dom

Have you got a bow thruster? Using the dummy for that would be another option if so.

Wroxham bridge will never be removed unless something causes a major structural failure. The clever thing to have done would have been to push a relief channel through from around Broads Tours area into either Daisy Broad, or the old Broads Tour's boatsheds, then raise/extend the new bridge so it clears both the old and new river routes. It would have needed foresight and collaboration from various groups to achieve though, which is never going to happen when they can't even sort out a bypass, or foresee the issues in allowing residential development on the downstream side.

Looks like that would probably be fine if you were directly dumping current straight into a bank of standard lead acids, but the situation is more complicated in this case. It's using AGM batteries, which need higher voltage and the DC-DC units might see a slightly lower input voltage due to the splitter.

Two alternators in parallel doesn't sit comfortably with me. I worked in automotive electronics for quite a lot of years, including around the car audio scene. I have photos kicking around somewhere of a US manufacturer's demo truck at Daytona Spring Break "Sound Off", with a big aluminium bulkhead and something like 8 or 10 alternators hanging off it. The thing you have to consider taking any tips from that scene is it's considered a success if you crack your own windscreen (or even your roof - I've seen it happen). Reliability is rarely considered, fires are not unheard of and hardware is often treated as consumable. In theory, two alternators in parallel will work OK. The problem is, in practice, you'll probably end up with some disparity between the performance of the two. There's a risk that towards the end of the bulk phase, one alternator regulator may decide to stop charging whilst the other continues. You've then got two DC-DC units trying to pull 30A each from a single alternator - or possibly current flowing in an unintended manner from one alternator through the other (can't even being to think what effect that might have). The other concern I'd have is that if your engine battery ever fails open circuit (or a cable becomes disconnected), you'll probably fry both alternators, rather than just one. The only simple solution I can think of is to replicate the setup on a typical dual engine system. Connect each alternator to a standard lead acid battery - one for engine cranking, then use the second "spare" battery to run a single item, such as your fridge or water pump. May be worth asking Victron their view, as you can't be the first to do this? They've probably got some ridiculously expensive bit of hardware to suit!

I suspect Barnes are probably starting to suffer the effects of "death by social media", whether they realise it or not. They need to employ someone to engage with and encourage social proof (I'm currently available for the right price ). Just compare them and NBD on Trustpilot and ask yourself who people are going to steer towards.

They're a commercial interest though. Given a choice between 100% booking at 80% of regular price, or the opportunity to book 100% at 100% of the regular price, there will always be pressure to opt for the latter by the board or investors. Discounts come from bottom line margin. If you're working on slim margins, it doesnt take long to enter a loss making position.

What I really meant was wide at height, ie. height at the top corners, where it causes issues with a curved bridge like Wroxham. I think Potter is too extreme a case to try and cater to these days (although perfectly feasible with small, 2 berth models). Wroxham is more sensible under normal conditions and doesn't take anything revolutionary. Sliding canopies have always been a sensible solution - or you can use lateral thinking and produce something like the old Sancerre 33, dropping the saloon floor to keep the air draft down. There's more scope than ever now for clever design solutions, as hybrid drives reduce the need for a big lump of steel in a central position. There are opportunties for hirers who know what they're doing, but do you really think it's practical for someone who, for example, just hired Bolero from Richardsons and headed straight to see Roys on their first holiday? Swinging 44ft of boat round in the river whilst competing with trip and day boats. The same 6 people on that boat could just as easily be on an Alpha 35 style boat, head under the bridge and use the staithe or viaduct moorings (actually 84 moorings!). I think half the problem is boating holidays are being sold on luxury and facilities like home. I can't help but wonder if that's wrong and gives an an excessively sanitised experience, which people kind of enjoy, but don't have any great urge to return to. This is exactly my point. Ditch the 44ft battleship with playstations and coffee makers, and put those 6 people back in a 35ft sliding cockpit style boat. The overall investment for the yard is less, so costs can be cheaper. Air draft is less so they'll have access to the best areas and less hassle mooring. Do something outlandish like ditch the Playstation and offer a free sailing dinghy instead. Everyone goes on about kids not wanting to do anything but stare at electronic devices these days, but I question this and think it's probably still perfectly possible to get young people back into doing the things I did as a kid. I got cold,wet and muddy, fished, sailed, canoed and loved every second of it. Give the kids an unforgettable experience and they'll be nagging parents to come back as soon as the holiday's over. I think a lot of the problem is just lazy marketing, selling a home from home, when the broads is fairly unique and has a lot more to offer. I think you want people to experience a bit of adversity and get to outside their comfort zone. If you think back to early experiences, what do you remember? The TV and shower, or the failing in/breaking down/getting muddy?

