dom

My grandfather was a Lancaster pilot in WW2. He survived his full tour and lived well into his 90s, but died in 2013. After he died, I was inspired to visit a couple of related museums and it turned into a bit of an obsession. I set about trying to visit every aviation museum in the UK - something which got cut short by Covid and I need to get back to. Cosford was a definite favourite. I suspect I probably spent more than 4 hours looking around. If you're a southerner and drive up, stay overnight and take a trip to Ironbridge at the same time as it's stunning. I did Hendon too, but thought it was a bit dirty and run down when I visited. It's great that it's free to enter, but I think I'd rather have paid a nominal charge to help improve the place. If you love the WW2 era stuff, I'd thoroughly recommend a trip to Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre at East Kirkby. Not the biggest of museums, but all set in the original WW2 buildings which is very atmospheric. They also have "Just Jane", the UK's second Lancaster being restored to flying condition and a taxying Mosquito. Their air show is also well worth a visit, as they usually have a mixed aircraft/pyrotechnic display. If you're into newer stuff, stick a visit to RIAT on your bucket list. It's promoted as the world's largest military airshow. I suspect the Yanks probably beat it these days, but it's massive nonetheless with some phenomenal jet displays. Just one word of advice though - take a hat and a ton of sunscreen. It's all on tarmac runways and I got the worst sunburn of my life there!

What exactly did I say which is supposed to be aggressive? I doubt the owners of Horning Ferry, The New Inn, Martham Boats, Ferry Marina, Richardsons, etc think there are silver linings in much right now. A poor season this year could prove to be a death knell for their businesses - particularly if an incoming Labour government chooses to rob funding or increase corporate taxes to address social issues. Which part of Norfolk was it that you were born in? Most things have been. Go take a look at the state of Hoveton around the Three Horseshoes moorings, then tell me why you think coming on here singing Packman's praises is justified from the standpoint of anyone who cares about Broadland.

I guess it will depend on where the water goes. There was mention at one point (possibly the Hickling meeting?) of relieving flooding by pumping water to the treatment plant at Belaugh. Unless anything has changed, I'm sure water from there just discharges into the Bure after treatment, so presumably flooding in Hoveton would actually increase. On the plus side, it'd probably flood the BA tourist office if so, which might make them put more pressure on EA A lot of the Cambridgeshire Fens is below sea level and only kept dry by continual pumping, so it's a viable option, but I suspect they'd need to tackle more than just the upper reaches of the Thurne.

I visited an EA office recently and have had a couple of subsequent interactions with them. On doing so, you inevitably find yourself comparing them to BA. I think EA's one big advantage is they're very compartmentalised, so if a department starts to underperform, it's less likely to have wide reaching effects. It also means people are very focussed on their jobs. The down side is, it's evident that people are reluctant to do anything beyond their job description. Asking a couple of river inspection and licensing people about the impact of the preceding weekend, when there'd been record water levels, their response was "it's the flood response team's responsibility". When I asked them if a river inspector would loosen mooring lines, or contact an owner to prevent a sinking, the response was just blank faces. I suspect BA rangers would be far more proactive in similar circumstances. Back around Christmas time, a boat went adrift and ended up in the middle of nowhere on the Old West River. EA put out a safety notice, but it's still there now, despite prolonged periods of lower water when it could have been moved. It's evident they're very risk averse, so would no doubt claim it was too dangerous to move, despite the water being like a mirror when I last stopped off for a look. My biggest fear is that when someone does eventually move it, they find the owner has come to some harm. I do often wonder whether the Broads would work better if they were handed over to EA, then BA retained solely for a conservation role. I suspect it'd work better from a funding perspective and would at least prevent the current buck passing on dredging.

I'd strongly recommend that you don't express that sentiment amongst your wife's parishioners. Or in neighbouring Potter or Horning for that matter. With raw sewage polluting streets and river levels threatening the beleaguered pub and boat hire industries, it's a fairly crass and insensitive statement to make and Norfolk natives can be fairly unforgiving. The BA are also responsible for plenty of other failings, irrespective of their culpability in flooding. Personally, I question whether their reticence to provide clear financial figures is because they're failing to make ends meet and are spending excessively on staffing and legal fees at the expense of things like maintaining Hoveton riverside, or dredging Bure mouth. I notice the latter has been moved forward again. Conveniently, that probably means a lot of costs will fall into next financial year. Moving your expenses forward is a classic symptom of a business out of control of its finances.

Can you fit a Tides dripless seal? Will last a good few years in its own right, but also comes with a spare seal holder on the shaft so when it needs renewing, you can do it in the water. Automotive "Bug and Tar Remover" might be worth trying on the bird crap? It breaks it down, but is paintwork safe, so probably OK on varnish. I'm more of a fan of .177 PCP for a more permanent solution! I nearly commented the other day when you said you'd stay in the wetshed. Too nice a weekend for that, so good to see you got a bit of a run out, however brief.

