dom

I think it would be relatively easy to highlight certain information which would place him in a very unfavourable light. At that point in time, BRAG could potentially be very useful, using sheer numbers and the ability of social media to get people "cancelled". It's a fairly nuclear option though and would likely have wider repercussions. I'm collating some info at the moment to decide whether it's something to pursue and just waiting on an FOI from elsewhere. There's some further info I'd really like to source, which is also proving difficult. What I'm not sure at the moment though is whether it's politically expedient to remove JP, or whether you'd just get more of the same. There's a lot going on at the same time with flooding, Herring Bridge, tolls and possible inaccurate data all coming along at the same time. It might be advantageous to try and kick up such a storm it results in a root and branch review of BA as a whole.

That'll keep my brain busy for a while working out how that all fits together! So it was Jack. I thought you might know. I couldn't remember his first name, so tried to Google it and found a reference to a milepost on the Trent and Mersey being dedicated to him by David Court back in 82 sponsored by "His Friends in the Hire Boat Industry". I remember the day he died vividly, but wasn't old enough to have got to know him properly - which is a shame, as my grandfather was a Lancaster pilot, so it'd have been interesting to have heard his experiences.

It will be really sad if it does get turned into housing. I can remember sitting outside with a drink on warm summer evenings going back something like 40 years - and also cold winter evenings, inside by the old bar before it all changed, when it always seemed to be rammed with people. There's always been a bit of a battle for customers between the pub and the Granary. Supposedly, introduction of mooring charges has increased footfall, but I find it incredibly hard to believe. When there was no charge, you could pop in for a short while, grab a drink or two, then leave. If you've paid a significant charge, you're surely more likely to stick around for a substantial percentage of the time you've paid for. The net effect is inevitably less footfall, rather than the more BA claim.

I wouldn't underestimate his influence. His wife (who I went to primary school with) has substantial industry experience and his father in-law has long been one of the best known faces in the industry. Even his mother-in-law used to race with the late Jill Thwaite, so no doubt has countless friends and connections in the industry. There was also a guy by the name of Knight used to work for Blakes way back, who sadly died very young. I've wondered on a few occasions whether he might be a relative. I think the point I'm trying to make though is that even vast amounts of noise online rarely have much impact in the real world. BRAG has undoubtedly collected the aggrieved together online but, as far as I'm aware, it doesn't go beyond that. To make big steps forward, there need to be actual real world events taking place. It may well be that this is the case, but I've certainly not heard about it if so. Also worth pointing out, the group which should be helping to facilitate change for private boaters should by rights really be NSBA, who have a formal, real word organisation with an established relationship with BA. If anything though, there seems to be a bit of rift forming between NSBA and BRAG. One of NSBA's key members is also daughter of Peter Bower, skipper of Hathor and member of Wherry Yacht Charter, which has also suffered damage due to the actions of the BA in regard to moorings. When you start digging into the industry, it's a massive web of interconnected families and organisations. None of them has substantial influence within BA. That really ought to change.

From what I can work out, you probably wouldn't have been a grey haired old man when you were involved though. You'd have been a younger man with a very active involvement and commercial interests in the hire boat industry. That's what's needed now - a better balanced BA with more representation from commercial, and particularly hire boating interests. It's glaringly obvious that the few who are involved get the opportunity to express views, but those views are completely ignored. Listening to the decision on tolls (2nd meeting, not just the navcom), it seemed to me that option C was clearly supported, proposed and seconded. It was a mystery to me how it then disappeared and was replaced by a more costly alternative. It may well be something was lost in translation only being conveyed in audio, but it sounded like the voting procedure was twisted to suit a predetermined outcome. It's not just the hire boat industry which should have a say though. Clearly, from a lot of discussion on here lately, pubs and restaurants equally bare the brunt of an unhealthy economy. The BA should encompass input from the hospitality industry too - and give them a voice to express concerns about things like the current flooding preventing Horning Ferry being able to operate their business without disruption, or why numbers of visitors in season was so low this year.

There's quite a lot of spending which could be curbed relatively easily. I'm surprised in amongst all the current row, no-one is mentioning that more land has also been purchased in the last year. There are some real vanity projects too. The heritage restoration partnership with City College is all very nice, but hardly essential spending in the midst of a financial crisis. Ancillary to that, they're also employing a heritage construction specialist. Cutting this expenditure for a year or two would reduce the financial pressure and give the projected reduction in inflation time to take effect. They're currently basing forecast expenditure on inflation rates far higher than OBR are predicting. Looks really nice. I've had some enjoyable times on the canals, but I'm not sure I fancy 3 hours stuck in Standedge Tunnel. I'd think you'd want a couple of skippers for that, as I'd imagine it gets pretty tiring navigating in the dark for that long!

Listen to what he uses as a defense when he has to justify expenditure. His prejudices may well be his downfall.

