Meantime

Where was this taken? What's the name of the broad?

Sorry Mr Chairman, Isn't all preventative maintenance, or regular maintenance about spending money before you really need to? or before it leads to something more major? How much good oil have I thrown in the recycling tank because I change it hopefully well before it stops protecting the engine? How many fuel filters have I changed that had no diesel bug, or no contaminants worth changing the filter for? How many oil filters have I changed that may have lasted another two years?

I feel since you have quoted me, that I should reply. I found it a very enlightening and entertaining read. Now as the Chairmen has spoken, can we leave it there and let this thread get back to the subject of the Lads week. I wonder which hostelry in Wroxham they are in tonight?

I do because having spent a not inconsiderable sum on moorings, insurance, boat toll, annual servicing etc. I consider that following the manufacturers recommendations and changing the impellor annually gives me peace of mind, reduces my risk of a breakdown when I actually want to enjoy the boat and is money well spent. £30 is spare change compared to the other annual costs of owning a boat. On the other hand if I'd spent a not inconsiderable amount of money on hiring a boat, I'd expect it to be maintained and reliable with proper preventative maintenance completed. That surely is not too much to expect?

I guess it depends on which Nanni manual you look at, or which engine you have. Mine is definitely change every 200 hrs or each year. Which mirrors the info given by Jabsco who make the pump that is on my Nanni engine. My impellor is the Jabsco 1210-0001-B which I think is quite a common one. I always buy kit which comes with the replacement gasket and lube as well.

Which is why I change mine annually and compare it with my current used spare and keep the best one as an emergency replacement should it be needed, which to date it hasn't. I realise my mistake though. Instead of throwing the old prefectly servicable one away, I should be selling them to a boat yard for a tenner. They would get another 3 or 4 years use out of them!

Sorry, but yes. Taken from Jabsco's website. I like the bit where they recommend preventative, rather than corrective maintenance. I think that fair and squarely hits the nail on the head. Jabsco flexible impellers are subjected to rigorous quality processes to ensure reliable, efficient and long lasting performance. You should replace your flexible pump impellers at least once every year or sooner depending on use. When the installation is correct an impeller may last for several years, but it is always advisable to stick to a schedule of preventative rather than corrective maintenance. I repeat that Nanni recommend every 200 hrs or annually.

According to the Nanni service intervals for their engines an impellor should be changed every 200 hrs or once a season, whichever comes first. I would imagine 200 hrs on a hire boat is 6 to 8 weeks usage, so probably at least twice a year, and there is preventative maintenance you can do on an alternator annually. Blow out any dust. Check the brushes for wear. Check the bearings for play.

A good insight to that is A Broad Experience written by Robin Godber. At least it is seasonal. There are those of us who have read that book and do have some idea. There ae also those of us who have worked in industries with 24/7 365 days a year call out. Try being on call for a company who's equipment is one of many pieces that form the network that keep a bank's ATM or credit card network going. Outages of seconds cost the bank hundreds of thousands of pounds. Outages of minutes are measured in tens of millions of pounds. All preventative maintenance and upgrades have to be carried out over night or at weekends, even Christmas day and Boxing day. Yes there were even those of us who were on call New Years Eve 2000 because of the dreaded Millienium bug. Some of us do understand the concept of proper preventative maintenance. Whatever people do for a living, whatever working conditions or hours of work, or call outs they cover, one of the paybacks is a nice relaxing stress free holiday. I would imagine the staff of the various hire yards from yard hand, to managing director, in turn look forward to their own stress free holiday whether that be a hotel in the UK run smoothly with porters and night staff on call, or flying abroad on a plane that has been serviced through the night, or perhaps piloted by the on call pilot who has been drafted in at the last minute because the scheduled pilot was taken sick.

Only a private boat on a private swinging mooring, however boat hooks are useful for sometimes retrieving items from the water. The handle of a dog lifejacket, or as an aid to rescuing someone in the water as FF did.

