oldgregg

I've been on a BCBM syndicate so have some familiarity with this. You'll need to buy your own lifejackets usually, and usually the boat will only have basic bedding (ie the actual pillows and duvets) so all of the linen you'd need to bring yourself. Not a biggie but with a family it's obviously another thing that you've got to pack. Evening Shadow is quite a nice boat, yeah, it's a good layout and the syndicate have been making improvements to her over the last few years. Her base is in a good location and Horning Pleasurecraft's labour rates are pretty reasonable too, which is an important consideration. When our boat moved from Broom to Richardson's (as it was called at the time), the drop in running costs was considerable.

Yeah that is an option. I had to get an elderly relative on and off of a Siesta (the same as Mystic Horizon) last year and you can get around the side of the coaming on the bathing platform with some assistance but the bank does need to be at a similar level to the height of the bathing platorm. Getting on and off when moored stern on is very easy, though. Here is a pic of one (check out the Emerald Star livery!) so you can see what I mean about the coaming at the rear.

It looks like she was on Bounty's own fleet for a year, so would have been built by them. Presumably she has the build plaque with a build number somewhere near the helm position? Only a genuine Bounty fitout would have that. You can find out a bit more about her at Craig's database. http://www.broads.org.uk/wiki2018/index.php?title=Boat_Details&BoatId=3675&BoatHistory=54753

I used to love Pinnacle Studio, it was great for quickly capturing, editing and then outputting your videos (often back to DV, remember those days?). The recent versions are a very different product, though. It depends whether you're a Windows or Mac user, but I guess Premiere Elements or Premiere Rush would be quite good options nowadays. I have iMovie but have never actually used it. It's popular, though, and likely to be quite intuitive.

Just to follow up on Griff’s post, I’ve spoken with a friend of Craig and Kerris and will be in further touch over the next couple of days. Also I’d just like to reiterate that NBN just wants to help out.

I did spot a few threads in here and have moved them to the appropriate section. We perhaps need to think about naming this section more clearly.

I don't think the intention long term is to copy the site as-is, and any derivative work would again be for the greater good and absolutely non-commercial. I've met Craig a few times and have also met his wife in the past and in all honesty I don't think she had much to do with the database - It was very much his thing. What we're trying to do at this stage is to secure the data before the hosting expires and it is lost forever. We can then work out what the next steps are.

Hi Griff If only mate... No sadly it needs specialist knowledge really. Just to allay any fears that some people may have about 'stealing' the content, in reality what we are trying to do is to preserve this excellent resource and indeed Craig's legacy. I know a few people have queried the copyright side of things - However the website very clearly states on the footer that the content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

I was wondering if any of our members have a decent level of knowledge (ideally expert level!) with MediaWiki? I'm trying to extract stuff out of the Boat database to see what we can salvage as attempts to contact Craig's family have come to nothing.

I think if you're on for more than two or three nights then the North gets a bit boring so if the tides are right a good run down South and back keeps things interesting... Also with two 7-hour runs in there, you know you're not going to have problems with the batteries not having enough charge.

There are some boats in build....

If only more boaters had that mindset!

I think one of those with a full Ricko's refit (windows out and chuck the interior in a skip) would be pretty good. I think they'd make better use of the space in the forward cabin, and sort out the quirky rear cabin too. If used as two singles rather than a double, only one of those is wide enough for an adult! We nominated the smallest person to sleep in it and they still weren't happy. Faircraft in the 80's and 90's produced some very quirky interiors which seemed mostly to be about maximising the number of beds. I think losing that kennel berth and having a single-level saloon like on Tobago would make a lot more sense, and means you don't have to ascend the sheer face of the sideboard to get up onto the starboard deck. I hired Highland Gem 2 with a group of mates and we all commented on how we would not want to fall off that when drunk. As it stands, I genuinely prefer Major Gem because of the layout that just works and the fact that the handling is so spot on.

Agreed. There is a reason we have boats of the size that we do.

Richardson's engineers and overall service are always really good, particularly when you factor in the price you paid for the holiday. It has to be said that the Mk1 Fair Entrepreneur is not the best piece of boat design the world has ever seen. There is a lot of space inside, purely because the design of the hull and superstructure is so box-like, but the layouts are a little mad and the attention to detail is poor. Richardson's aren't to blame for that in any way though as they didn't build them. Has anyone slept in the 'kennel' to the right of the saloon? It is actually long enough for an adult but getting in and out is a bit of a challenge. The MK2 (ie Jewel of Light) has a drastically-improved hull which introduced 'handling' to the list of features, which seemed to mostly have been achieved by adding 2ft to the length of each model in order to have a proper pointy end and still maintain similar interior space.

I know I have said a lot about the fact that boats shouldn't exceed the 12'6 by 46', but I actually think that it would be better if we were able to accommodate a bit of extra beam and then limit the length a bit further. 42ft by 13ft 6ins would be a good maximum size and you'd not lose any interior space. As you are very much aware Vaughan from the stuff you developed with Crown, that extra width allows two ensuite double cabins side-by-side. A flybridge boat with those dimensions becomes very spacious all of a sudden. Lady Annalise is a good example for those unfamiliar with the slightly wider beam boats of what is possible in 42ft when building to the 12'6" limit. It's a big change, though, and I can't see how we'd manage it on the Broads. Neatishead Staithe and Thurne Dyke are two places that immediately spring to mind where a 13'6" vessel could not pass between two moored boats of 13'6" and I wouldn't want to meet another one coming the other way at Dilham. And I guess you wouldn't get a centre-cockpit boat of that size through Wroxham Bridge unless it had a very low airdraft, which in turn takes all the interior space away. What a complicated system we choose to go boating on!

I think the BA's vessel dimension byelaws were at least partly in response to those 50 footers, and the 48-foot stretched AF42's at Barnes. I think they should probably go a step further, though, and state that hire boats must not exceed 46' x 12'6" under any circumstances. Yes it will affect some post-1992 boats currently in hire, but the operators of those knew exactly what they were doing when they put them into their fleets.

I think it might be a 46-footer...

Some of the boats were from a cancelled order for an operator in France and they were built to a certain spec.

This has come up a few times recently. You can have a 50ft boat on the broads, but the list of places it can't go is fairly significant unless it's a boat first registered before 1992. Is the new boat definitely 50ft?

This sunday is the Tri-Icicle, so there’s likely to be around 40 rag and stick types going up the Bure from Horning to Oby Dyke and Womack Dyke on Sunday 10:30am to 3:30pm. Given the year we’ve had this’ll probably be the biggest event of the season. And it’s going to be windy by the sounds of it! https://www.sfsc.co.uk/pages/tri-icicle/

I'm not a fan of gas on boats, but I can see how things were simpler from an engineering perspective when we had gas fridges and radiant gas heaters (apart from the condensation!). The batteries needed to run a lot less and so needed less charging, and battery state wouldn't affect whether the heating would run.

They're a very spacious boat, it is quite amazing how much they have managed to fit inside 38ft. Definitely not the best-handling boat you will ever come across but you can't expect that from the hull shape.

Forklift batteries are still pretty old tech - The energy density of something like a Tesla battery pack is several times that of a traction pack. A 100ah Tesla pack and a fuel cell would be a game changer. But the cost would be VERY high. Those 'whisper quiet' generators are generally very loud.

Yeah, actually I have seen some Brinks stuff with a 24V system and an enormous inverter tucked away behind the sofa (I mean I had to look, right?).