That probably ought to be flagged with Duncan Baker's team. I watched live and it was fairly clear in the bloke's demeanour that he meant it. It was particularly notable, as I think the rest of the time he came across as particularly smug, almost laughing patronisingly at times when pressure was put on him. He seemed incapable of any sort of objectivity. I'm quite surprised there's not been more comment after the meeting about the standpoint of the various organisations amongst the boating fraternity. I suspect it's because inconveniently it doesn't fit the narrative of putting the blame on Packman. Unfortunately, I think this is possibly a key issue. Too many people are trying to make flooding a BA issue. I'm absolutely in favour of major reform of the BA but, having sat through how ever many hours of discussion it was at the meeting, I'm firmly of the opinion that EA are the ones who need to step up. Ironically, elsewhere, they're currently recruiting staff to decide where to spend £200m they've been given for flood risk mitigation.

I thought that first picture was Hoveton Hall until I read what you'd said. It's very definitely not just the Broads. Here in Cambridgeshire, the Ouse washes spill over onto the road at Earith when things are really bad. It normally happens for a week or so around Christmas to New Year. This year, things are far worse and we've had repeated closures, including for the last week. This is actually a fairly major route between St.Ives and Ely which is still closed now, with no clear singn when things will improve. Fortunately, I no longer have to drive the route daily like I used to, but thousands of people are having to take extensive diversions via other routes which, inevitably, all have roadworks or similar issues. The way this has been handled by local authorities and the EA makes the BA look efficient and dynamic in comparison.

Not if he's got any sense. I'd be asking the judge to increase his sentence just for naming the boat after himself.

I'd assume he must be a man of substantial personal means as presumably he must have just walked away from an avoidable 1/4 million or so loss by selling the boat on to someone else - assuming it was insured in the first place. His architecture business has £2m in assets. I notice he's also named the boat after himself. To my mind, that all adds up to someone who's probably far from timid. You can just imagine how ebullient he'd be after a skinful, so no great surprise if others didn't question him. It's got all the classic traits you tend to see in marine incidents and the only positive is that it could very easily have turned out much worse. On an unrelated note, I'm not sure I'd want to be at sea in that Sealine S330 in anything other than calm conditions. The transom freeboard looks like it'd be lethal in a decent following sea of any size. I'm amazed it achieved RCD B rating.

The same way fishery, import regulation, immigration and current commercial alcohol limits are enforced now - random stop and inspection. Obviously, the main point is the deterrent effect though. If it was specifically illegal, it may have caused the helmsman in this case to reconsider his actions, before he caused someone life changing injuries.

I think navigating the Broads under any significant amount of alcohol is ill-advised. I suspect alcohol played a role in the last drowning, but I doubt a specific alcohol limit would have had any influence on the victim. That case aside, there's nothing to really suggest a significant need for further legislation - the existing bylaws already have sensible clauses. The IOW case does however show a clear need for a specific alcohol limit for private individuals helming offshore. I can't help but wonder whether there ought to be a training requirement for offshore night navigation too. It'd be interesting to know if he had Day Skipper, Yachtmaster, etc. I suspect from the behaviour probably not.

The trouble with automatic extinguishers is that by the time they get hot enough to trigger, the fire will be well established, unless it happens to start right under the extinguisher. More often than not, electrical fires will happen in running systems, which means you're probably on board and will smell or see the issue before the extinguisher triggers. The other problem is that electrical fires occur due to high current. In theory, fuses or circuit breakers should prevent it. If however you have a seized breaker, incorrectly rated fuse, etc, the current tends to set fire to the supply cable, but across a long length of cable, rather than in a single spot. If, for example the cable is feeding an anchor windlass, you could end up with a red hot cable down the entire length of the boat. If you've got money to spare, there's no harm having them, but in the first instance, I'd always focus on bringing electical systems up to a higher standard, as an awful lot leave a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, being low voltage, people who shouldn't be touching things tend to modify and add things on with little understanding of what they're doing.

It's a long time ago now, but from what I remember of things, I think most involved a completely drunk crew, someone entering the water (either deliberately or by accident) and either coming into contact with props, or drowning unnoticed by the rest of the crew - so not necessarily a drunk helm, but invariably the lack of a sober and alert crew member. It was around the same time that all male crews started to become really frowned upon and I suspect this played a part in their being forbidden by most yards, as the worst offenders tended to be all male crews. There was no MAIB report for the last drowning on the Broads (apparently they "carried out office-based enquiries"), but I suspect the helm was under the influence of drink or drugs.

