Kugababe

Awwwww... Thanks Hockham Admiral & goodall_m1 !

And this time we braved a Breydon crossing - and survived Sat 6th April - picked up Sapphire Emblem from Horning Ferry Marina, our 2nd boat from them as they are very efficient and we like their boats too ! Lisa & Pete helped us plan our Breydon crossing for the next day then we set off for Ranworth Broad for an afternoon cuppa stop, then onto Stokesby to moor overnight. Sun 7th April - Well shocked when we woke up to find ice on the inside of our windows and thick fog and heavy frost outside ! Then by 9:30am it had all cleared and the sun was out so we pootled off down to moor at the Yacht Station at Great Yarmouth and popped into town for some provisions, back to the Sapphire for lunch onboard before going under the bridges and crossing Breydon at around 3pm. It was much easier than we had been expecting albeit very slow as we were going against the tide, went straight down to Oulton Broad for a moor and a look around then back up to Oulton Dyke to moor overnight. Mon 8th April - After a very quiet night at the pontoon we went up to Somerleyton then across the New Cut to Reedham. Quick mention for the lovely family that have just opened up the Reedham Stores again 4 weeks ago (it had apparently been closed for 2 years). They are continuing to build up their stock and their alcohol licence should be through in a few weeks... Hope lots of Boaters use this store as the new family are really lovely and so keen to please ! We moored overnight at Loddon Basin. Tues 9th April - Left Loddon and went past the Reedham Chain Ferry - never seen one of those before - then stopped at the Berney Arms for lunch and after we crossed Breydon again about 3pm. This time we were going with the tide but it was REALLY, REALLY CHOPPY and quite hairy in places when the water was coming up over the top of the Sapphire front windows :S After safely crossing Breydon and negotiating all the traffic at the Yacht Station we passed through and moored at Acle Bridge for the night and had a really lovely meal in the Bridge Inn... Weds 10th April - Made our way up to Potter Heigham for the obligatory wander around Lathams and Herbert Woods yard etc... we decided to moor overnight in the HW yard as it was really quiet, but they did have loads of boats in. Thurs 11th April - After breakfast we got underway and decided to make our way back to Ferry Marina as the deisel guage was showing in the red Got as far as St Benets Abbey and then we were stopped by the BA Radar check, telling us we were doing 6.6 in a 5mph. Our 16 yr old Son who does most of the driving was gutted as we had seen the BA guys and we weren't concerned as we were only doing about 4mph or so we thought (we were doing 1200rpm and our boat states that 1200rpm = 4mph so we didn't go over that - except over Breydon!) They gave us a written warning... We then went over to Ludham Bridge but couldn't get under as we were 8' 3" and it was only showing 8'. So we decided to cruise up to Wroxham passing the webcam at Barnes and waving like crazies whilst talking to Nan & Grandad on the Mobile ! Yes they could see us :S We moored overnight in the NBD yard... Fri 12th April - After breakfast and wandering around Wroxham and all the 'Roys' we went over to Horning Staithe, moored and bought some preserves @ chutney from the little shop in Horning (can't remember the name sorry...) Then we had a wonderful lunch in the Swan - I can thoroughly recommend the Lamb, Redcurrant & Rosemary Meatballs sitting on Mashed Potatoes with Baby Spinach followed by the Churro's Sundae ! After this we waddled back to Sapphire and made our way over to Ranworth Broad for a walk around the Nature Reserve to hopefully walk off some of that lunch ! We left Ranworth about 5pm and went back up to moor overnight at Horning Ferry Marina for our last night onboard Sapphire. Thoroughly enjoyed our week on the Southern & Northern Broads even though it was VERY cold all week... We did the same time last year, but we noticed that this year was a lot quieter, not as many boats out on the rivers and broads as last year... Our aim is to try to fit in a week's hol on the Broads in some nice warm weather !!!

Hi James! Yay we are coming back to the beautiful Broads because we all loved the area ! We went over to Ferry Marina a few weeks ago to have a look at 3 of their boats. Our original choice was the Platinum Emblem after seeing it online, but in the flesh it felt very cramped, we chose the Golden Emblem because it felt very spacious and open even tho at 35ft long it is the same size as the Platinum - but felt much bigger. I had told 'Linda' at Ferry about our problems last year and she assured me that we won't be cold on the Golden as their heaters are very effective - we shall see.... Also if we were to have any 'issues' whilst we are out on any of their boats, then we just have to call them and things will be sorted - again we shall see..... We hope that we have made a good choice of boat & boatyard this year. Either way, we are really looking forward to cruising around the Broads over Easter - and we shall be doing lots of waving too !!! Thank you for your good wishes, Hub & Son are both good !!! (Our niece won't be coming with us this trip...)

