expilot

Quiet Light did, indeed, go into the hire fleet as an electric cruiser. I took her through THAT bridge, but I wasn't aware that she had generator back-up. Colin Facey, at about the same time, had Silent Poppy. Silent, she was not. I believe she may now be in private hands and no longer electric. I stand to be corrected.

Broadland Swift is thirty-two feet long and weighs eight tonnes. I am hoping to get at least ten hours runtime on a single charge. I am working with specialists EVS from North Shields in an attempt to get it right first time. EVS already maintain my launch and my Freeman.

I'm afraid not. It looks very much to me like Barry. I have had a full beard for longer than I can remember. At one time all of Blakes' boats were piloted through THAT bridge mostly by Barry and Dennis who worked at Herbert Woods boatyard. Both were piloting long before I started. Blakes boat hirers moored in the boatyard and signed up on a chalkboard to be piloted through the bridge. When I started piloting, if you had a Hoseasons boat you went to the little shed behind the current Pilot's Office to collect David or Bob. Blakes' hirers went to the pilot/dayboat office. Patrick and Robin Richardson (Phoenix Fleet Limited) were awarded sole pilotage of all Hoseasons and Blakes hire boats when Blakes and Hoseasons jointly formed a new limited company for the purpose. I was employed by Phoenix Fleet Ltd.

I now own an all electric Freeman Mk 1. Her gel deep cycle traction batteries were installed in 2005 and one bank of them has just been replaced for £1,500. At just over £100 per year, I am more than pleased. I believe I may have posted the idea before - batteries do not die. They are murdered. I know this only too well. I've done it with my other all-electric boat - a Jack Powles launch, built in 1948 and electrified more than thirty years ago. I considered going hybrid with my Ripplecraft "Broadland Swift" but have decided to go all-electric with her, too.

Please note that this is from memory. Monarch was 6' 8" at Potter bridge.

At a guess the Collins replica would probably need iro 6' 9"

No Sancerre 33 ever went through Potter bridge in my ten years. And the woody for sale with Waterside, the ex Bell boat, just a glimpse at the head-on suggests to me that she will need a whole load more than the quoted 6' 3" air draft for passing Potter bridge. Note the squareness and width at the highest point. I would hazard a guess at 6' 10" or more.

Hi Timbo That's exactly what was done by Andy Wolstenhome when he designed the Lowliner. With a tide of 6' 9" it all bit fits the hole. The problem is that the Lowliner was designed at a time when a 6' 9" low tide (and lower) was almost guaranteed mosts days during the Whit to September holiday season. Not any more.

Broadway and Broadlander have both been under Potter bridge. Neither could be more than 10%(?) sure of doing so on current Summer low tide levels.

Against my better judgement, (the hire yard owners insisted it was done) I have taken a boat through Potter bridge with flooded bilges. A truly terrifying experience. Without baffled tanks, the water slops for and aft inside the boat and from side to side. I would have felt happier sitting astride a 35' blancmange.

Sorry, Speedtriple. Potter bridge is NOT sinking - or, at least, it hasn't during the last thirty years. How do I know this? Because County Highways monitor the bridge using the very latest measuring techniques. The water levels HAVE risen. How do I know this? Because, for the last thirty years we have lived by the river above the bridge. For ten of those years I was lifting riverside bungalows to prevent them being flooded by the increasingly high tides. If I may, I feel I must correct MM, too. The riverbanks were certainly not raised along the Thurne. Indeed we have a written guarantee from BESL that they would not be. All of our properties are located within the functioning flood plain of the River Thurne. Any raising of the riverbanks would have placed the properties at increased risk of fluvial flooding. The banks weren't raised, they were strengthened by significantly increasing their width.

