dom

Reed beds are often used in off-grid water treatment. I'd imagine the huge expanses of reeds on the broads are a lot more effective than a free flowing river.

I'd started to take that view independently of the actual legislative/licensing situation. Nitrate runoff levels throughout the whole of East Anglia must be massively higher than the entire boating fleet could ever produce. There are quite a lot of treated water outfalls, but I get the impression the lower density population means there are fewer extreme events when untreated waste escapes than in other parts of the country. I know for a fact there's one particularly bad waste plant at Coton, which regularly dumps raw waste into Bin Brook, but that probably only affects the Cam - the effect has probably diminished by the time it reaches the Ouse.

Loads of really useful info there. Worth adding to the above, where possible, loop a rope around the outdrive(s) and secure to a deck cleat or similar, so the drive doesn't drop if the rams fail or lose pressure, especially when using smaller trailers. There have been instances of drives dropping, coming into contact with the road surface and grinding half the gear casing away. Aside of very expensive damage to the outdrive itself, I'd imagine there's also a significant risk of transom damage in cases like this. Just for reference, what's a ballpark figure for shifting a 30ft boat from, say, St.Ives, Cambridgeshire to Wayford Bridge, Norfolk? A few of us on here have mentioned possible moves along these lines lately.

Just happened to notice this earlier. Looks like she used to live at West View in Earith. I was actually looking at the site trying to work out the deal with pumpouts on the Great Ouse. I'd planned to buy a boat on the broads, but am actually now open-minded to the prospect of buying something locally and possibly moving later. It seems that the EA provide pumpout facilities, but I can't see how this works in terms of charging - or whether it's actually free as part of the license?

I hate to think how many times I visited Felbrigg as a kid. Had some great days fishing the lake there, but probably caught very little. If you're visiting by car, it's worth driving down through nearby "Lion's Mouth". It's beautiful in the summer, but also stunning in autumn when all the leaves start to change colour. At one time, you used to be able to go from Holt Road, down through Lion's Mouth and enter the Felbrigg estate via the back entrance, but last time I tried, there was a closed gate in front of the house, so seems they're discouraging that now. We used to visit my great uncle's shop in Holt on occasion and often stopped off at the county park there, which is also worth a visit for a walk on a sunny day out. Holt itself seems to be getting more like Burnham Market as time passes.

https://www.peachment.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/User-Manual-4.200HE-4.220HE-5.280HE.pdf Ident plate location is shown on page 11. My money is definitely on the 220. The heat exchanger is the same and the lifting eye/injector position looks the same too. Good if so, as it suggests that you may have the same issue Mouldy mentioned with prop size, rather than an aging engine. 6000hrs is significant, but like cars and motorway miles, heavy use and regular servicing is often better than infrequent use. Modern diesels ought to cope with 10k hours+ and potentially a lot more if oil is changed regularly.

https://www.peachment.co.uk/discontinued/4-150he/ https://www.peachment.co.uk/discontinued/4-220he/ Longer heat exchanger with 4 bolts down the side shown in your image looks more like the 4.220 to me?

There's a video of Cadet 1 on Youtube, when she sold at Summercraft. I presume from the condition that Summercraft's owners had her for while (they used to be my dad's best friends, but sadly I've lost touch with them over the years). The engine in her was listed as a 50hp Nanni 4.220HE by NYA. You'd think they'd get it right, having a site next door to the main Nanni distributor. If Cadet 1 has the 220, you'd think the later Cadets would too? It looks visually very similar to your image too.

A lot of narrowboat vloggers annoy me, but I love Danni and Joe. I found it funny their questioning what a Norfolk accent sounds like, when I think south west accents have a lot in common and they're both broad south-western (quite possibly part of what I like about them). I think there are at least two distinct Norfolk accents. I'm assuming the bloke from Le Boat doing the handover was a broadlander, which is quite a different accent to north or west Norfolk to my ears.

I can remember one winter in particular which must have been around the late 80s, when Horning Ferry was especially bad. BrundallNavy's photos above seem to appear worse than it was that year. Have the BA started the planned dredging at the Bure mouth yet? When I saw the notice, I did wonder how much the downstream restriction is affecting ebbing tides on the northern rivers.

Have you checked your throttle opening? With the engine off and the morse control set to full throttle, see if there's any extra movement available on the throttle lever at the fuel pump. With an ex-hire, it's quite likely that the maximum throttle opening has been restricted to limit the trouble hirers can get themselves into. You may be able to squeeze some more hp just by shortening the cable a fraction. Once you know you can get full throttle opening, I'd also see how easily you can hit max rpm (looks like 3k rpm?). If you can hit it very easily, it may be under-propped for similar reasons. Obviously not much point having huge amounts of speed available, but I'd always prefer to have a bit in reserve, especially if you do make it over to the Broads - and Breydon in particular.

Levels have gone down sharply at Earith, so I presume the EA have opened the sluices wide to try and shift some water ahead of the incoming storm, in the hope of keeping the road open at Earith bridge (probably at the expense of Welney). I suspect levels will go up again just as quickly in the coming days. I've never been out on the Great Ouse when it's in full flood, but I'd imagine it could be quite an experience. The washes from Earith to Holywell get pretty wide and it must be pretty difficult to discern the proper channel at times.

