Cal

We can confirm that Swan Ranger goes through Ludham with 7'6" showing on the gauge. It was close though and I was optimistic driving from the roof! Embarrassing to say I did nudge the side of the bridge as I was concentrating more on not hitting the bridge deck. It was only a minor nudge though no harm done. After that we had a lovely cruise down to Stokesby where we had an unexpected dinner in the pub. The heating would not work so we waited in the pub for the engineers to fix it. Have to say they were very quick to arrive. They had to go away and come back with some spare parts but all is up and running again and while they were here they sorted the stern gland out which was pouring water in! Our meal was lovely despite the brief power cut which plunged us into complete darkness.

We had him DNA tested he is Schnauzer, poodle, bichon frise, chihuahua and pomeranian.

Mongrel.

Sydney is all packed and ready to go.

That's not good. Stokesby was our planned mooring for Saturday night! Two loose boats in one day is more than coincidence.

What are your chances of getting under Potter Heigham at the moment?

Whilst I would agree that blocking any fixed ventilation is a bad idea on a boat, the gap around the door is not supposed to be there, so blocking it off to reduce a draft is not going to be of any detriment to the inhabitants.

Good point. Hadn't thought of that!

The view from the helm has not been great on several boats we have hired to be fair. Joy and Duchess from Barnes Brinkcraft were not great at all. Probably the best view from the helm we have had was Viscount with the raised centre cockpit you could see both ends pretty well. Mind you the Broom 29 HT we hired in Brittany had a decent view from the helm as well.

We will find out on Saturday!!

Thanks for that tip. We will take some pipe lagging to squash into the gaps.

Naughty-Cal is out of the water slowly being prepared to go for sale. She is in no fit state to be in the water at the minute! Not worth loading her onto the trailer for a weeks holiday anyway. If all else fails we will base ourselves on the upper ant for a week and hire a car to go out during the day. Fingers crossed it wont come to that though!

I suspect she will have a few more war wounds and stress cracks by now

Does anyone know how the EA river level gauge at Barton Broad relates to the available air draft at Ludham Bridge please? (Assuming there is an equation to work it out!) https://flood-warning-information.service.gov.uk/station/6216?direction=u

Thank you. Obviously we knew when we hired Swan Ranger that we would have bridge limitations. We didn't expect Ludham would be one of them

It seems to have been a long time since we have been on the water but this Saturday (05.10.19) we will be making the trip to Stalham on the Norfolk Broads to pick up Swan Ranger, an Alphacraft 35 Highliner from the Richardsons yard. It is a long time since we booked this holiday and at the time it was booked for a completely different reason. We had hired this boat to find out how it would stack up as a liveaboard boat for the two of us and Sydney. We have of course bought a new house now so that idea has gone out of the window but we are still looking forward to spending some time on the water and this will be the first time we have hired a dual steer boat on the Broads so we are interested to see the difference that it makes to our time there. Now all we need to do is pray to the weather gods for some dry weather so that the water levels can reduce enough for us to escape the River Ant and get under Ludham Bridge and access the majority of the Broads!

Fingers crossed it all subsides by the weekend otherwise we will be having a week on the Ant with Swan Ranger!

We have all fingers and toes crossed that this lot of water works its way down the system by the weekend. We are picking up Swan Ranger from Richardsons on Saturday and as lovely as the upper Ant is we don't was to be spending a whole week up there!

You will find that most of the pubs will be happy to let them use their car park provided they use the pub. There is a site called Britstops which lists the ones that definitely allow this.

We have hired Joy several times from Barnes in the past which is the same hull as Sonnet. We took it through the bridge at Wroxham on our own each time. Can't imagine Sonnet being any taller!

Lucky chap. Does highlight the importance of wearing your lifejacket especially on an unfamiliar boat.

We have never eaten in the Wayford Bridge but have been in for a few beers. Might use this as our back up plan if we can't get on Stalham Staithe on our last night for a takeout curry We usually stop at Sutton Staithe for our last evening on boats hired from Richardsons but the last couple of times we have been disappointed with the food and service in the pub there so time to try somewhere different.

That's a handy tip.

It is interesting to see others opinions but we find the salt marshes either side of Breydon to be some of the nicest stretches of the rivers with the most wealth of wildlife to be found. Spotted our first Crane on the run to Yarmouth. Great moment.

Why? We always manage to cover a fair amount of both the north and south broads on a weeks hire and plan to do the same again when we are down there on our holiday starting next saturday. It is perfectly possible to have a few days on the southern broads and a few days on the northern broads within a weeks hire.