They use it as a ferry. Very practical for the purpose.

Well it seems we have now been availed of his words of wisdom. The EDP reports that he has given his talk to an on-line audience at the N.N.C. "Greenbuild" festival. He has stated that we must now close the car parks in North Norfolk to stop people going there as it is environmentally sensitive. He is quoted as saying : I think sometimes we have to be a bit more draconian in our measures. We have to stop people going to some places and doing some things. So that is the future, for those who live in Norfolk. We are not allowed to take our cars into Norwich anymore and now we will not even be allowed to park our cars if we want to visit part of our own county for a day out. Is this what being a "member of the National Park Family" is all about? Or is this part of the hare-brained scheme to introduce Sea Eagles onto the marshes at Snettisham and thus bring about "re-wilding" of large tracts of countryside? Better not let your cat out at night, if there are eagles overhead! I thoroughly object to the naked arrogance of some celebrity TV birdwatcher telling us what to do and where he will allow us to go, in our own county. I suggest that North Norfolk - and the Broads - are far more "sensitive" to the ceaseless advance of the North Sea than they are to a few people parking their cars in a car park. Please go away.