Graham47

The cross keys at Dilham is now serving FULL English breakfast 07:00 am till 10:00 am.

Loddon Staithe.

Hi Chris. Welcome to the Forum. You could try Paddys Lane BA 24Hr Moorings which, if you take the Barton Turf Turning as you come down from Stalham, you will find the moorings on your right hand side.(Probably mooring for about 10 or more boats depending on length.) Another option would be to pre book an overnight mooring at Wayford Marine which is advertised at £12.00 for a short stay overnight mooring. Wayford Marine is situated on the right as you approach Wayford Bridge. If you can get a mooring there the Wayford Bridge Inn is just across the road on the other side of the bridge.( Wayford Marine Tel No 01692 583192)

Richardson’s - Mermaid & Highlander Herbert Woods - Starlight Ferry Boatyard Horning - Ferry Privateer A D Truman - Defender Easticks Acle - ??? Oak Ernest Collins - Coral, White, Diamond, Gold, Royal and Astral Emblems Aston Boats Loddon - Aston Leo & Pisces. Aston Boats Beccles - Aston Cougar Alpha Craft - Shooting Star, Thunderbolt, Stardust, Blenheim Later Bookings - Ferry Marina Horning - Silver, Whisper, Mercury & Tanzanite Emblems.

Meales Garden Centre which is just along from Wayford Bridge Inn do a very good breakfast in their café.

Kevin. No not yet but up on 13th to 20th so hoping to try it then. Are you about that week?

I have just seen the certificate awarded to the Lion Inn Thurne for winner of Pub of The Year 2019, by East Norfolk Camera.

I have just looked at bookings on the boat I have at Easter and there is 1 week booked April, 2 full weeks and 1 short break in May' No bookings in June and 1 week in August.

On their Facebook page, Ferry Marina are now offering 30% discount on boating holidays from 5th to 26th April. Looking at their website they seem to be very light on bookings so far this year. Going forward I won’t be booking early next year unless I can see that boat bookings are improved and there may be a chance that I won’t get the choice I want.

On the 9th and 11th of this month Gorleston inshore lifeboat was paged to assist vessels in trouble on Breydon. The first to assist in refloating and moving a vessel off of the sands to the lay bye pontoons at 23.00hrs. The second was to assist another vessel which was visually seen to be struggling. A crewman was put aboard who took over the helm and took the vessel into calmer waters before handing back to the occupants of the vessel.

A forth egg was laid at Bath this morning. There is speculation that there may be a fifth on the way.

I don,t have any previous data on Ferry Marina bookings but I have to say that looking a available dates for their cruisers this year I am not surprised that they are offering discounts during March / April. Unfortunately I booked this year’s holiday with them last year and do not qualify for the discount. I have the only booking on the boat in April (At Easter). In hindsight it is probably best to keep your eyes on the bookings and not to book to far in front, as long as you have an amount of flexibility available.

Ferry Marina are advertising 10% discount off the hire charges throughout March & April. It doesn't say that Easter is Excluded.

Hi Red. As stated in the previous post some yards no longer allow solo hiring. Richardson,s are one but not sure about Herbert Woods. Brinkcraft do accept solo hirers and have a good overall selection of types and sizes. Other members may we’ll have information on who do and don,t

Hi Dave. Welcome to the forum. Enjoy.

I have received a flyer from Herbert Woods this morning. They are offering a choice from 14 boats at 40% discount off of the Hire Charge throughout the month of March.

It will be interesting to see what happens in respect of mooring fees when WRC hire craft visiit other boat hire yards. Under the the arrangement at Ferry Marina, hire craft from other hire boat federation boatyards moored free of charge at Ferry Marina and boats from Ferry Marina moored free of charge in other hire boat federation boatyards. Under the new set up, as boats in the hireboat federation are currently charged to moor overnight at WRC, l assume it is possible that hire boats from WRC may be charged to moor overnight in hire boat federation boatyards.

The larger 36 foot craft look very similar to the 37 foot Zircon Emblem which was moulded and delivered complete to Ferry Marina from Haines.

Norfolk fire and rescue service report the fire as being at Griffin marina. Fire was extinguished with compressed air foam and hose reel . No mention on their website of casualties.

What a brilliant website and it's so clear and sharp. Thanks Simon much appreciated.

The newsletter says “We think these Boating Holidays will be out of this world”. A bold statement so possibly something a bit different to the normal. Good news for the southern broads IMHO. I wish them well in their new venture.

In the letter announcing the sale of the business it is signed Kind regards Len & Hazel Funnel James & Ruth knight Craft Leisure (Formally Ferry Marina Ltd) In the letter from the new Ferry Marina, they have announced that they have a new 8 Berth cruiser for next year and the riverside property Reedlings is being re introduced as a riverside holiday rental.

Robin was right about trying to make his boats homelike. One our favourite boats we hired from him was his Thunderbolt. At 42ft and only a four berth it was an extremely comfortable craft complete with a full size 3 seater settee and armchair and a smoked glass top dining table. As robin mentioned it also had it,s fair share of wrought iron support work to enable half the boat to be open plan. After a couple years he told us he had a buyer for it and would be replacing it the following year with a new model and that he had been asked by another regular about putting a bath in the new one, what did we think? We said it was novel as not many boats had baths at that time, but what would also be a good idea would be to have an airing cupboard. When we arrived the following season we found that he had accommodated both requests. The bath was a great success but the airing cupboard didn’t get warm. On further inestigation it was found that in order to fit the airing cupboard in, he had moved the position of the fridge but not the outside vent which was now in the airing cupboard and not behind the fridge. This caused much consternation when pointed out to him, but he took it all in his stride and had the situation rectified immediately.

Very sad news indeed. I hired from Langford Snr for 4weeks a year for almost 20 years until he retired. He had a real passion for his for his business, adding new boats of various designs to his fleet almost every year. He also had a passion for restoring Jaguar cars. Some people that only met him once or twice thought he might seem a bit arrogant, but if you knew him like I and many others did you would get to know the real Langford. A true gentleman whose boatbulding for both private customers, and hire boats across the various hire boat yards was his life. Always busy working in the yard, hands on, or in the office planning new addittion to the fleet, which were all wooden boats when he took the business over from his father. He soon realised that wooden boats were too expensive to maintain and went down the route of replacing the fleet with a new fleet of fibre glass boats of his own making. He was indeed a true Broadsman and Boat builder and in my opinion has been a loss to boatbuilding and the hire fleet since his retirement. RIP.

SueH. We hired Shooting Star from Alpha Craft in the early eighties. A nice boat and my first front steering boat. At that time Langford Gillings Snr had two young sub contract boat builders working for him and as part of the package he let them build Shooting Star. One of them I believe was called Ian Willgress. It was hired out under the Alpha Craft banner through Hoseasons but Langford told me they got the hire income. When we returned the boat we had to wait for a separate cheque from them for the diesel refund.