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Coryton
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Posts posted by Coryton
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1 hour ago, grendel said:
It appears the loose connection to the fusebox that overheated was the live side of the fuse, us a combination of other faulted components contributed to the issue.
As so often with accidents it's not a single cause, it's a set of things that all line up in the wrong way.
Fortunately this time without too drastic consequences.
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4 minutes ago, Vaughan said:
I think perhaps, reading your other posts, you may not have realised that it is the yard that insures the boat - not you.
That of course, is included in the hire price! Like all insurance, it has an excess, for which you are responsible. The security deposit - refundable - is designed to cover the excess if you do damage up to that amount. If you do more damage than that, you are covered by the yard's insurance.
The damage waiver is designed to indemnify you from having to pay the excess, but it is not refundable. So it risks being considered as a private insurance of its own, if not marketed carefully.
I thought I understood the situation, as you described it as above (and the exclusions to what are covered by the waiver (gross negligance, intentional damage, whatever) presumably mirror the terms in the boat yard's insurance.
Although I could imagine that a yard might be large enough either to self-insure entirely or to take out insurance with a huge excess - effectively buying re-insurance.
But then I got the invoice with the wording I showed above, which is either extremely badly worded or suggesting that the damage waiver is in itself insurance. I appreciate I'm not buying insurance for the boat - it looks from the wording as if I've been sold my own insurance policy to cover the excess in the boat yard's insurance. Hence my confusion.
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4 minutes ago, Oddfellow said:
I would be VERY surprised at this. I think you may be confusing this with cancellation insurance.
I have not (knowingly) paid for cancellation insurance.
1 hour ago, Vaughan said:There is another aspect to this : insurance companies work because the premium paid by all customers covers the claims made by just a few of them. Hence the no-claim bonus. If only a few people paid the damage waiver it would not cover the yards repair costs, so they have to encourage the most possible, to pay it or it won't work.
I don't follow that - if the alternative to paying the damage waiver is leaving a deposit and losing it if necessary, then unless the deposit is set at the wrong level don't the costs work out the same if everyone takes the waiver, everyone pays the deposit, or something in between?
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1 hour ago, andyg said:
At the end of the day if an individual is happy to pay then its there choice I guess. I've hired before from ferry and will again next year. I do quite a few hours cruising each day and use a fair bit of fuel. I like the idea of just getting off the boat jumping in my car and going. So with everything in this world today we pay a premium for convenience.
I was surprised when I first hired that fuel wasn't included. I don't know why - I wouldn't expect to have unlimited petrol included with a hire car. I suppose it's because when I rent a cottage I expect the price to include everything (though now I come to think of it, we were handed an electricity bill after a week in a cottage in Ireland as well as paying for fuel we'd used for the day boat that came with the cottage).
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7 minutes ago, Broads01 said:
I agree, David. My preference for pricing is to be all inclusive except fuel (because, like Andy above, I want to pay for what I use, not an average). That means parking is included, not like Barnes who take £15 off you. Boatyards offering the " everything except fuel" approach include Freedom as was, Pacific, and Maycraft. Caley Cruisers in Scotland go one better in that they don't even ask for a fuel deposit, only a credit card pre- authorisation.
I'm pretty sure that when we rented a cruiser in Ireland we just went to the office at the end and paid for our fuel. I don't recall a specific credit card pre-authorisation beforehand either.
(No collision damage waiver either, just a hefty deposit).
I wasn't aware that a collision damage waiver could be optional. I'd seriously consider taking the risk on myself. I don't consider the fact that I've paid a wavier gives me carte blanche to go around bashing the boat into things.
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10 minutes ago, Vaughan said:
I have to say that this is a good example of how a high resistance in a circuit, such as a faulty pump, can cause a fire in a circuit without blowing a fuse.
Fuses blow on a surge in amps, but a voltage trip will cut out when it senses the volt drop from a high resistance.