So after our 'interesting' first ever week last October on the Broads, on Fair President 3 (please see Holday Tales for the story) - we have decided to give it another go... This time we have booked Golden Emblem from Horning Ferry Marina for a week over Easter. I would be most interested to hear your thoughts, advice or tips on this boat !

Here is an update on my letter - now that I have received a reply... "At Norfolk Broads Direct we pride ourselves on our levels of service and support and I am sorry that you felt that the boat you hired was not to the standard you expected." "We have, after your holiday, tried to replicate the problem with the engine.... but cannot identify any fault as yet to enable us to diagnose if there is a problem, but we shall keep on trying." "You also state that the air from the heater in the bedrooms was "cold". We have investigated the heater and found it to be in full working order. However the heating system, as used in the boating world, does work on the principle of blowing hot air along pipes from a central location out through ducts at various points. Therefore the air coming out of the last vent will inevitably be cooler than from the vent nearest the heater. Closing one or two vents along the way should ensure a better distribution, however the system has a 5KW output so should be adequate within a boat the size of the Fair President and I am sorry that you felt it was not so." (N.B. We shut the vent in the central cabin to try to generate some heat towards the other 2 vents in the front & aft bedrooms - made no difference at all !!!) "I am sorry that having attracted a new customer both to us and the Broads that you felt we did not give you either good service or good value from Norfolk Broads Direct." "Ordinarily, as a gesture of goodwill in a situation such as this I would offer a disappointed customer a discount against a future holiday with us. However in this situation, and having already had what I believe to be the biggest and best we can offer, I am under the impression from your letter that this would be neither relevant nor appreciated. I therefore enclose without prejudice a cheque for £100 and in full and final settlement of the matter which I hope you will find acceptable." Well, I suppose that £100 is better than a slap in the face with a wet fish, however we won't be hiring from NBD again next year... and neither will our friends (family of 7) that were on a Fair Emporer the same time as us...

Oh dear Sunnysunlight - sorry to hear that you experienced the same problems on the FP3 - I wonder how many other hirers had the same issues as us? I wonder how many reported it to NBD? If anyone else did report these problems to NBD - did you do it verbally (as we did) and by letter (as we have done) ??? Did you get any response from NBD ? I wrote to the owner of NBD last week - and am currently being ignored No acknowledgement of my letter - Nothing - Nada !!! This is not good business practice NBD - Not good at all !!!! I think we paid a considerable amount of money to hire the FP3 for the week - £1450 - the very least I expected was to receive a reply from them - or am I expecting too much ??? I have my own business and if I ever ignored any of my clients/customers requests or comments - then I wouldn't deserve to keep them as customers or clients !!!

Thank you all so much for your input and for all your advice, tips & opinions since I posted my trip report... Even though most of the 'technical stuff (volumetric calculation ?!?) has wizzed right over the top of my head It's great to know that there are people on forums like this that are willing to help out first timers !!! Thanks again everyone

Thank you for your input & advice Daytona-Bill... The answer to your question re the boyancy aids is "No explanation or demonstration" - after we had unpacked, the NBD guy came onboard carrying 4 x boyancy aids and handed them to me and just said "Here are your 4 life-jackets" I did think at the time that it was all a bit lightweight - however we are cruisers (the 4500-6000 passenger size of ships!) so we have worn life-jackets before - albeit only for the Muster Drills thankfully !! Thank you also for your suggestion of a letter of complaint. I have this morning done this and called to get the name of the owner of NBD, and have posted the letter requesting partial refund to him. I will post again when (and if) I get a reply from him...

Oh and I nearly forgot to mention, we did think it was a bit strange not to have any guages or meters or any way of knowing what the levels are like for the water, or the waste tanks - is this normal ?

Erm.... What's a 'Broadsman' jonzo ???

Thank you for this tip NorfoldNog - I shall definitely have a look at Swancraft !!!

Thank you for your comments and your kind welcome MY littleboat, the answer to your first question is "not a lot!" When we arrived at the NBD yard we were told to park by our FP3 and unload and let the guy know when we had finished, this we did and we were then told where to park our car. The guy then came onboard and gave us our life jackets, and told us what all the knobs & switches do. He then showed us the engine and told us that every day we had to dip the oil, check the filters (and clean if necc) and then he told my Hub to start the boat and drive out of the yard an onto the river which he did, after a few minutes (certainly no longer that 4-5) he made my Hub turn the boat around and go back into the yard to let him off, as he jumped off he told us if we needed anything that the number was in the blue skippers file... And that was the sum total of our instruction...... We did all discuss as we were leaving Wroxham, that the 'instruction' was a bit lightweight, but we took it as a compliment that he obviously thought we were sensible enough to cope with the boat - even though it was our first time !!! The answer to your second question is "No"... No one mentioned the DVD to us. We actually drove over to the NBD yard in June for the day, to physically look at the boats, because it's quite difficult to gauge the actual sizes of the different boats from the website, and the amount of useable space that is on them. No-one mentioned the DVD to us then either, and that is when we paid the deposit in the office.... So Breydon can be a high point of a holiday ??? Sounds as though it could also be quite challenging too Note to Self: More Research definitely needed......