I notice both these are still sitting at Reedham and listed on Topsail. https://www.topsail.co.uk/exhire.php Has anyone had a closer look at them? Both obviously need substantial amounts of work and updating. I notice Sandstorm has been coppercoated from new, so might even be osmosis free. The hard cockpit sides look awful, but it looks like you could get glass screens made up to match the style on Sandswift. If you did that, you'd end up with a decent size aft cockpit boat which'll go under most, if not all the low bridges. I'm half tempted to come up and have a look, but the thing which puts me off is the state of the engine bay/bilge. They've been sat for a couple of years, but from the amount of dirt and oil, they were obviously quite neglected long before coming off hire. Can't help but wonder how low a bid they might accept though.

Another easy angle to exploit in advertising. Target young families on the basis that you can drive up and step straight onto a boat, rather than having to drag young kids through check in, wait around, amuse them on a flight, etc. The TV ad virtually writes itself - A/B comparison of two families. Family A relaxed and cruising down the river pointing out wildlife to the kids, dad driving, mum with prosecco in hand - whilst family B's kid chucks a tantrum on the plane and other passengers look on disapprovingly. Has a double benefit - winning the initial booking, plus the kids will probably love it and use pester power to come back again in following years.

I've still got the broker's details with some other images. There's no build panel on the lower right helm, but it's possible it might have been relocated on the left in the companionway down from the cockpit - possibly to allow fitting of the bow thruster control. I think your spotting skills may be on point again oldgregg. Does look remarkably like a Cadet. It has the same Broom branded engine panel as Cadet 1, which sold at Summercraft a couple of years ago.

I think I'd have to break out the air rifle. Lights shouldn't be up before December. If you can't wait that long, at least get Halloween and Bonfire Night out of the way! I just had to Google Halloween to check the spelling. I do like Google's animation which comes up for the result! https://g.co/kgs/Tw1z8A

Sorry, but that's an outdated perspective. India still has a lot of manufacturing like that, but most of China's manufacturing is extremely advanced. That's exactly why their economy is gaining so much ground at the expense of us, the USA, etc.

No, but I think the point people miss are these are fitted in their thousands to trucks in China. They were cloned because there was a demand there and they were perfectly safe in that application. The only safety issue coming to light that I'm aware of is the exhausts leaking because they're spot welded. This didn't matter in the original truck applications. I'm a massive product snob and loathe what the chinese have done to the market in our country - but I'd actually consider fitting one of these, as it's fairly self evident that the historic Webasto/Eberspacher monopoly has kept prices artificially high.

I would think that passing a BSS with it installed would probably negate that argument. By definition, a Boat Safety Scheme inspection should highlight if the item was in any way dangerous. If a claim is rejected and it was installed by someone charging in a professional capacity, claim off their public liability insurance. It seems as though legal costs are so high in 3rd party liability cases these days that most things are just paid out for economic reasons.

Curious to know where that is. Chatteris seems to have had some of the best decorations in recent years.

Good spot. I took the beam off an original Boatshed listing, so not particularly surprised to learn it's wrong. Looks like it's actually 12ft, but obviously still well within the unrestricted range, so the point remains valid. I'm not a huge fan of forward helm designs, but the air draft is a massive advantage when it comes to getting to the best bits of the broads. I've spent huge amounts of time looking for something similar sized and a bit sportier looking which can get above Wroxham, but aft cockpits generally top out around 27ft, sedans are too tall and centre cockpits are often v.poor for winter cruising. My planned boat purchase fell through after survey, so I've got my eye on an old neglected Sancerre on the Great Ouse, but struggling to track the owner down thanks to modern data protection.

I do think limiting the size of the hire fleet in some way would be sensible. I just don't get the need for these massive boats, particularly when people spend half their time on shore exploring and don't cook much on board. 40ft+ boats have always been around, but they were taking 6 or 8 people, not 4. One of my family member's boats has two doubles side-by-side to the aft in just 10ft 6in, including hanging storage between the two. It's 33ft long, will take 4 people in relative comfort and passes under Wroxham and Wayford bridges. Only has a single head, but a pretty luxurious seperate shower compartment. It's a 40 year old boat, but in my eyes far more suited to the broads than the current generation of boats and it'd be really interesting to see a modern take on the design.

Good excuse for a trip out once the levels calm down a bit. I get the impression that Westview at Earith is probably one of the nicest marinas around the area, but probably high demand as a result. It seems to have a really nice community feel. The guy who owns it has a boat on the broads, or at least did when I spoke to him a while back.

Are you sticking at Jones' at the moment? I went to the Pike and Eel the other day and noticed it looks like there might be quite a lot of space free there. Not a huge amount of facilities, but I did wonder how cheap they are.

At that age, I was obsessed with the junior class which was tiny boats crewed by kids around the same age. I can still remember one being called something like Shelley's Welly. I used to hound my dad to fund me having a go, but he was not long divorced and had just bought a Broom 30, so in no position to do so financially. The nearest I ever got was a old rowing dinghy with a seagull outboard, which I used to use to shuttle us back and forth between a swinging mooring and the yacht club during Oulton Week, when we raced cruiser class - actually quite successfully, other than the occasion when my dad tried pushing the boom out to catch the wind, only to be pushed backwards overboard. I think it's fairly safe to say whoever was on safety boat duty that day saved my dad's life.