dom

They obviously know what they're doing. I was friends with Matthew in primary school, back when his parents owned the Petersfield House Hotel in Horning, so he obviously has a lifetime of experience within the industry. It's just a shame that commercial success these days requires cramming the place with people to such a degree that it degrades the overall experience.

There's a sample and Sunday lunch menu for The Stag available on the Salhouse Hall Cottages website here. Bure River Cottage looks well worth a visit. I might have to give it a try some time - which will probably feel a bit odd, as I still remember shopping there back when it was a supermarket. The only criticism I've heard with The Lodge is that they're now cramming a lot more people in than they used to, so it tends to be noisier than in the past.

It's an awful example. What exactly are they trying to achieve? I can't see any reason for it, other than to try and make pricing less obvious (which would be an offence under The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008). It's not like it makes it any more visually appealing.

I've just done a quick bit of calculation and reckon BA already need to charge for something like 7 moorings a day at £10 a time, just to cover the cost of the person staffing the mooring (not taking into account things like NI or pension costs if it's a permanent staffer). If you add that into the equation, I suspect it'd be quite a long period of time before Reedham started generating any actual revenue.

Be careful about upping power in reverse too much if it's a screw on threaded prop. They're usually threaded so that forward thrust keeps the prop screwed on tightly. In reverse, it's possible for the torque to unscrew the prop - usually accompanied by a loud screaming noise and not going anywhere. Something I learnt the hard way in the past

I think they're all upstream of Stretham Old Engine now. If you look at Google Street View, the 2011 image shows just a couple of cruisers and a single narrowboat. When I was there recently, the place was heaving with dozens of boats and masses of junk and rubbish. Not been down the Cam lately, but have heard it's fairly similar. It's one of the main reasons I think BA need to be very aware of what's coming with liveaboards as ever increasing numbers of people fall below the first rung of the housing ladder.

I often wonder how well ceramic coating works on GRP these days. Having used ceramic products on cars, where it gives several years of protection, it seems an ideal solution for boats. Only downside is the cost, but possibly more easily justifiable with a newer boat in good condition.

Out of interest, why the dislike? It's strange it ended up where it is in the middle of nowhere, and not closer to either Earith or Needingworth. It's unfortunate, as the road from Overcote is so poor these days, you need a proper 4x4 to get road access making it impractical to stick volunteers there to help.

The delay is currently rather long. EA have closed it "until further notice". Rumour locally is that it might be mid-June before it re-opens. There's some fairly serious discontent amongst RGO boaters. There's this issue, serious silting at Brandon, Denver and Salter's Lode and prolonged high water levels and SSAs have meant lots of people unable to get boats where they need them for moorings, maintenance, etc. EA are saying they'll action what they can "within the scope of our available budget", whilst there are quite a few boaters saying they'll withhold tolls until the situation improves, so it's all very similar to the situation on the Broads.

Good to see you getting out properly at long last. Boat's looking good too. Heading upstream was definitely the better option. I was down by the Pike & Eel yesterday and it's hard to tell where the river starts and ends. There's extensive flooding well outside the main channels still. Brownshill Staunch is also out of action until mid-June from what I've heard. You should start seeing volunteers helping out with locks imminently - but you'll have to figure Hemingford out for yourself, as EA don't cover that one.

Whilst camping in the South of France once, my best mate (more than a little hung over) stuck his head under a standpipe and turned the tap on to quench his thirst. What he'd failed to realise was that the local population of frogs were drawn in by the cool damp conditions and the smaller ones could climb into the pipe. Judging by his reaction, frogs legs for breakfast didn't appeal. Ever since then, I've always made a point of running a hose for a bit before use

It's interesting that you're extrapolating bridge clearance from a river level sensor. I've wondered for a while now why Project Troll don't do this to provide coverage of Ludham and Wroxham bridges.

Very cool thing to be involved in. My second lottery win dream retro rebuild would be a Poole Powerboats / Sunseeker S23. I very nearly bought one once, but it needed more work than I could afford to take on at the time. I do think we've lost something since around the late 90s, when design switched to practicality over style. A lot of very new stuff coming out now I think is just plain ugly. I still think there's little prettier than a Fairey Huntsman 28 or a Huntress.

When I worked at Summercraft, one of the neighbours had a Project 31 which I always lusted after. I think if I won the lottery, I'd be nice to do something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi_wzoVjlrQ I'd probably steer more towards the Classic 27 as the base though. Not sure if Silverline still have the moulds, but that was always my favourite retro hull design.

If travelling to look at this one, make sure to book an appointment in advance. There's no marina as such and I've found their communication leaves a bit to be desired. As Mouldy says, it's worth looking elsewhere. I'm not sure you'll necessarily save much in the case of an Elysian, as they're also popular around the Great Ouse, but there are quite a few of them around here due to proximity to their origin. On the Great Ouse, it's worth keeping an eye on these brokers: https://www.boatinland.uk/ads Buckden Marina's main site https://www.jonesboatyard.co.uk/boat-sales Generally more premium models. https://www.crosshallmarine.com/boat-sales.html Often lots of smaller boats - stock's low at the moment https://www.fishandduck.co.uk/our-boat-sales/ Duncan's a really genuine guy. Mostly narrowboats, but some small cruisers.