Traditionally, there's a mad rush immediately after Christmas. Once Boxing day comes around, people start to think of the coming year and start to book holidays. If yards offer early discounts, there's a danger they get fully booked too soon and sell themselves short. I can imagine it being very difficult for them at the moment, having seen huge demand due to Covid followed by the year just gone, so not now knowing how a season is going to pan out. I suspect the whole thing is probably exacerbated by the cost of living impact as well. Previously, boats were getting larger, more luxurious and hence more expensive. We're probably seeing a double dip, with post-covid demand drop-off and cost issues occuring simultaneously. Vaughan has commented that these things always go in cycles. I personally think there needs to be a push for more budget friendly options, giving a reduction in cost per head by getting more people onto smaller boats. A lot of the new generation boats are also excessively high and wide. If we saw more updated traditional designs, more people could head upstream of Wroxham, easing pressure on moorings, giving better access to Hoveton and allowing them to enjoy one of the best bits of the northern broads. It's crazy that people can hire boats from Stalham and have no easy way to moor at Hoveton and Wroxham, supposedly the capital of the broads.

It won't be any concern for you with the Victron kit you're using (as far as I'm aware). Renogy do a 50A MPPT DC-DC unit with dual inputs. You can use it as a DC-DC charger, as a solar regulator, or as both at the same time. In dual input mode, it limits each input to 25A. With the engine running, if you've got 100w of solar connected, you'd only get around 33A in strong sun. If you disconnect the solar input when the engine is running, the unit pulls the full 50A from the alternator in the bulk charge phase.

Keep us updated - it'll be interesting to see your progress.

Surcharging vessels without a home mooring seems high risk to me. I'd be very surprised if that didn't get deemed as discriminatory in the current climate. You'd never get away with charging travellers more for road tax.

Definitely all in with the Multiplus. I have quite a bit of electrical experience, so I think I'm going to do things slightly differently and to try and avoid big invertors, adapting things to run natively from 12v and resorting to a generator if I need mains and can't access a hookup. One thing I've heard is to be careful about heat and ventilation with the Victron DC-DC units. Apparently, they can get very hot and will start to throttle if not well ventilated.

It's a real shame that Victron's DC-DC units only go up to 30A at the moment. I'm likely to end up going through a similar process in future and have spent hours researching and planning. I'm guessing you're now bought into the Victron ecosystem, so will want to stick with them, but I may well go with a couple of Renogy units, as they do a 50A unit - so 2 on a common bank can do 100A bulk charging (as long as you don't use the solar input, or isolate panels when engines are running). Renogy are also starting to offer some nice shunts and monitors. All their stuff is often substantially cheaper than Victron and seems well received amongst the online community. I do like Victron's GX Touch though. I could very easily be swayed into spending too much on their other kit just to be able to use it! I actually used to work for a company which, at the time, was one of the largest distributors of CTEK chargers. If you're just running a single bank of batteries, their D250S/Smartpass charger combination beats pretty much everything else on the market hands down from a technical perspective, but a) it's expensive and b) only really good for single banks.

Just be careful to ensure that you're getting sufficient charge voltage for AGM. I'm not a massive fan of AGM, as people often dump them straight in place of regular lead acids without addressing the charge voltage issue, which invariably leads to worse performance, or premature battery failure. Alternators, etc are generally set to max. 14.4v. This needs increasing to around 14.7v for AGM. Decent MPPTs and DC-DC chargers should cater for this, but you'll probably need to do something to set them up initially.

Carol. I think she worked with Hazel for quite a few years.

My mum worked as a booking agent for Blakes for 30 or so years (so lots of holidays on various waterways as I was growing up). A lot of the boating industry families around Wroxham also tended to have offspring around the same age as me, so I grew up socialising with Funnells, Bunns, Kings, Thwaites, etc. I "turned traitor" and went and worked for Dick Sabberton at Summercraft in my late teens, which was always a Hoseasons yard. I could very easily have stuck with the industry, rather than chasing money elsewhere. Half of me wishes I had.

I think it probably did and probably would have continued to do so, if Blakes had continued on their original trajectory, rather than struggling commerically and being bought out. Obviously with Blakes, their contributions to the community were always going to be a balancing act between public/industry benefit and commercial gain. That's an interesting point. The original thought was that the reason for making the subscription would be purely philanthropic, helping to protect the interests of boaters (and people's valued hobbies - fishing could potentially also play a part) into the future and allowing access for all. I used the example of £10 a year, as it's really a throwaway amount these days. I donate similar amounts monthly to several charities, and rarely give any thought to the ongoing cost once a direct debit is set up. The thought now occurs to me that it could be a mutual organisation. Pay a certain amount a year for membership and use the mooring(s) for free. Others could use the moorings, but are required to pay a charge per night (maybe just on an honesty basis). This becomes much more of a commercial enterprise (which may introduce greater liability issues), but could drive revenue faster. My gut feeling is that @Cheesey69's use of the boiling frog analogy is very pertinent. If you're constantly exposed to what's going on, it's very easy to overlook an insidious decline. If you're away for a while and return, the changes are much more stark. It seems to me like there's an awful lot of complaint around chargeable moorings, loss of moorings, generally increasing costs, etc yet no-one's actively doing much. The one I obviously missed from my original post was the Broads Society, but they seem if anything to be wavering around the middle ground to opposition - especially in regard to liveaboards, which seem to get tarred with a broad negative brush. There also seems to be a fair bit of conflict of interest with its members too.

