dom

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?

I'd assume that's probably a criminal offence which could be reported to the Police?

This point probably needs picking up on by bodies acting in boater's interests. If the tightly controlled and monitored moorings are having a higher turnover of boats to the benefit of the local economy, there's a clear inference that people were previously overstaying and BA was not doing enough in the way of enforcement. The correct action in this case is better enforcement, not more charging.

Or just to take enforcing action against the "who", rather than punishing all for a few individual's actions. It can't be that hard to deal with overstayers. The CRT seem to deal with it, so BA ought to be able to deal with the same on a much smaller scale than the canals.

I'm curious as to how that would come about. The charge causing people to leave in a timely manner, where previously there was an issue with overstaying?

There's an interesting note on the listing about the engine needing realignment. They're saying the cost has been quoted at £4800, but they also say 2 days work. By my calculations, that'd equate to something like £350 per hour, which seems excessive. I wonder if it's a typo and should be £480? EDIT: just noticed that £4800 included the cost of realignment, plus other items on the survey.

Thanks @Dan all these images are great, and especially the last 3 showing her with the Blakes stickers. My mum was a booking agent for Blakes for many years. I can't remember offhand exactly when she left or whether she was stil there in '04, but it's entirely possible she may have booked holidays on my boat. It's good to see her in better condition too, albeit minus screens, which looks a bit bare. It also appears to confirm my suspicion that air draft is limited by the morse control. Not the cleverest of moves siting it there - unless it's designed to back out automatically if you try and pass under too low a bridge

It did indeed. A friend of mine had one cammed and ported, running twin 45 Dellortos, plus an LSD from the 2.8i. Was a pretty fun car to drive - mostly sideways!

I've already had that conversation with myself, having learnt similar lessons with cars. I did consider a full repaint, but think I'm going to just "make do and mend" for the time being, as there's lot to do on the inside first. The aft cabin is not too bad fortunately, but the forward one is in a horrendous state. From new, it just had some thinly padded vinyl roughly stuck to the hull sides. There's nothing at all under the foredeck, just bare GRP. I have a few ideas in mind, but need to check viability next time I'm on board.

That's really interesting. The dash panel has Cheesman Rollo and Co engraved across the bottom. I'd assumed it was just the panel supplier. It didn't occur to me that it might be the builder. @RS2021 Love the brochure image. Mine was surveyed by Dominic Buckley in 2019 and in his report, he's indentified it as a 1988 build, so a few years later. Quite where he got that info from I don't know. The saloon galley arrangement is the same as mine, but the double dinette is different. I actually quite like that benches facing front and rear layout and think it's possibly more space efficient. Mine has a bench facing from starboard to port, with a pullout to convert to a double.

Zero emissions seems like a non-starter to me, given the large numbers of sea going boats in recreational waters. I'd imagine it's probably far more likely we'll see Euro 5 style regulations and may also have to start retro-fitting catalysers and DPFs or similar. As an aside, I'l love to know how electric car range would translate if the same hardware went into boats. Tesla motors and batteries are becoming readily available now and not too crazy prices. The thought of being able to trickle around silently, then turn up the voltage crossing Breydon is quite appealing. 300-400 miles on a charge would be great, but I'm guessing it'd be far less in reality?

Yep, that's her. She was originally Benson Harmony, so quite probably with Benson Cruisers, who were bought by Maidboats? That might explain why she was fitted out so sparsely if the yard were either struggling financially, or aware they might sell out in the near future. 366S (now Softwind Girl, I think possibly moored at Cox's) had a similar saloon galley and a previous name Harmony, so quite likely an earlier sister boat. It's funny seeing these place names. My sister lived in Benson for years before moving to Caversham and my dad was born in Maidenhead.

I did have a look at Sweet Kingfisher. Most of what put me off was just issues inherent to the design. The port side only door didn't really appeal. If you have to moor starboard side on, having to walk around the deck on the river side is a bit offputting. If you're on a tidal section, or on board alone, it'd really warrant wearing a lifejacket, which isn't something you really want to have to do just to get onto the bank. The lower helm being central also tends to hog a bit of space. I also thought from the ad that she was original gelcoat, but it quickly became apparent she's painted. I ended up taking the view that if I'm going to buy a painted boat, I might as well stick with the AF32, which was just that bit more appealing to me in terms of design and layout. The only other comment I would make is that both corners of the big hireboat style fender rubber are kinked and lifting away from the transom corners. Not sure if it's a recent issue, and probably relatively easy to rectify, but where she's sitting, it's one of the first things you see, which immediately gives a negtive impression. If it's a brokerage sale for the owner, rather than one of their stock boats, it's probably worth fixing, as I heard at least one other group viewing boats comment on it.