oldgregg

Salespeople saying things that would make people have confidence in their product? Does anyone have the number for the newsdesk at the Sun? Hold the front page! The really good stuff is selling well as you know from personal experience, but the rest is not. This is a very different situation from 2-3 years ago.

An E89? Great cars, I drove one recently and was very impressed even with the four pot. And unlike an MX-5, it's actually suitable for a taller driver.

It's quite a different scenario from airport parking companies I think. Mainly it's so that if they needed to urgently move vehicles then they have the ability to do so. You're not going to see it cruising around the Hoveton area methinks.

A bit of an update on this one, the boat was removed a couple of weeks back and was sat on the private staithe at Woodbastwick; the one near Salhouse Broad rather than the public one opposite Horning Ferry. There was quite a lot more left than most people expected, but she has now been broken up and the last of the debris was in a large skip as of this weekend.

Electric flush are popular but I do prefer the simplicity of a mansfield.... Just need to remember to keep some water in the bowl when not in use!

It'd be a good start, yeah. But I do think the power usage requirements of people these days are higher than ever - And ideally they want electric cooking, kettle etc because it's what they're used to at home.

I think that is a big part of it, for sure. Those of us who have lived in Norfolk for a long time and who are used to just how quiet the Broads can be are perhaps much more sensitive to the noise. It's an interesting one in that boats have actually got noisier - Back in the 80's they had gas fridges and radiant heaters and electrics were only needed for pumps and lighting so a couple of hours a day with the engine at cruising speeds was enough. I do think the solution is to look at how we ensure enough charging is achieved in an 'average' day's cruising. Fit a larger engine with an overspecced alternator / generator and remove the need for users to have to 'manage' the batteries.

I see two things here. Firstly, the reason they say 5 hours a day is that yes perhaps 3 hours at decent revs will be okay….. But that’s not what people gently pootling round the north will do. 3 hours of 4mph isn’t going to achieve very much. An alternator’s rating is its maximum, not what it produces at low revs. Yes the boats should have larger alternators and I’d argue maybe effectively a hybrid drive not so much for the silent running but just so you get the 10KW motor/generator topping the batteries up nicely. But they’re costly and hirers won’t understand them. Secondly - An information sheet isn’t going to be read or understood my most hirers, unfortunately.

So she's almost ready to go?

I think the guidance is 8am - 8pm so they weren't too far off, but I think most people would tend to want to have the engine off before then. The problem is that people aren't great at planning and also electrics seem a total mystery to most, so they run the engine when the lights start to go dim rather than perhaps mooring at the end of the staithe and letting it run during the afternoon to make sure there's plenty of charge.

A sad day for anyone that knew Mike really. Like many on here, I've known him since the early days of the Broads forums and he was a lovely guy. We chatted many times over the years and he'd ring me sometimes if he'd spotted something on the forum that he knew I'd want to fix . Mike was also a generous guy and those of us who were at the NBN spring meet a few years back will recall the hog roast he put on for everyone to celebrate his 70th birthday with us all. We need more Mikes in the world.

She is indeed a Cheeseman Rollo I believe and one of the earliest AF Sapphire 32's built, which explains the unusual layout.

@Dan Has some good pic of her. Congratulations on your purchase, they're a great boat and I think this one is a great starting point as a project.

I think that was the thing when the Ferry was boarded up, it was what it said about the state of the area and the industry and was a really bad look. With the loss of Blakes / a proper Hoseasons, it does feel like everyone is doing their own thing and competing with one another. It needs to be a lot more joined up.