Some years ago when working in a lab I smelt a very acrid smell.
I traced it to the fuse box.
It was a design where the fuse went into a carrier which then clipped into the fuse box.
Somebody had managed to get a fuse in without the carrier. It had worked for years, but eventually the contact resistance must have got too high and it acted as a rather effective heater.
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23 minutes ago, Oddfellow said:
You are not making any payment to an insurance company. You are paying for the privilege of not being pursued for any damage caused whilst the boat is signed over to your care. The majority of such terms will also specify that damage caused by malicious or irresponsible / negligent behaviour is not covered.
Either in the case of my booking it's not as simple as that, or Hoseasons are being downright deceitful in referring to the damage waiver as insurance underwritten by a real insurance company (Allianz).
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1 hour ago, Vaughan said:
As I suggested : sailing close to the wind.
I don't understand.
It looks as if part of my booking is a payment to an insurance company to cover any damage I cause to the boat I've hired or to other boats.
Is that not the case?
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8 minutes ago, Vaughan said:
In principle, if you charge a damage waiver then you are setting yourself up as an insurance company, which you are not, in law. The "get out clause", if you like, is that it is still your free choice. If you don't want to pay it, you don't have to.
My recent booking through Hoseasons shows the "non refundable damage waiver" as being "insurance" underwritten by what I presume is the name of an insurance company (not one I recognize).
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4 minutes ago, CeePee1952 said:
I do wonder why hire craft still have boat hooks on board. Most hirers think they can use them to fend off from other boats usually resulting in damage to the other boat! When we hire, the first thing I do is consign it to the roof top or other suitable flat surface and there it stays for the duration of the holiday!
Chris
I sometimes wonder about that.
Our first go at boating was a holiday in Ireland in a cottage on the Shannon that came with a day boat.
On something that size you can use the boat hook to pull yourself in to a mooring (I don't know if it's good technique, but it's what we were told to do).
But on a cruiser I'm not sure what to do wth one. Fish things out of the water I suppose, if there is something you can hook it onto.
On the Broads the only time the boat hook left the roof was when someone knocked it off into the water when we were moored. (Fortunately a helpful person in the next boat down used their rowing boat to rescue it for us).
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9 hours ago, Oddfellow said:
There were only 7 or 8 Diamond 43s built. The one I had I am pretty sure didn't have a fuel gauge. Only one boat in my fleet had one and that failed (and was not repaired). When it worked, it caused constant problems with people ringing up saying that hadn't moved, was there a problem with it? No, there was about 220 litres of diesel on board and you needed to suck a lot out to make the needle respond. You can't please everybody.
The Boats of the Norfolk Broads web site shows 7.
We made a list and (thanks to some sharp eyes in the crew) managed to see them all in two weeks on the Broads, including the one that was out of the water.
Perhaps we should have been more demanding as customers but we didn't fuss over the wandering fuel gauge. If we'd paid for a top of the range boat we might have felt differently.
We did bother the boat yard though when we lost steering completely leaving us mudweighted and unable to go anywhere but fortunately with mobile phone coverage (and not in anyone's way).
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23 minutes ago, Oddfellow said:
Most?
The majority of hire boats do not have guages. New builds might but very unusual on an older vessel.Interesting. We had one on an Aquafibre diamond 43 and I think they go back a way. But as I said it didn't work very well. (Nor did the steering at one point, but that's another story).
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1 hour ago, Cal said:
Surely the addition of fuel gauges on most hire boats has negated the need for dip sticks?
When we hired on the Broads (with Herbert Woods) the boat had a fuel gauge.
I'm not sure what it was actually indicating though - it seemed to be all over the place.
We filled up half way through our two weeks to be on the safe side and that saw us through (with money back at the end).
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On 06/10/2021 at 15:42, oldgregg said:
They're a decent fleet, yeah. And they've taken on the old LeBoat / Emerald Star base in Belturbet in addition to their original Aghinver yard right up on Loch Erne itself so there's a decent choice of start locations.
