Mowjo

I'm not talking about Mudweighting on a Broad itself, but on the Riverside moorings where you pay the £4.00, if your not tied to their post and not stepping on their land are you technicaly mudweighting on free water??

This has bugged me for years but I've never got around to asking! suppose I pulled up at somewhere like Salhouse, dropped a mudweight front and back, but never tied up to the post and never stepped off the boat, could they still make me pay the mooring fee, my thoughts are they only own the quay heading and not the water, so technically I'm not moored on their land I'm on free water, and only liable to pay if I tied to their post or stepped off the boat onto their land,

Forgeting to turn the fuel on when leaving moorings and causing chaos when the engine stalls, now everyone knows why I have a Dyno sticker on the dash telling me to turn it on/off,,

We have to get our own back for all those clothes that suddenly appear in the wardrobe and you tell us Oh! I've had that ages, but forget you've left the price tag on it,,

They are 7' 6" wide, think you'll need to go to 25' to find anything wide beam,,personally I'd wait till I had a bit more cash, anything in your price range is going to need a lot of money spent just to bring it up to Ok,,,

The problem is that if I put the holding tank in the back I'd have to have one made to fit, fitting it where the battery's are I can use a standard tank, I could move the master switch but then I'd have to replace a lot more cable and not just 2.5 of each colour, luckily my boat isn't power hungry, lights are all LED, Fridge is quite low amp draw, TV is low amp draw, water pump is normal, and there's no chance I'll ever fit an inverter, never seen the need for one, it's possible I might even be able to re-position the battery's and fit a tank alongside them, as there's plenty of room, it's a matter of finding the right size tank without having one made, and I just thought of another problem, in my cockpit there is only around 3ft of deck to use and that over the battery's, the other 6ft is flush with the hull side so fitting it in the back, I'd have nowhere to fit the pump out fitting, it now looks that if I fit one it can only go where the battery's are,,

I'll do my Usual loads of swearing and saying it was Ok before so why are we spending all this money, make it look much harder than it is, tell her I need a new drill or some other powertool to do the job, she'll just say get it then if you need it, and I win all round, the Porta Potty is fine in the marina we have a Porta point, it's when we are out for any length of time, we normally have to go back to Broadsedge to empty it, baffles me that with so many boats having Porta loos there arn't many places to empty them,,

Thanks Folks! I did think I'd have to uprate the cables, question now is do I tell the wife it's an easy job or not? as it's her that keeps nagging for a pump out toilet,,,

Right folks! I've been thinking of putting a pump out toilet on my Birchwood, the ideal place for the tank is directly behind the toilet in the engine bay and it would be an easy job! the problem is where I want to put the tank is where my three battery's live, so I have two choices, move the battery's to the back of the boat, giving me something like a 2.5mtr run of cable to my main switch or put the tank in the back giving me a 2.5 mtr run of main waste pipe, my thinking is move the battery's as 2.5mtrs is a long way to pump stuff, but I'm unsure if the battery cable run would be too long, any advice???? Frank,,,

Yes Wayford is still going, Tesco as usual, but I tend to use Nicholsons now on the old Yarmouth Rd,, Andy! was it a franchise or something as I can only think he had money issues?? I would have thought he did a good trade there being between Yarmouth and Stalham,

Wasn't sure where to put this, but if I put it where Judi suggested no-one would see it! For anyone with a Petrol Engine the petrol station at Potter is now closed, I thought they had run out as usual few weeks back, but none of the pumps have been open since then and it looks like the place is empty now, last week when passing we also noticed the Cafe side was closed, it seems the nearest for Petrol now is either Yarmouth, Nicholsons in Stalham or Tesco's Stalham,

Peter! do you mean like our Lowestoft one where most of them sit on the back of their boats drinking G&T's and can't afford to take their boats out?? then go in the clubhouse to brag how much money they have?? and like any club there's always that one person you can't stand and just want to slap, before anyone says anything I've been in there and they do! and I nearly did slap him! I think the vast majority of boat owners come in the middle these days! they just need a good mooring spot, with toilets/showers and electric, the clubhouses are each others boats, nice because you don't get stuck with someone you can't stand, think I'll stay at Broadsedge and complain when my moorings go up by £25 a year,,

I have a Karcher Window Vac copy that came from Aldi, that is always kept on the boat and is the dogs for getting rid of the condensation on the windows, and for winter when we arn't on the boat much I have two Adli condensation traps about the size of a small shoebox that came with two refils about £5 each, and they see me right throught the winter, with me going down to empty them once,,

My wheel is three turns lock to lock! so once moored up I go full lock then back up 1 1/2 turns, I have a Turks head on the wheel problem is with three turns it can give a false straight ahead,

I Rarely use use Chandlers! over the years I've built quite a list of trusted suppliers, for electrical, stainless and anything else you can think of, and saved a fortune, one example, son in laws boat failed the BSS because he had no gas bottle straps, checked out a few chandlers and they ranged from £9.00 to £15.00 each, checked my list and Megavanmats were doing 2x for £8.95 including the £2.50 postage, all my electrical stuff I get from IEM services, the only time I use chandlers is if I need it that day, if I don't it's the internet and all it needs it a bit of planning and a wait! but the money you save is well worth it, I try to support local businesses but Chandlers arn't on the list, another example is stainless screws, bolts etc, I can but 100 screws from Beardshaws in Hoveton for around the same price It cost for 10 in a well known chandlers in Wroxham only downside is they arn't open weekends,,

I seem to remember way back in the 80's that stern on was used at the Ferry Inn, the difference is they wern't 40ft plus back then and taking up half the river, it now annoys me that in places where you used to be able to moor ten average boats the whole mooring is taken up by five,,,

I not saying they would Mark! but at least they couldn't say we didn't know! and anyone complaining could point out it tells you on the sign by your dash!