I seem to remember that most of the 'reserved signs' were on posts at Acle, Horning & Great Yarmouth, however in quite a few places, we did find that boats were moored by hook-ups, but they weren't actually using the hook-ups..... Hmmmmmm... is that part of the Broads Etiquette ?

Although we are first timers, those were our thoughts too Antares_9 !!! I wonder if NBD actually read my comments on their Feedback Form, and I wonder if they will act upon them - probably not I suppose..... Whilst we were looking at the boats at the Brinks yard and picking up a brochure, a lovely family of 7 came back in to the yard in a Melody (I think that is what it was called) and when they overheard us talking to the Brinks man about how cold we had been all week, they interrupted and asked if we would like to have a look on their boat, we did and it was like a furnace on it !!! They told us that they had hired from NBD last year and were also cold because none of the NBD boats had thermostats on them, so they did research other yards and found that Brinks does - they were very pleased with their Brinks boat and said that they would definitely be going back to them..... but not to NBD....

Really enjoyed it Antares_9 and we were not put off at all....

Thank you for your comments Howard and yes next time I shall pack my own opener, as we had to buy one in Gt Yarmouth on the second day !!! Thank you for the info about the electricity points, we did take this list with us, we just couldn't find any that weren't taken already, and we noticed that at some of the moorings, the electricity points had got 'reserved ' signs on them, so that's another tip for next time !!! Think we are going to look at hiring a boat in the Southern Broads next time, seems like the sensible thing to do...

Thank you for your comments Trevor ! Just to clarify - we had the Fair President 3 which was brand new in early summer and we paid £1415 for it for the week, including the £100 fuel deposit... When we booked it in June we were told it was the Newest, Biggest & Best boat that NBD had on their fleet, so yes we were disappointed with its performance, we were however more concerned about the lack of heating in the bedrooms, good job we took hot water bottles, extra blankets and thick PJ's ! (we are ex caravanners so we understand about the cold this time of year!) When we handed over the keys on Sat morning we were told by a couple of the NBD guys that they had a problem with this particular boat in the Summer and found that it was some bits of copper wire in the fuel tank which they sorted, and they thought that this had solved the problem, apparently no-one else has complained about this boat since then... But because of our complaint they are now going to de-commission it for the winter, strip it down and really find out what is causing the problem. When we asked about the heating issue, they just said that because it is a big boat, the warm air in the pipes has to travel a long way to reach both front and rear bedrooms from the centre of the boat and there is nothing they can do about that. We suggested maybe a bigger heater motor or a re-design, they didn't comment on that... As I reported earlier, our friends were on a Fair Emperor and they loved it and said it was always hot on their boat, however there were 7 of them and the Emporor has a lot more smaller rooms than our President 3. Their only gripe is that they couldn't all sit together 'up top outside' as there were no seats except the outside driving position... So I suppose that there are positives & negatives to all the hire boats - next time we just have to find one which is more suitable for us... We really didn't let these niggles spoil our enjoyment of last week, and we shall definitely be coming back to the Broads again next year, however we shall be more picky about the boat that we hire and we shall do a lot more research next time.