Brundall Navy is absolutely spot on, BUT, it is the newer (longer) Connoisseurs that more often these days make the trip. At a push I have taken these back through the bridge at 6' 6" and, in my opinion, it would only take a minor screen support modification to reduce that figure a little more. The older Connoisseurs need 6' 8" and the two-berth, fixed screen Connoisseurs 6' 10". Those coming back from France (hulls covered in diagonal black fendering) with their handrails on top of the sliding canopy need more than 6' 8" All of the centre cockpit, sliding canopy classes vary enormously. Variation is caused by the degree to which the canopy can be slid back and the squareness or otherwise of the canopy shape. All Ocean 30s need 6' 7" except those that originated from Neatishead, which required 6' 8" due to the addition of a hardwood screen upstand. Broom 30 Skippers (with canvas hoods and drop down screens and side screens need) 6' 6" provided they haven't had pulpits, pushpits and side stanchions added. Sliding canopy Hamptons need 6' 7" . The Safaris with sliding roof hatch, instead of full sliding canopy, 6' 5" or less depending on ballast. I don't know if it is my imagination, but I rather think that, as these older grp boats age, they seem to get heavier and sit slightly lower in the water than when first launched. I feel an NBN publication of "Boat Heights for Potter Bridge" coming on. As always, please treat the above as generalisations. There will always be exceptions where boats have been modified by a succession of private owners' particular wishes.

Hi Ray If you have measured the actual air draft on your DC30, the information will help neither you, nor the pilots at Potter bridge. For reasons I stated earlier, DC30s probably have a greater range of required air drafts for Potter Bridge than any other class of cruiser. Even with the remote controlled spotlight, provided it is mounted centrally on the roof, it won't be the spotlight that gets damaged. It will be either, or both, corners of your DC30s forward roof apron. The first question you will . be asked by the current pilots will be, was your boat ever in the hire fleet? If it was, they will have a record of the air draft required for Potter Bridge - to the nearest half inch! During my ten years' piloting at that bridge, I recorded every hire boat's required height and every private boat air draft that I had personally helmed through that bridge. I would expect that record still to exist because I left it in the office.

"Alpha 29, 32, and 35 centre cockpit, as they have the desired cut away cabin sides" I regret that none of these boats compare even closely to the Broom Skipper. Provided the screens haven't been modified and no-one has added pulpits, push-pits and side stanchions, a Broom Skipper will readily pass Potter Bridge at 6' 6" headroom. The Alpha 32s 35s and 42s need between 6' 10" and 7' 0" at Potter. Nyx (ex Grey Goose from Whispering Reeds, Hickling) easily passes under THAT bridge at 6' 4". Hampton safaris are your best bet - particularly if you avoid the sliding canopy version (that need 6' 7" clearance) and many of the forward drive Solars, Bounties are in the region of 6' 6" . to 6' 8". Calypsos need 6'9 or 6' 10" . DC30's are anywhere from 6'5 to 7' 1" and all stops in between. Easticks Falcons are 6' 11" to 7' 1" I hope this helps.

Before retiring, I had lifted thirty-three riverside properties, including our own. I can safely state that any riverside property built on timber piles will require serious remdiation sooner rather than later. The timber pile that is permanently below ground and permanently wet will be as sound as the day it was driven. The part of the pile that is above ground and permanently dry will be at least as sound as it was on the day the pile was driven. The section between wet and dry, the part that is sometimes wet and sometimes dry will rot in decades. The powers that be insisted on our sixties and seventies bungalows being supported on six inch square oak piles. From experience of being instructed to stabilise a number of these properties, I doubt, today, if many of those piles have more than a quarter of their original timber at ground level or just below.

They already do, JM. Last year a number of riverside bungalow owners were required by the BA ranger to turn off their lights. The lights that were required to be turned off because they constituted a "hazard to navigation", were the lounge/dining room lights! I did wonder at the time, whether said BA Ranger had also called Lathams' and Herbert Woods' management teams requiring them to switch off their exterior lighting.

PM sent to Floydraser

Thank you oldgregg. That's the downside of magnifying one's screen so much that much of the screen is hidden.

In fact, Floyd, I believe you may have been advised to walk the footpath from the Pilots' office at the foot of Potter Bridge. This would be a very long walk indeed and access is a very much shorter footpath walk from Repps Staithe (aka Pugg Street Staithe) - also accessible by road. Please remember that the boat in which you are interested is moored in a private boat dock at a privately owned bungalow behind a two metre high fence. Because the fence is so high, you will see very little from the footpath. I regret, I do not know if this forum has a private messaging facility, but, if it has, you may want to pm so that I can, with his express permission first granted, put you in touch with the boat owner.