They put a plate at the helm telling you air draught and normally revs, which you need bad eyesight to miss, so why can't they just add a line saying please do not run engines between 8pm and 8am?? at least then the hirers can't say they didn't know, I doub't many read all the stuff in the hand book you get, I'm not talking bye laws but common sense, if your not told how do you know? I still say most yards don't do enough,

Kfurbank! the education bit is spot on, and I think the hire yards should do more on that front, pehaps they should produce a leaflet, advising hirers the best time to run engines, tell them to showers on the go, even put a plate near the helm telling them not to run engines between 8pm and 8am, most hire yards don't give a dam about the rest of us as long as they are making money,

How ever unpleasant it is I've never heard of one person being killed by fumes from an adjacent boat, everyone has been by accident due to faulty equipment or ignorance, If I'm getting fumes from a boat I use my legs and go explain to them about the smell and fact they can kill, never had one yet that didn't say sorry and turn it off, there are far more drownings on the Broads than deaths by CO, but how many people do you see without life jackets, I'm pretty sure we get more CO standing in the supermarket carpark than we do on a boat, but we still go even if we hate shopping, if you don't want noise or fumes the answer is simple wild moor or mudweight, or better still go speak to the offenders not shout at them from a distance, two years ago at Wroxham we had two boats full of lads nearly all drunk, engines running and making enough noise to wake the dead, two private owners started shouting and swearing at them resulting in loads of abuse and swearing and at least two near fights, I picked out the soberest looking one and went over to speak to him, explaining about the noise the engine and the swearing, also that not all private owners were like that, result was an appology, engines turned off, noise toned right down and an invite to join them at the pub, part of the problem these days is people have forgotten how to talk to each other, the rely to much on techie stuff and smileys

Thats my point! not everyone is aware, on hire boats they tell you to run the engine for four hours, no mention of what time or the fact it might P someone off, most of the ones I've come across are not charging battery's they are heating water, yards don't mention the best time to shower is while on the move and that in most cases doing that you'll arrive your mooring and still have a full tank of hot water, perhaps if the yards made hirers aware of this it wouldn't be such a problem for some, I've owned my own boats on the Broads for the last thirty odd years, and to be honest I'm sick of the amount of stick hirers get when it's not always their fault, without them the Broads would probably just be one big bird sanctury by now, and people forget most of us private owners started out as hirers, in my experiance and yes I'm normally out 150 days plus a year the worst offenders for most things have been private owners, so maybe it's time we cleaned our own door step first,,,

Only this weekend moored at Ranworth Island we had a rowdy bunch moored near us, they were Elysians so I think it may have been a little meet up, they were still at it around 10pm, luckily no engines running but they were a bit noisy and nearly fumed me out with all the BBQ's going! Oooh! hang on I just forgot, I was with them! I take it back, what a nice bunch of people, look as others have said, it's give and take and all part of life on the Broads, if you want total quite mudweight, because on 24hr moorings your never going to get it, personally I've made good friends with some of the offenders just by being polite, no one tells them times they can and cannot run the engine, and one answer I often had was no-one told us, your always going to get the odd A-hole whether they are hire or private, and that will never change!

Have to say I'm in the camp of if your only going to use it for three weeks don't buy hire, my 25ft Birchwood, for mooring, insurance, river tax and fuel works out at around £40.00 per week, I use it around 150 days a year but that cost dosn't include things like servicing or any work needed on the boat, I do most of my own but a couple of minor engine/gearbox problems have just cost me over £800.00 to get fixed, then if he has it serviced every year thats around £150.00, lift out and antifoul probably another £250.00, you can pick up a half decent boat for 6/7k but when you factor in the above apart from my repair your still up near 9/10k and thats without any work bringing it up to scratch.

Iain! you forgot Milk of magnesia and Andwews liver salts, there was another one like Andwews I can't remember, just remembered it Alka Seltza,,, And on my list I forgot to Add Pigs Trotters, love to see the kids faces now if you stuck one of those on a plate in front of them,,

I wasn't a war baby but there was still some rationing when I was born, Like Iain if you didn't eat it you got the next day, or if it was meat and veg that all went in the stew pot on the range to top it up, and I swear that stew on the go on our range for years just being topped up, Sunday roast was best because all the leftovers got made into Bubble and squeak on Monday apart from some lamb for dads sandwiches, Sunday tea was always scrambled eggs on crumpets, a pint of winkles, (no guess's who used to stick the little shell covers all over their face and pretend to have the lurgy) and dads treat was 1/2 pint of shrimps, I don't think prawnse invented then, some people don't believe me when I tell them that the butcher used to throw in a couple of breast of lamb free with the sunday joint, and that sheeps hearts and liver were almost given away by the butcher, now they are luxury meats and cost a fortune, was my favorite dinner stuffed sheeps hearts, Judi nearly throws up when I mention them, but she came from a posh area and had an inside loo, mine was outside and loo paper was cut up squares of newspaper, my pocket money job cutting them up, but if you were posh you had Izal, papercuts on the hand have nothing on papercuts to the bum, Sunday roast was usually all prepared then taken across the road to the bakers to cook while mum and dad were in the pub next door, can't really call them the good old days, life was a struggle in the working class area I lived in, but I honestly enjoyed every minute of it, it taught me you can survive anything,,