I actually live just up the road from the Great Ouse. I quite regularly bike down and have a look at Earith Sluice, or West View marina, but have never really taken an active interest in boating in this area, as I always thought it was quite flat and uninteresting compared to the Northern Broads, especially heading in Denver direction. I think the main difference is that GOBA seem to be providing moorings on a large scale via leasing to address a shortage - but what I'm suggesting is a slow, progressive gaining of ground on a more permanent basis, purchasing rather than leasing. If you got £10 a year for every boat on the broads, you're talking about £120k a year. You'll never get anything like 100% subscription, but if you add in legacies, corporate membership, donations from visitors, etc, it should still be viable to raise sizeable amounts. You can then either accrue funds over a number of years and aim to buy back recently lost moorings, or buy up larger tracts of land not currently used for mooring and do the minimum work to allow them to function as wild moorings.

Having worked in a yard in the distant past, been a private boater and even had forays into living aboard, returning to the broads after quite a few years, I'm struck by the fact a lot seems to be changing. In particular, there seems to be a need for a bit of a fight back from the boating side before we're completely marginalised by the national park movement and unreasonable charges. From what I can see of things, there doesn't seem to much happening in the way of a unified organisation on the boating side. In theory, RYA should be helping, but I've not seen any evidence of this. NSBA describe themselves as "Guardian of broads boating", but seem more focussed on sailing and publishing the Green Book. Is that all fair comment? Is there anyone else I should be considering? I keep pondering a thought about a hypothetical organisation. Let's say that this was set up as a charitable trust, with the intended purpose being to protect the future of navigation on the broads (both private and charter). The trust collects funds by annual subscriptions, ad hoc donations and legacies. The trust does little or nothing in return for its members, other than accrue funds with a single goal, buying waterside land. As and when the opportunity arises, the trust buys up the land, then either makes it available for wild mooring, or leases to the BA for a peppercorn rent on the basis that no mooring charges will be levied. It's obvious from recent discussion that the wrong type of liveaboards could raise issues, as could overstaying in general. If land was leased to BA, this would obviously be less of a concern. If the land was wild moorings and effectively common land, I suspect public liability insurance would be necessary, but possibly not prohibitively expensive. It'd be really interesting to know if the church specifically insure the Horning church mooring and, if so, at what cost - or if anyone knows of other comparable situations. Finding land might be difficult initially, but with a rising reserve every year, I suspect sooner or later land owners would start to be tempted into selling off otherwise unused strips of land. Aside of trying to improve availability of public moorings, I think holding land at the extremes of a navigation and the need to retain navigation rights between them could also increasingly give the trust authority and influence in wider decision making processes. Can anyone else add any more pros and cons to this? I'm not about to start putting this into practice any time soon, but think it's something worth wider discussion.

If you listen to the Youtube video in detail, the Police have attended and there seemed to be a suggestion from one ranger that they were going to return. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out every word they said, but it seemed like a slightly pointed statement. Out of interest, what makes you believe this so strongly? I've learnt in the past that people short of money very quickly turn to tampering with meters. Ironically, I discovered this at a location not far from Sutton.

Can't say I blame you. Apart from a few seconds interest at Fosdyke Yacht Haven, the A17 across to Boston area is one of the most tedious roads I've ever driven.

Ultimately, those people would probably be better off on the CRT network, where they could spend up to 2 weeks at a time in one location without breaking any rules. The obvious difference is, on the canals, there are endless miles of moorings, so they can afford to have people stopping for prolonged periods, and liveaboards have to invest in solar, as there's less access to power outside marinas. If they had the sense to invest some of this in solar, they could tuck themselves away on wild moorings for days and probably have a more relaxed time of things. Seems like one or two of them actively enjoy looking for confrontations though.

Why disable the posts though, when it'll antagonise an already less than happy group of rule abiding private owners? Just a quick cursory read of the Broads Authority Act and I can see about half a dozen points which are probable legislative breaches by the problem individuals, each with fines up to £5k. It's self evident that a fine or two of that order would very quickly have these people either moving on elsewhere, or attracting criminal attention for non-payment of fines. Apart from anything else, all they're going to do is move elsewhere, exacerbating the problem. By the sound of things, 4 boats at Sutton are now going to block out Irstead and cause other issues at Dilham. Meanwhile legitimate owners at Sutton are left without power and will sit there wondering why they paid the increeased tolls. If BA really find it that hard to tackle, they're welcome to pay me a couple of days a week and I'll find ways to address these issues without affecting the quiet and respectful liveaboard owners.

He says "nice thursday", so I suspect it was yesterday. Also makes reference to a Police visit. Just how many boats does he have? Says he'll move his boats to Irstead and the other ones to Dilham, which suggests at least 4?? Have to wonder if they're all licensed.

Does the date on the video reflect when it actually took place? If so, I wonder if the incident at Neatishead has any bearing on things. Only two days earlier, so could be a related safety concern?