I haven't done Ireland for quite some time, but the Erne is a really lovely system. It's a sort of blend of the Broads and the Caledonian Canal, but with the added requirement of needing to read the charts pretty much all the time and have the binoculars ready to watch out for rocks on Lough Erne itself.
I would highly recommend the Lough Erne system.
This was our first holiday on a hire cruiser and we had a fantastic time - the scenery is absolutely beautiful, at least in good weather (and unfortunately in Ireland that's not exactly a given - as the taxi driver said, Ireland is lovely but it needs a roof).
I'd agree with the comment that you actually have to navigate from the charts, but that's all part of the fun. The boat came with binoculars to read the numbers on the marker posts so you could check where you were. Some of the top end boats have GPS navigation I think, and I admit we cheated the odd time with GPS on a phone (I seem to recall there was good mobile coverage). It's good for a family trip as the children can keep occupied being useful keeping track of where you are.
I'd say it's quite different from the Broads, with - of course - plusses and minuses. It was a lot quieter, which certainly has its advantages - coming in to a mooring someone almost always took the ropes for us which was quite good for us as first time hirers.
There is a lot more freedom in where you go since you're mostly on one of two big loughs full of islands, rather than going up and down rivers. Very few bridges of a height to worry about (there wasn't even anything on the boat telling us the air draft). When we did the Broads a few years later we found it a bit constraining compared to Lough Erne, and missed having to actually navigate. (On the other hand there's lots we loved about the Broads and we're planning on our second visit there in a couple of weeks).
No wild mooring or mud weighting/anchoring, but on the other hand there are quite a few islands to explore. A couple have tourist attractions on and a ferry service to them, but the rest can only be visited if you bring your own boat. I'd say there aren't an a awful lot of places worth visiting on land compared to the Broads, and unfortunately Ireland isn't really into public footpaths the way Great Britain is so if you like walking it's not ideal. But we really enjoyed just exploring a part of the country that you really need a boat to see. Like the Broads there's some interesting history - although it's now rather out of the way, in a time when river travel was much easier than by land it was apparently quite a thorougfare.
At the southern end of Lough Erne you end up in the Irish Republic. The chart we were given didn't show the border and there weren't any signs when we crossed it). I suspect some hire boaters get a bit of a surprise when they go to buy supplies there and find all the prices in Euros.
No locks (well one, but in the summer usually open) unless you head down the Shannon-Erne waterway.
No speed limits for much of the system, but in a hire boat you probably won't be able to open up much once you leave the 5 knot areas.
No tides to worry about, but the Lower Lough (confusingly at the top end of the map) is large and open and when it's windy it gets very choppy. If you want to get a feel for what it's like being at sea, it's the place for you! (I believe the boat we had was designed for going out to sea, albeit with beefier engines. Nevertheless we spent some time at one point heading in the wrong direction for where we wanted to go because we didn't dare take the waves broadside until we got close to the coast and they died down a bit.)
Apologies if this is all a bit stream-of-consciousness. In summary, I'd highly recommend it for an enjoyable boating holiday that's quite different from the Broads.
I'd love to go back, and maybe if possible hire on the Shannon then head to Lough Erne through the Shannon-Erne waterway.
We hired from Manor Marine and (though this was a few years ago so maybe things have changed) I'd recommend them. One nice thing was being able to fill in a form with the groceries you wanted, and get on the boat to find them all stowed away on board - very handy when you don't come by car, though actually it wasn't far to a mooring by a large Tescos.
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On 07/09/2021 at 17:22, Oddfellow said:
I would never have turned away a hire craft regardless: they may have been my next customer and it would have been silly for anyone else to do so on the same basis.
I spent a night in Richardson's yard on a Herbert Woods boat - I found the people there very friendly and it certainly made me more disposed to think of hiring with them. (As has a lot of what I've read on here, too).