S.83 of the Navigation Bylaws 1995 states: "A person shall not navigate a vessel whilst under the influence of drink or drugs to such an extent as to be incapable of taking proper control of the vessel." The maximum penalty would be £1000. The only question mark is around the definition of "incapable of taking proper control". I suspect, if you caused death or major injury, a court would use either the prescribed limit for driving (35mcg) or commercial boating (25mcg) as the measure. The law also has the means to deal with most things. If you caused a death whilst drunk, you could well get charged with gross negligence manslaughter, which has a maximum sentence up to life imprisonment. Back when I worked in a yard, we used to see 1-2 deaths most years on the Broads and invariably alcohol played a part in most. For that reason, I'm strongly of the opinion that having a few drinks is fine, but the person doing the helming ought to stop at one, and needs to take responsibility for making sure everyone else stays safe. If you want to get drunk, go do it somewhere safer on shore.

I think the trouble is, if you go too low, everyone drinking the night before will be over the limit the following morning (which is a concern in commercial scenarios, as well as aviation). The body can also produce alcohol during carbohydrate metabolism. If you're not careful, the limit will start catching people with naturally high endogenous alcohol levels who've not touched a drop. The aviation limit is 20mcg, which tends to mean pilots avoid drinking the entire day before flying. I don't think our society would accept people taking a day off driving after having a couple of beers.

Personally, I'd never drink before helming a boat of any significant size, mostly for fear of harming others. The thought of an inexperienced hirer being in charge of a boat whilst over the drink drive limit puts the fear of god into me. Is it really necessary to drink and helm? Can people not take turns to drink and helm? The driving limit is 35mcg. In commercial marine, the limit is now 25mcg, presumably as the risk of injury is perceived to be higher with a boat than with a road vehicle.

Not much point with diesel boats IMO, as diesel's actually surprisingly difficult to ignite without pressure. There's an argument for having one in proximity to the batteries, but electrical fires by their nature tend to occur elsewhere within the system.

Impractical to legislate for the adult/child ratio though? I did a water saftey course the other day and the SAR organisation which ran it said their number one safety item above all else is a throwing line. I was really surprised on checking BSC rules to find that not only is this missing, but life buoys are only mandatory on non-private boats. I struggle to see the logic in differentiating between private and non-private vessels where life saving is concerned.

The law really needs tightening around alcohol and helming a private vessel. The Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 sets some fairly tight limits on blood alcohol levels for professional masters and seamen. There ought to be equivalent legislation in place to cover leisure boats - at least in coastal/offshore settings. Having the odd beer is one thing, but the fact he set off at 20kts 90 degrees from the correct bearing suggests he was well out of it. That was my initial thought, but I suspect there's no realistic way to do it whilst the boat is still there and belonging to someone else. You'd have to revert or undo the sale, which would be a minefield and likely to set all sorts of undesirable precedents.

Bear in mind, you may need more than just one switch. For Broads night nav, you'll want a spotlight or two. Generally, it's best not to use them and to rely on night vision, but you really need something if you hit a particularly dark spot, encounter an obstacle, or for mooring. I should think on the RGO, there's a greater need for lights like this as it's narrower in places and more bridges, locks, etc? If you end up on the Broads, it's possible you might also decide to fit an anchor windlass. Personally, I'd keep the wipers on separate switches. Every boat I've been on, they're invariably annoying in use, so being able to just run one will at least mitigate the annoyance. I'd move the horn initially to a round momentary switch below the rev counter. If you struggle to find replacement switches, let me know and I can always show you how to run nav lights from a momentary switch if needs be.

Have you got a mains hookup on your mooring?

I am actually going to make a concerted effort to visit this year, as I've never been and spent parts of my youth just up the road. One of my mates back then lived next door at Ropes Hill Farm. Whenever we watched TV round at his place, you'd get a horizontal line tracking down the TV picture every 30 seconds or so as the big dish tracked past. It was immensely annoying, but I guess they just got used to it after a while.

The photo is shot from roughly between the door to Modern Man (which I think was run by a bloke called Tony for many years?) and the Hotel Wroxham entrance. Lloyds is now Betfred. The Post Office is just out of shot top right. Costa is just out of shot top left. Same day was later "The Book & Stationery Centre" and is now a Turkish barbers. Nice Walnut Whip advert in the middle if I'm not mistaken. There used to be two phone boxes on the right, where we regularly congregated as kids. I've spent far too many drunken hours sat on those benches in years gone by!

Just happened to notice this today. EDP image from 1975 showing Hoveton Precinct with Wroxham Galleries. I think that's the same shop which became a Wimpy, so I'd assume they closed not long after, as I remember visiting the Wimpy in the late 70s.