The Broads is not a national park and unlikely to be treated as such unless the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Act 1988 is repealed. The latter is probably fairly unlikely given all the other issues government has to deal with, unless some great benefit becomes apparent. If JP goes, I suspect Bill Dickson might be a candidate for the role, but that'd almost certainly be to the detriment of the boating community. I get the impression he'd take an passive role and just employ a subordinate JP clone. I'm fast becoming a grey haired old man, so think it's fair for me to say there are far too many grey haired old men running the organisation. There needs to be a better gender balance and some younger blood. I suspect JP's departure would almost certainly attract wider scrutiny and result in some positive discrimination to bring in some minority representation. Ultimately, it really needs one or more people with a boating industry background in a position of authority. Potentially, it could be improved by an arrangement like the RYA and some other cooperative type bodies. One of my distant family members had a long history in the boating industry and was a director of the RYA - they were appointed, gave what they could to benefit the organisation, then left a couple of years later before stagnation set in. What really needs to happen is a unified group to be formed - maybe even BRAG becoming a sub-organisation under an existing body such as NSBA. Create a "fighting fund", hold regular open meetings and actually do something to actively instigate change. At the moment, there just seems to be 99% moaning and a tiny number of people actively doing anything. I suspect the 5 MPs stepping up is primarily the result of James Knight's actions. One thing BRAG could be said to have achieved is concentrating disgruntled people in one place where they're easy to communicate with, but not much else seems to be forthcoming from them to date and there are some elements within the group which definitely need removing. If you listen to the two recordings floating around from BA committee meetings, it's very evident they don't have the first idea whether they're likely to get any additional funding, or what for. In one of the meetings, it was claimed there was no margin to reduce staffing anywhere. Personally, if I took a senior role there tomorrow, I'd cull one role immediately and ensure there was an employee solely tasked with going after funding (assuming there isn't one already. If there is, it sounds like they need sacking). If a body couldn't be cut from the planning department (which could probably lose a few), then I'd question whether Spirit of Breydon really needs two full time crew, or whether it could be single handed, meeting up with another river or yacht station ranger in case of emergency which needed multiple crew.

If you listen to the earlier nav committee recording, 30 minutes in, there's a bit from Emma Krelle, their CFO. In it, she states that they hope to have the lease in place to allow charging at Reedham from the start of the season, so that'll be another free section lost. That could probably do with being highlighted to the various MPs resisting the toll increases. It's almost as if the BA think holidaymakers having to pay to moor every night will become the norm, and leisure boaters will all be back on their own moorings. Obviously that wildly misrepresents the situation, as a lot of boat owners will spend lots of nights out on other moorings, and the holiday market might not sustain another £70-100 per week added to total costs.

If you read the in-depth risk assessment, the modelling system had significant limitations and couldn't model some feasible real world scenarios within the harbour itself. It's interesting to hear that RYA raised concerns about the comments on the risk assessment.

There's been one interesting comment made by a farmer, who stated that water was running the wrong way, from an established flood plain back onto farming land. That would suggest the volumes of water are exceeding what the plains can traditionally cope with.

I just took a look at Burgh Castle's level monitoring and I think you're probably right about the API refresh frequency - but the raw data is being sampled every 15 minutes, so would probably be available by less programmatic means. I'm currently listening to the very long recording of the BA's nav committee meeting, but will try and take a look later to see if I can get long term trending data. I have managed to get some long term data with min and max levels by day. Just need to get my head around whether that is enough to use to look for a trend.

I actually run a website which regularly fetches live river level data from the Environment Agency's API every 30 minutes. Presumably, there are monitoring stations upstream of Great Yarmouth from which data can be sourced? I don't know offhand how much historic data is available from the API and at what point you might have to make an FOI request for older data - but surely this could be used to establish whether there was a quantifiable change after the bridge restriction was introduced. To my mind, you'd either see levels falling less at low tide, as the water is held back, or a shorter slack water period?

"But the authority has dismissed the claims, insisting all rules have been followed and the rise was needed to protect services and maintain the waterways" The hire federation ought to pick up on this and notify the press that they disagree, advised the BA otherwise including as part of the nav committee, and that it's JP making a unilateral decision. When things get to this stage, it's a PR war and you need to throw every bit of brown stuff at the opposition in the hope that some sticks. There is another, very serious accusation which could be levelled at him, but I can't discuss it on here, as I've had two comments relating to it deleted previously.