Air draft quoted is quite high. You'd think the screens would fold, but I can't see any sign that they do. Probably worth a call to clarify.

Waterside Marine Sales at Potter Heigham have a couple of Elysians at the moment. There's a Seamaster 813 at NBS

A couple of people have challenged BA about this on Facebook. Apparently, the BA's tolls team has been "busy helping people process payments in advance of the event".

Most modern alarms use "rolling codes" which change every time the remote is used. To try and overcome them, criminals use scanners which send out random codes one after another in the hope of hitting the right one. Manufacturers have reacted to this risk by looking for multiple random codes, then locking the system out for a while when they detect them. With each successive triggering of the system, they lock the remote out for increasingly longer intervals. That wasn't relevant in Vaughan's case, as he said the remotes worked at very short range, but it's very possible that's what you experienced - either from someone actually attempting to scan your or another nearby vehicle, or by random RFI which appeared similar in nature to random remote codes. Microwave ovens tend to be a common source of the latter.

Unfortunately, attitude to risk is now based on experience and liability and there's no room for nicety or case by case evaluation. If you work in a job where it's assessed that an activity involves risk, you'll generally be told what precautions to take, based on a worst case scenario. If you don't follow those precautions, or walk away when told to, the likely outcome is dismissal. I don't like that being the case but, equally, I can see violent crime spreading almost visibly out of major cities into the countryside. You've only got to look at the news to see how rapidly things are changing. Within the last week alone, we've had someone committing murder at random with a samurai sword and another slashing police officers with a chainsaw. Knives and machetes are commonplace in cities and spreading elsewhere at an alarming rate. A friend of a friend of mine was killed by stabbing here in my area and we recently had a double shotgun murder nearby. We've also had an incident with a boat owned by an organised crime group packed with half a million pounds in drugs. Sadly, you need to anticipate the threat of violence everywhere now, including rural Norfolk. The only sensible approach to mitigate these risks is to walk away and let the police deal with it. By all means, give people cameras as well but, like body armour, there's a risk they either embolden people, or appear confrontational and worsen situations. Are all non-toll paying liveaboards likely to be violent? Certainly not. Should we send rangers into higher risk enforcement scenarios on that assumption? No, because doing so could result in one of them not going home one day, when they happen upon that one who is violent.

My Honda's got City Traffic Brake Assist, which uses radar to brake automatically to prevent collisions, but only works below 20mph. I guess Honda were aware of the risk of interference and implemented the 20mph limit to avoid risk of high speed issues. The thought of it suddenly doing an emergency stop at 70mph or more is quite scary. I guess ABS would probably prevent complete loss of control, but you can bet other drivers behind wouldn't catch on quickly enough.

The same thought actually crossed my mind yesterday, but I guess they may have some benefit in the case of an event such as the one at Yarmouth Yacht Station, when there's a need to stop all traffic, or recover someone from the water. Obviously, it's entirely possible that Dr.P thinks differently and that his staff can deal with all-comers for evermore, but that'll probably prove unwise over time if other waterways are any indication. Some EA fishery enforcement staff are already having to wear stab vests and carrying batons and handcuffs.

I suspect the most likely thing is drone countermeasures. If you watch some of the footage from Ukraine, it's apparent that one of the most dangerous weapons on earth these days is a $100 first person Chinese drone with a grenade.

Growing up in Wroxham, myself and my friends were all on first name terms with local coppers. Sadly, those days are long gone. I think society has gone downhill dramatically. That's not to say that good police officers couldn't still build rapport with decent members of the general public, but the infrastructure of forces simply doesn't allow it to become reality in most cases. Back then, we had police houses in Wroxham and Horning. If you drove through the village, there was a good chance of seeing a copper. These days, you barely see them. I think it's also important to distinguish between police and BA in the context of this thread. Police are employed to face risk and expect to do so on a regular basis. Rangers are engaged to participate in mostly risk free activities. If you look at BA's website, the ranger role is described in very much positive terms, whilst anti-social behaviour is flagged as a police issue. I suspect that will increasingly be the case as time goes on. https://www.broads-authority.gov.uk/boating/navigating-the-broads/broads-rangers

Back in the 90s, I had a customer who was one of the UK's most accomplished female clay pigeon shooters. We supplied her with a high spec insurance approved car alarm system. Shortly after it was fitted, she started having issues with the remote control refusing to work, resulting in having to go through a complex override process before the car could be driven. We inspected and tested everything, but found it was 100% functional. It then became apparent that the remote only stopped working when she was shooting at Eriswell Lodge, just over the road from RAF Lakenheath. The only conclusion we could reach in the end was that some sort of radar or countermeasure the USAF were using was blocking the remote.