"You can only access it by walking up the track towards the old Eel Sett and then round by the riverbank..." Would that that were true MM! In fact, the vast majority of visitors walk to this newly created wetland not via Middle Wall, the track leading to the eel sett, but via the public footpath on the NE riverbank - a public footpath across private land in the ownership of each of the bungalow owners. We the bungalow, owners, have a leasehold duty to keep the footpath clear and tidy. Unfortunately, it now looks as if we, the bungalow owners, are obliged to keep this footpath clear, tidy and safe for members of the public to walk it. We have just spent £4,000 to do just that. The huge increase in Winter pedestrian traffic as a result of this new tourist attraction had turned the sole access to our riverside properties into a dangerously slippery thoroughfare. Of course, our Tenants Association asked Norfolk County Council, the Broads Authority, Broadland Environmental Services Limited and the Environment Agency to pay for this public footpath refurbishment, but, surprise, surprise, because it crosses private land, none of these organisations would accept responsibility to cover the cost. To its credit, the EA offered to make a contribution to part cover the costs as a goodwill gesture. I wonder how long it will be before Middle Wall becomes totally unusable as a direct result of the huge increase in (speeding) vehicular traffic?

Democracy is such a misunderstood concept. For thirty plus year we have owned a holiday home on the Broads. If you want to hear about disenfranchised groups, you ought to talk to the hundreds of people who, like us, are unable to vote in local elections. I may want to seek my parish councillor's support and/or my district councillor's support, but can only do so knowing that I have absolutely no say over who represents me in the area in which I spend thousands of pounds a year.

The boat in question is moored in a privately owned boat dock. The boat dock is owned by the same person who owns the Foster 30. Had the boat belonged to anyone else, it would, I believe, have needed to be registered and tolled. Broadland Swift, my own boat, is moored in our own wet-shed at Potter and similarly hasn't been tolled for several years. On the rare occasion I have had to bring her on to the river, I have stumped up for a visitor toll. At the moment we have another boat moored on our river frontage. Because it is on the frontage as opposed to inside one of the wet-sheds, she, too, has to be registered and tolled.

Cheers Coolcat. I joined the members' club months before I bought my 75. I used the brilliant 75 owners site to educate myself about what to look for and what to avoid. Like you I use the same name, Expilot, on all forums to which I contribute.

And this from another 'smart man.' (Thank you, Paul) . It took me many months to find my modern classic, a Rover 75 Connoisseur SE. I had a wish list of extras and went to see some absolute shockers. I bought my Connie from a man in a private car park in Willesden! I know. That's not how you're supposed to buy second-hand cars, but at £1,750 for a car with genuine 60,000 miles on the clock, the BMW bomb-proof diesel engine and gearbox, more bells and whistles than you can shake a fist at, what was there to loose? It had to be the twin headlight version and, ideally, 2002. The only missing extra was cruise control. I'd had a very clever cruise control on my Honda Prelude and would have liked the same on the Connie, but it wasn't to be. In three years I have put another 40,000 miles on the old lady. I absolutely adore the comfort, the multi-position leather seats, the quiet and the ease of driving her. I have just fitted four new tyres to the old girl to quieten the already quiet road noise. All I can hear now is the air-leaking door seal to my right shoulder! In 17 years' use, she had her first MOT advisory last month. What is there not to like? That said, I am easily pleased. My sole transport for fifty years prior to my first car bought at the age of fifty, was always short of a couple of wheels - an all-weather biker and proud to be. If the 75 sees me out, I'll be tickled pink.

If that bridge is, technically, in Potter "Falgate" on the North side, then, technically, the South side is in Bastwick, a civil parish only relatively recently joined with Repps to become Repps With Bastwick. Incidentally, the civil parish is enormous and stretches right over to Hickling - way beyond the village centre. I would be interested to be referred to the map from which TheQ derives his information. I am blowed if I can find such a location on any of my maps.