I think so. And I'm not convinced it was a smart move. There were a lot of incidents and accidents over those couple of summers, more so than there have been for years. But those were extremely unusual years with many customers who had not been boating before and who may not go boating again. A market does exist for larger groups of boaters who aren't any trouble and who are just looking for a 'Wetherspoons' of a boat. So basically a good cost per head, clean, tidy, reliable and with no frills and they mostly don't massively care what it looks like. If you want a slightly larger boat with a few more berths so no-one is sleeping on a sofa and with plenty of room for luggage etc then there are now not so many options. There are some newbuilds which would tick the boxes but with a 'group of friends' type trip not everyone will be hardcore boaters and they won't want to pay £400 a head when they used to hire Acapulco for a fraction of that. And those boaters will be eating out a lot, putting money into the local economy in many ways and keeping the pubs etc afloat. Large groups will spend a lot of money on food and beer in a pub every night, and that helps ensure those places stay open for all. Remember the last recession when the Ferry Inn at Horning was boarded up for a summer? Let's not get ourselves back into that place.

But then if you're doing maintenance every six months, there's quite a cost there that you have to factor in?

Well that's a few weeks of normal traffic then . It did look very finished when I was on it two weeks ago so I figured it would open soon. The Thickthorn changes have been delayed and delayed, but it'll make such a difference when it's done. The traffic often queues back onto the A47 at busy times so keeping things flowing is important. The southern bypass was opened in 1992 when the population of the Norwich area was a lot lower than it is now, so there are a few junctions that aren't quite up to current traffic levels. People criticise the Postwick Hub (probably because it's a mess) but it does prevent traffic queueing back on the A47 like it used to.

I think the point is that if they were priced a bit lower to begin with then they wouldn't have to be discounted quite so heavily at the last minute. When people were looking around for boats to hire this year, HW weren't competitive on price. So people booked with other yards instead. Let's say that hypothetically the boat was originally priced at a grand and it's now £600, it probably should have been on at £7-800. But because they didn't do that, they missed out on all of the people who would have paid them £800 or whatever so that's a chunk of change on every single booking that they've missed out on by trying to be clever. And that's before you take into account all the marketing and admin costs of running the campaigns. And the people paying £800 would still be out on the river, spending cash and using fuel. Perhaps more fuel, as they might be more seasoned boaters who tend to travel about more. If you haven't got everything out in high season then something isn't right, and discounting destroys loyalty. Boatyards need loyalty.

https://www.wildercoe.co.uk/complying-with-toms-and-travel-industry-vat/

The finance and marketing directors will have had their say undoubtedly, but the reality is that they're ultimately just people with opinions. They do what they believe works and they're not always going to be right. The longer you spend in management the more you realise that people aren't always awesome. I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude that prices were ramped up over the last two or three seasons and they now need a downward adjustment. Some businesses were more interested in short-term gain than medium to long-term customer retention.

Clive was behind the fair price charter at Stalham when he was running the hirefleet so yeah I can't see him doing differently at HPC.

Indeed. I've booked my boat for the regular weekend with the boys in the next few weeks. And it was booked with Ricko's because we know we can book months ahead and the price won't change. Could I have got a 'better' boat for less money with Woods? Quite probably by the looks of it. Am I interested in playing Herbert Woods' silly games? Nope. Especially when their reputation for maintenance issues is as poor as it is. Price it right and you won't have empty booking charts.

I get that the focus has shifted to smaller 'family' boats rather than those which suit big groups, but I can't help thinking that it might have been better to leave the Ideals in the fleet and sell perhaps one or two a season. I'd have hired one of them for this September, instead we've had to settle for Diamond Gem. There were a crazy couple of seasons in 2020 / 21 and I think yards experienced more problems than usual with the boats traditionally associated with stag parties, but I think things have calmed down a lot and it might have been an overreaction to defleet them all in one go? I'd argue the same with the Entrepeneurs, though I think those boats probably needed refitting. The original build was more like a static caravan fitout and given that you'd end up with a boat that still handled badly then they weren't worth it. Ricko's of 20 years ago would have set about it, but their model is very different now.

That's my favourite spot there!

Wasn’t it the split charger that failed on Belmore? Just thinking there are quite a few things which can fail in such a way. Of course there is gas, too. A small and very slow gas leak is likely to eventually be ignited by something. We don’t know what caused this fire.