As this was our first ever time on the Broads, I kept notes throughout the week and the following is how we felt about our week... Have to say that the opinions stated are just our personal opinions and observations..... Sat 22nd – After a 3 hour drive we arrived at Norfolk Broads Direct in Wroxham at 11am (NBD had phoned me yesterday – Fri 21st – to let me know that our Fair President 3 would be ready for us at 11am) and we got straight on the FP3 and were very impressed. All very clean with front & rear beds made up and bedding for the centre sofa bed folded on top of the rear bed. We unpacked, had our initial tuition session, took the boat out onto the river with the NBD man, and then after 5 mins brought him back into the boatyard, dropped him off and then we were away ! We had no idea where we were making for so we just kept going on the river. We had a look at Malthouse Broad at Ranworth, but there were no moorings available, so we just kept going and eventually we ended up mooring at the Mill House overnight (the last moorings before Gt Yarmouth it said on the sign) There were no electric hook-ups, but it was very quiet so it suited us. Sun 23rd – left the Mill House and sailed to Great Yarmouth, managed to get a mooring at the Yacht Station, but again no hook-up available. Walked into the town and then up the beach, had some lunch and then left Gt Yarmouth at 3pm, then sailed back up river ... (NB – the boat seems to have developed either a fuel starvation or misfire problem as it is really struggling to do even 3 mph this morning. Also there is only cold air blowing out of the blowers in both the front & rear cabins, can’t get them warm...) to moor at Acle outside the pub. This was not so quiet ! We were on the end of the row and the water kept ‘banging ‘ up against the boat all night, so not much sleep that night unfortunately... Mon 24th – left Acle and sailed up the river and went to have a look at Potter Heigham (we knew we couldn’t get under the Bridge, we just went to have a look!) We stopped for lunch at St Benets Abbey, and called NBD about the poor performance of the boat and the cold air in the bedrooms, they sent out Simon to see us who said that if we take it back to their yard they will have a look at it but we could be there a while as its a ‘process of elimination as to what the problem might be’ so as he said it was safe to drive as long as we kept it around 1800 revs, we decided to stick with it and carry on, Simon also said that the heating problem in the bedrooms was because the pipes had so far to travel from the centre of the boat ??? The blower in the centre cabin blew out lovely warm air and there was a radiator in there to so at least it was nice and warm in there....... We then went to Ludham Bridge and moored overnight, again we didn’t manage to get a hook-up. It did strike us that there wasn’t enough hook up points available on the Broads ! Tues 25th – left Ludham and sailed up and onto Barton Broad, moored at Gay’s Staithe for lunch (we didn’t get off the boat here as it was pouring down with rain). After lunch we went across Barton Broad and onto Swan Quay and moored up for the night (Free mooring, Hook-up & water!) Walked into the town and found a Tesco!!! Re-stocked up and spent a very quiet night moored here..... Weds 26th – left Swan Quay and sailed back down to Ludham Bridge to meet up with some friends who were on a Fair Emperor (also first timers!) and swapped boating stories. We then sailed back to Ranworth to moor overnight and we managed to get a hook-up again ! Lovely place, think this was our favourite place to moor. We went to the Nature Centre & our 15yr old Son and Niece loved it here and spent ages upstairs watching the wildlife through the telescopes and binoculars. Thurs 27th – left Ranworth and went to Horning and moored a little way up from the Swan Inn – again managed to get a hook-up – enjoyed a lovely walk and look around Horning including a look around the hire boats at Ferry Marina ... Fri 28th – left Horning and went back up to NBD for a pump-out ! We had decided that we would moor overnight back at NBD tonight, so as not to risk being late back tomorrow morning. After pump-out completed we set off again to have a look around Wroxham Broad and then onto Salhouse Broad where we stopped for lunch, then on to Hoveton Broad before cruising back up to NBD for our overnight mooring spot. We had a lovely walk around Wroxham and had a good look around (including all the ‘Roys’ shops !!!) We also went to have a look around the Brinks hire boats too... Picked up great fish & chips from ‘Ken’ in Wroxham, all cooked fresh to order too! Sat 29th – Sad to leave the FP3 in lots of ways although I did put down some constructive critique on the feedback form as following:- Likes: Found the FP3 was very easy to manoeuvre – we all had a go at driving her, but the kids did most of the driving and our Son did all the mooring manoeuvring! Dislikes: Couldn’t get either the front or rear cabins warm, only cold air blowing out of the vents. The sofa in the centre cabin was very uncomfortable to sit on. The sofa bed in the centre cabin was extremely uncomfortable to sleep on, we had to sleep on it after the first night as our Son couldn’t even sleep on it – usually he sleeps anywhere ! We were very disappointed with the poor performance of this FP3 and especially did not like being passed by little Dayboats!!! Couple of other small niggles were the DVD players in both front & rear cabins didn’t work and the can opener didn’t work... Overall we loved our first time on the Norfolk Broads and we shall definitely be going back, hopefully to do the Southern Broads next time...

Thanks Lori & Jill ! I'll do a report when I get back. Off to a great start today (Fri 21st) NBD have just called to say that our FP3 will be ready for us at 11am tomorrow !!!

Lol...... It Bogey !!! Thanks for the welcome & invite Hockham Admiral ! At this point we have absolutely no idea where we are headed, just focusing on getting out of the boatyard safely after instruction, sure hoping the FP is easy to manoeuvre !!! In June we had a day trip over to Wroxham to look at the boats and decide which one to book. Then we took out a Dayboat for a couple of hours and got as far as Horning before turning round and we were amazed at how much waving goes on on the Broads - we shall certainly be doing lots of that next week !!!!

It bogey... You are scaring me now Did we choose wrong boat ??? Note to Self: Pack more wine.....think we're gonna need it !

Thank you Antares_9 ! And OMG The Ancient Mariner - don't even joke about that - have been having bad dreams !!!

Just wanted to pop in to say Hi and that we are embarking on our first ever Norfolk Broads cruise this Sat (Oct 22nd) DH, Me + 2 Teenagers (1 x girl & 1 boy). Not sure if advertising is allowed (apologies if it's not) but we have hired a 46ft Fair President from NBD, other than that, we have no idea what we are doing !!!! Should be fun - hopefully !!!