Now the burning question is which one arrived with the tide and which arrived against the tide? Or maybe one was being towed backwards? Or was it last one to the bar buys the drinks? My bet is they arrived at slack high water.

Or maybe the error was in one too many pints at the lunch stop error.

I think they have. Only the poor guy doesn't know it and cannot drink as he has to drive everywhere.

No sign of the boys. Can only be in one place.

When you go long distance walking it's quite normal to have a support vehicle to take your bags and things from stop to stop. These boys are taking it to a whole different level with their own support mechanic. Currently bring serviced at The Fisherman's Inn. Mind you there are worse places to stop for a DTS and pit stop.

I think I would start by asking the yard how large the tank is? There cannot be many hire boats with a tank larger than 212 litres which is how much they were charged for. If they did 31 hours cruising over a week, then discounting the changeover days that leaves 6 days to do any real cruising which works out at about 5.2 hours cruising a day, which is somewhere close to what the yards normally say you should do to ensure you keep the batteries topped up. I think they normally recommend doing at least 4 hours per day. So it strikes me they probably did slightly above average cruising hours for the week, but there is no way they should have got through 212 litres of diesel, IF indeed the tank can even hold that much.

The yard isn't going to lose money by doing all inclusive. They will simply work out what the average hire boat uses over the course of the season and add that to your holiday cost. If you use less in a week than the average hire boat user, you will have lost out and be subsidising the boy racers who use more than the average hire boat user!! Think I would rather pay for what I actually use.

An excellent point. 👏 my ex hire boat has a 175 litre tank. If I purchased at the most expensive on the Broads £2.30 per litre it would buy me 173 litres. I'd be returning the boat with 2 litres left. Unless excessively cruising I would think most hire boat tanks should last a 2 week hire.

That doesn't sound right to me. Some back of the fag packet calculations for you. The highest diesel price I know of on the Broads was Brooms at £2.30 per litre, so worse case £400 would buy you about 173 litres. My boat which has a typical engine for the Broads does about 2.7 miles to the litre in the Summer, no heater usage. So for that kind of money I would have got 467 miles, which is one hell of a mileage for one week.

Glad to hear you and Mrs FF enjoyed it. It's a shame to hear about the reduced opening hours, but I guess to be expected if it's quiet during the week. I sincerely hope this place survives the Winter and goes back to full opening hours as soon as possible. Strangely enough I had the lamb when we visited and it was excellent then as well.

For some people it's about being lazy and not having to cook. For others it's a chance to try something new or something they wouldn't cook at home. There's a place for both types of venue. Sometimes a place gives you inspiration for something you might try at home.

Think the crisis started with Covid. I'm sure they didn't plan or envisage the Ukraine war so give them a chance. They might not open with food but it sounds like it's on the agenda. Let's maybe consider being negative IF it's warranted once they've been open at least six months.

It's a brave company that spends any money refurbishing a pub in the current climate. Whatever it becomes pub or gastro pub. Moorings or no moorings. Give it a chance. Give it a try. Support it if you can, but don't knock it until you've tried it. GIve constructive feedback to the management and negative feedback to the forum only if your constructive feedback was ignored or dismissed. Someone or some company is spending serious money. Prices won't be cheap. They need to recoup their investment. Please bear that in mind if you need to be critical. Think could you or would you be prepared to do better with your own money before dissing this venture.

I believe Norfolk Broads Direct have been using it for a number of years, but then again most of their fleet is relatively new when compared to the older stuff in Richardsons fleet.

With the Energy Price Guarantee now active please be on the watch for the latest round of scams. If you are a monthly direct debit customer most energy providers will take your monthly direct debit as usual, and then within 5 days give you an automatic refund of £66 to cover the EPG. You DO NOT need to do anything extra. If you are on a key meter then you should receive vouchers in the post which can be used when you top up the key. Please be very very careful about replying to any text, emails PMs etc that claim you need to provide your bank account details to receive the EPG.