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18 minutes ago, Meantime said:
As above I would always go by the clearance quoted on the boat you are on. Brochures or websites might give figures for a "class" of boat and mistakes can be made in updating such publications.
Absolutely. Though as I said above on the boat I hired there were two signs physically on the boat which gave different values.
I wouldn't be surprised if hire companies added a bit to the actual height they quote.
19 minutes ago, Meantime said:There are bridges I pass under when I should be near to my safe height and I'm often surprised to see 7 or 8 inches of clearance, not all the bridge height gauges are set with the same degree of margin of error. I've yet to see one that has any margin of error in the wrong direction. However if you treat them all as being totally accurate you should always have a safe passage.
Interesting that it would be that large.
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3 minutes ago, annv said:
You do have to allow for full/empty tanks, between full and empty is nearly 2 inches air draft on my boat. John
I'm not sure that explains a company giving different values for the same boat though. Unless they measured it more than once (I'm now wondering how they do actually measure the air draft of a boat...)
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35 minutes ago, Oddfellow said:
It is a requirement of the Hire Boat Operators License that the air draft is clearly marked at all helms.
When I hired on the Broads a few years ago the boat had two signs giving the air draft.
Curiously they disagreed with each other.
(And according to the Herbert Woods web site it wouldn't go through Wroxham, but the pilots happily took it through both ways).
On Lough Erne there are very few low bridges to worry about. There was nothing on our boat giving air draft so we assumed we'd be OK but we sighted along the lower ones just to make sure.
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On 07/09/2021 at 09:37, ChrisB said:
I have not been for a number of years, but on the Shannon Erne waterways a 45 minute video was mandatory before you got anywhere near your hire craft. We used to hire from Portumna, Northern most Lough Derg but I can't remember the company I think they may have been bought out.
When we hired on Lough Erne a few years ago I think we were probably sent links to videos we should watch beforehand, but when we turned up at the boat yard we weren't shown a video - we just just went straight onto the boat for the handover.
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On 28/08/2021 at 13:25, Mouldy said:
We were onboard Gainsborough Girl in 2018, the last time we hired in fact and the bulb blew in the forward heads. We’d crossed Breydon and had moored at Reedham for a comfort break, so I popped into Sandersons to see if they had a bulb. As you say, the shed is something else. The chap I spoke to rummaged about for a good ten minutes, looking in various boxes and trays, accompanied by much head scratching and muttering, before confirming that he didn’t appear to have one. I cannot honestly I imagine how they’ve managed to maintain their fleet in the intervening period.
Utter chaos, but as you stated, sad to see the end of another long established yard.
I had a similar experience, when the spring in the filler cap for the water cooling went sproing one morning and vanished into the bilges. We were near Reedham and our boatyard told us to pop in to Sandersons for a new one. Or rather a quite old one.
The inside of the shed was quite impressive and the whole thing was one of the more memorable moments of the holiday.
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On 28/08/2021 at 13:37, vanessan said:
Except predictive text can go horribly wrong - and frequently does! 😵💫
I think Grammerly is a bit more sophisticated than predictive texting.
I've never tried it though and like to think I don't need to.
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On 28/08/2021 at 13:12, Mouldy said:
Even 7.5t vehicles are now subject to LGV (HGV) licensing requirements, unless you have the entitlement on your licence. They were reclassified several years ago.
Doesn't it depend when you got your license? I think that if you were entitled to drive them then you still are, but if you got your license after the rules changed then you need an extra entitlement.
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1 hour ago, vanessan said:
Or grammar!
Ah but computers have a solution to that too...
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So far as I can see there's no overall shortage of food - just certain items randomly running out.
As long as you're prepared to change meal plans a bit based on what's available, I don't think there is much a problem at the moment.
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Boat Numbers Or Letters.
in Broads Chat
Posted
A fascinating web site, that.