William92

Oh blimey, jumping in the deep end then, I'm departing Wroxham on the 1st I think the main take-away is "be slow, be predictable, and if they want to use the full width of the river just ahead of you then go slower so they can"? I got caught in a race (southern rivers) on my first visit to the Broads, about 15 years ago. For that one we just nosed in as tight to the reeds as we dared and waited. It was a hell of a spectacle.

I first discovered Tally Ho! when the keel was being poured, and the quite exciting process that involved. I've not followed too closely but she's a gorgeous boat and I love that everyone at the port is giving Leo such recognition for his hard work over the years. I'm not crying it's just... vividly imagining the spray coming over the bow and drenching whoever is at the tiller...

Hi, I'm Will/William, Already made some other comments here and there in the forum, before getting around to an introduction thread. I've spent 2 weeks on the Broads, once oh, over a decade ago, and then the second time was last year, both times with my Dad. Decided to make them a more regular thing and go every year for the foreseeable future, though my attempts to persuade him that the smart solution is to co-own a boat are not working. I work in a technical role in the events/theatre supplies industry, usually involving looking at things that have been hired by customers and returned, and then scratching my head about what they've done to the equipment and trying to find the best way to get it back out into the hire inventory in a usable state. Hopefully this means I treat the hire boats nicely, but my wish to tinker and improve things does cause me to go looking at the boatyards adverts for a few months afterward... I'll be afloat this year in June, hopefully able to pass under Ludham and Vauxhall bridges with sane planning. Last year in the mere 6'10 Encore 2 we were able to go around quite recklessly regardless of tide, only having to time things for Vauxhall Bridge and - to my sort of enduring horror at the inefficiency - really having to motor quite hard against the tides in doing so (we aimed to arrive just after high slack water). It took some of the fun out of it, but the tide times were not ideal (high in the middle of the day), not leaving a lot of time to get to a mooring before it was too late to be cruising, so it worked quite well for covering the miles. Anyhow, I'm here to try and learn as much as I can by some sort of osmosis, before getting to the boatyard!

I would be careful in Hoveton Little Broad, last year the weeds were horrendous and tangled our prop.

That's a fair opinion to have, there's a hobby for everyone and everyone takes away different lessons from the videos etc (including "none, why on earth did I waste my time watching that?" 🤣) Going to the topic of "Are Sensationalised Social Media And Youtube Posts Damaging The Broads Tourism Industry?", I'm not sure that they actually are. The potential is there, somewhere, though I don't think it would resemble any sort of documented reality at that point and would be a huge leap from what is seen about the Broads online at present.

I live moderately close to Rufford Ford, I've seen a place get ruined by sensationalised SM/YT posts. The people showing off or - at least - attempting to were the cause of the road being closed to through-traffic. I struggle to imagine any posts that could be made that would sensationalise the Broads enough to have anywhere near the same effect. Sure, there's posts with bridge and mooring mishaps, but they're rarely played for laughs and they're very useful for have-a-go "Captains" like myself to see what to do and what not to do. I only get a week on the water a year, I don't get the opportunity to learn from hundreds of minor mistakes as I would if I was spending a full season afloat.

I spent a week aboard Encore 2 last year. Had a nice holiday, and it is (tbh) not the "Plus", so it did not have some of the additional toys (it had regular gauges, didn't have bluetooth on the stereo, etc - I didn't listen to music for an entire week! I refuse to play it on phone speakers and I was relishing the opportunity to not hear the news as ambient noise in between music on the radio...) I think it shares the engine, steering, throttle, possibly the bow thruster (which if it isn't the same, is very effective and embarrassingly loud - it reminds me of a "waste disposal" in a sink) etc with the Plus, though, and the general layout. I agree a lot with features that the boats have in common, especially on the aft cabin layout being bad, it was optimistic to try and fit that feature in such a space and causes more discomfort than it solves, but more er - broadly - I did not like the layout with regards to visibility for boating. I was aboard with my Dad, and he's not massively confident with his boat handling nor his hip when making the big jump across a small gap, so a lot of mooring involved me standing on the side of the boat calling out distances and clearances at the stern, whilst he was at the helm trying to get me in a position where I could get a line secure. This visibility issue shows up most starkly when mooring with the starboard side to the bank, you cannot see the stern at all other than through a narrow doorway and then a window onto the aft deck/well/engine cover. At least on the port side you can lean out a bit... I also found that if we were being gradually overtaken on a river, it had a dreadful blindspot rearwards. If I was single crewing, I'd probably want a mirror on a stick! For a boat that is, well, clearly more designed to be a useful caravan-on-water and makes many design concessions that improve that aspect (and probably improve the appeal of the boat for people who aren't inclined to ramble on about boat layouts on forums) it probably makes things harder than it needs to and - ironically - makes the experience worse for the first-time hirer. I would - if I could go all "Changing Rooms" on the boat - swap the orientation of basically everything that isn't the helm, all the vision-blocking elements can go to blocking the port view (where you can just lean out of the window/roof to deal with it) and then put a window in to allow a view through the aft cabin's exterior windows. With interior curtains of course! And rotate the bed or... make it fold out. The inconvenience of assembling it beats having a disrupted night of poor sleep. A question for OP - was the sliding roof secured by what I can only describe as "brass door bolts that you'd usually find holding a toilet door shut", and were they positioned above the lovely throttle so as to interfere with all attempts to use that small ledge alongside the window as an armrest? Because it really was positioned, on Encore 2, in the most horrendously painful place. When I think more about the "Elite" description, it does not match up. It's a small thing, quite literally, but it was hard to ignore when going from Beccles to Ludham Bridge, against the tide all the way... (being in the book as 6'10, as long as the ebb hadn't really got going by the time we had definite clearance, we enjoyed being able to get through Yarmouth just after high slack water... but it was not good for the fuel gauge. The Yanmar in the back did a sterling job.) Being creatures of habit, though - we love a trip to Roy's in Wroxham to stock up, daft I know - we are going back on another Barnes boat this year. Regal Star is the plan at this point. More boat-y, much taller - I'm a bit concerned with water levels, I really like the Ant and we're going at neap tide... it may be worth asking Barnes some questions on that front... ("can you chop the roof off and reattach it a bit lower?")