In my experience, surveyors tend to recommend fitting a high capacity manual pump in addition to an automatic electric. I always found that a bit odd - if a pump's going to fail, inevitably, it's more likely it'll do so when the boat's unattended and there's no-one to man the 2nd pump. The most sensible recommendation I've seen is to fit a second auto pump, with a float switch which triggers a fair bit higher than the main pump. Cable it directly to the starter battery, using slightly over-rated cable. Add a fuse rated just below the cable capacity, ensuring it's significantly higher than the current rating for the pump. That seems to provide a couple of benefits - a fail safe pump, which will keep running irrespective of any main bus or switch panel failure - but also a secondary pump which will join in parallel with the main pump if you suffer a more substantial leak. The overcapacity cable and high rating fuse is intentional, so the unit tends to keep running even if overheating. If your boat's sinking, the slight risk of fire is probably not worth worrying about! Given the relatively small cost involved, anything I own is getting something along those lines. Years ago, I saw an all female crew on a hire boat hole their hull on wooden stakes near Horning church and it's amazing how quickly a boat can go down. Dom Buckley also recommended "a pair of stout buckets should be carried at all times" on one survey, which I think is fairly sound advice too.

Sorry, but that's plain wrong. An older charger will be exactly as you describe it - basically just a PSU, which simply bulk charges. They can't be left connected for prolonged periods and are far from optimal in terms of charging performance. Modern units may use similar components (in reality far more SMT and much more complex microprocessor control), but charger technology is radically different. Good units detect battery state, desulphate, destratify, ramp up to bulk charge then float charge. The best units switch to a long term pulse charge, also automatically dropping back into bulk charging if the battery voltage drops. This gives quite a few major benefits: Reduced sulphation - probably the biggest killer of batteries, especially in applications which are used infrequently Dramatically longer battery life Faster charging - but especially more charge added in short connection periods. Particularly beneficial if you just get access to a mains hookup for a period of time shorter than a full charge cycle. Reconditioning modes, which can salvage batteries otherwise in need of replacement Can be left connected for prolonged periods Substantially better regulated output voltage, which prevents overcharging type issues Compatible with different battery technologies, ie. AGM, Ca/Ca, GEL, EFB, etc I managed a business selling one of the market leading brands for quite a few years, and have supplied 10s of thousands of units which are OEM spec for BMW, Bentley, Mercedes, Aston Martin, etc, etc (plus a marine range). A lot of these vehicles have to have more complex charging as they tend to suffer damage with traditional units.

And the rest. It seems to be Black Friday month now, which is a completely ludicrous concept.

Personally, I'd say replacing 60 year old cabling with 30 year old cabling is probably false economy. The problem with copper cable is when it gets old, it can either oxidise or corrode within the sheathing and fail with no external indication. I'm not 100% sure I'm completely understanding what you're proposing, and whether what you're trying to repurpose is some sort of old 240v to 12v charging hardware. If so, I'd be even less likely to reuse in this case, as modern hardware has improved substantially in the fairly recent past and is reasonably economically priced in a lot of cases. I've not studied the 240v sections of BSS to any great extent, but have a feeling there may be a requirement for a sturdy cover if an external hookup socket is in an exposed position. If you go on the BSS scheme website, all the criteria are downloadable in a PDF.

I was going to suggest that, but did a quick bit of mental arithmetic and think it'd probably be barely worth it.

There's a national issue with water supply in summer. Depending on whether it's fresh or saline, the clever thing would be to divert it elsewhere for storage. The Great Ouse at Denver gets sent down to a couple of reservoirs in Essex, via a pumping station at Kennett, near Newmarket.

What type of cable is the 240v side? T&E, white or blue flex? On the 12v side, you might find the chassis was being used for grounding. That may cause issues with BSS and 2 wire checks (Section 3.7). That aside, BSS is mostly just checking connections are firm, everything is fused and batteries are secure, so nothing else obvious springs to mind. As a former auto-electrician, my initial gut feeling is, it's probably making work for yourself - and potentially using material which could be degrading due to age.

That's exactly where I was thinking. The big concern for me would that water would then channel in behind the dunes, rapidly overwhelming a lot of housing.

1953 in particular, as I've heard first hand from family members who experienced it, but yes. Been a while since I've been to Hemsby, but from what I can remember, there's not a lot of margin to the north of the currently affected area before you start to see a major risk of influx in a severe storm or tidal event. I presume justification for the works at Sea Palling was along similar lines, despite its fairly small permanent population.

The fundamental issue with planned neglect is the risk of a major catastrophic event. Sooner or later, erosion is likely to result in a sudden and unexpected event, which carries significant risk of fatalities. If that happens, the cost will very rapidly make £20m look like pocket change. Given the scale of fatalities in '53, local authorities ought to be more than aware of this.

Happisburgh area and to the north has always had major issues (including Shipden and a big bit of road around Trimingham). When I was at school in the mid 80s, we had field trips there and had longshore drift explained to us in great detail. Hemsby and further south seems to be a new phenomenon though. Something has obviously changed, but I suspect it's more likely to be Great Yarmouth harbour, or the offshore wind farms than climate change. It's very easy to see how Sheringham Shoal, Race Bank, etc could be pushing tidal energy away from the coast and down towards Yarmouth. The trouble is now, we're changing so much of the natural environment in such a short space of time, without studying the effects that ultimately no-one really knows the truth.