BroadAmbition

It is definitely not the BA - the tidal reaches bit stops at the entrance to Barton Broad - check your National Parks OS map as it is shown on there I think. Well that's a load of squit, even if it does say that on the National Parks OS map (I've not checked btw) as we know for certain that the rise and fall of tide can be clearly witnessed at Wayford bridge and beyond Griff

Crewed up Friday evening at around 2330 having stopped off at the Bridge inn en route as was our desire. Onboard, systems on, all ok. Mikuni fired up on full tilt then few nightcaps which led to a few more nightcaps, we finished off a bottle of rum and whisky and it was 0200 by the time we turned in. Left the heating on overnight to warm 'B.A' through which resulted in her being tropical by the morning, and the three of us sweating our gonads off! Had to do an emergency replenishment of Rum from Tecso's first thing in the morning, can't sail without any rum onboard as we wouldn't have had owt to put the coffee in! By about 0930 we have sailed for Horning. Linden on the helm with the view of him doing all the berthing evolutions under my instructions (He is due to be our fourth skipper come the Lads week this October and needs some berthing helm time) Witnessed plenty of work by the excellent Broadsword team on the Ant up river of How Hill. F.C.E whilst underway - be rude not to - but horror of horrors no HP brown sauce onboard, not a smidge. 8ft under Ludham bridge with evidence of work being carried out on the rubbing strip things under the bridge. Saw a fair few hireboats out but hardly any private boats underway. Lots of fisherman over both rivers before the 15th arrives. Sometime after 1200 we are stern on at the New Inn, by 1330 underway onboad the Souther Comfort for Pete Marrs memorial cruise. by 1615ish we are back onboard where Robin was there to greet us. into the pub where dinner was had, onboard again by around 2100 for a couple of DVD'S and some wine of sorts, 2359 - Lights out. Sunday morning a walk down to the willow cafe for B'fast (Lads, the girly staff in there are very pleasing on the eye, not that we noticed you understand) 1100-ish underway for Stalham once more. Intended to stop off at LBBy for a pump out, but no room on the quay and no sign of any staff either so on we went to Sutton Staithe - All shut and locked up so no pump out again, but good practise for Linden on the helm. Into Richo's main basin where we got the pump out (£12) then into the wet shed where I found three blokes in one of those aluminium dory things pike fishing. I requested that they leave, they declined, Richo's staff then came down and ejected them, all quite amicably as it turned out. Then it was a drive round to 'Indy's home berth to drop Robin off and so Steve / Linden could have a look-see By 2000 I'm home. Harvey Arms this evening as per the norm and It's not my turn to drive. Onboard in a fortnight again but this time for a full blown maintenance weekend so no venturing outside of the shed - Well, not with 'B.A' anyroadup Griff

At last. Having returned home from Norfolk, I have in my possession, underwater primer, 037 coastal red anti foul and 034 Emperor blue boot topping. Sometime this week they should be on their way to youhoo Griff

The Weymouth to Brighton trip although far from flat calm was easily manageable and we made our eta on time. The morning of Sunday 4th is where we encountered our first issue totally out of our control. The admiralty chart and the Reeds almanac both agreed with each other stating ‘Maintained depth 2m’ We knew we would be departing at Low tide and 2m would be sufficient. The fuelling pontoon / station was further round inside the huge breakwater up by the lock to the inner marina. We had got ourselves up and ready early as we also knew that topping Indy’s tanks up would be more than a five minute job. I thought it prudent to call the HM on the vhf enquiring as to the depth as we could plainly see the mud shoaling very close to the marked channel. The HM informed us that we would have to wait till about 1000 if we wanted to move round for fuel or alternatively 0900 if we wished to proceed to sea. Brighton Marina it turns out do not maintain a dredged channel depth to 2m at all as stated. Nowt for it then, after an early ‘Call the Hands’ we all trooped off to Wetherspoons for a full English as one does for the princely sum of £3:50 plus as much coffee as one desired. Then bimbled round to the local supermarket for supplies with all of us forgetting it was Sunday morning and nowt was open, apart from a petrol station so we made do with what they had to offer. We slipped Indy’s mooring lines at around 1000 and made our way round to the fuelling station only to find a large rag-n-stick alongside waiting for water depth to increase. This was another delay. I had to hop off onto the pontoon and kindly inform them that we needed fuel and could they wait elsewhere? Non to happily they moved off and sat in mid channel. Fuelling Indy took an age. By the time we had completed, slipped, secured the upper deck for sea obtained permission to proceed etc it was approaching 1200. We were well behind schedule now. Once clear of Brighton it was throttles down, I was doing my calculations with regards to eta at Ramsgate, we would now be arriving in the dark with low water approaching, not good. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I was familiar with the pilotage into Ramsgate harbour but to my knowledge I had only been there once before and that was 26 years ago. Still we would just have to deal with it in due course. It was after passing Beachy head that the sea state really picked up. The wave height steadily increased to around 8ft i would guess, not so much of an issue but it was a short swell with sharp peaks that was making itsen felt, it was getting uncomfortable and more violent by the minute. No option but to reduce speed to deal with it. The film footage / photo’s you saw taken by Nigel and Grendel, we were only making around 9/10kts SOG at best, though probably more through the water. I knew that this was putting our eta at Ramsgate even further behind with the real possibility that we would now arrive at smack on Low water but there was no way we could make any better progress in the sea state we were dealing with. As we pushed on and altered course as one does, the direction of the sea changed from being directly on the bow to more on the Stbd bow. So as well as the bow / anchor forging into the peaks and dumping green water on the foc’sle it increased the roll as a result, Joy and glee, we were as badly burnt as scolded. In the snow/rain storms visibility kept reducing significantly too. My crew fazed? – not a bit of it. I knew they would be fine with this otherwise I wouldn’t have picked them for this kind of trip in the first place. I always knew that this sort of situation was likely to happen at this time of year. It was getting hard work keeping on ones feet and my regular engine room rounds were somewhat challenging. The fwd bilge pump indicator kept sticking on with the threat of burning out the motor. The blasted float switch kept getting thrown vertical and stopped there even though the bilge was only slightly wet. It was probably never designed to be vertical! Added to that some clown of a boat builder had mounted the float switch lower down than the pump. So if there was enough water to lift the switch, the pump was still sitting dry. I put a weight on the float switch – that cured that issue of saving the pump running dry but meant if we did have a water ingress the pump could not now operate. This meant of course regular checking of the fwd bilge, just another issue to deal with then. Going fwd with the amount of pitching we were experiencing and lifting deck plates was an adventure. I was keeping a crafty eye on our resident crabfat too as this sort of passage in this sea state was an unknown to him and would he deal with it ok? Mentally he would lap it up and would not stop or give in, but would his stomach rise to the challenge? No worries about our submariner or the Wizard. Robin however was a different entity and went into shut down mode. It was understandable as he would never have been in this situation before or experienced anything like this. The best place for him was aft in the master cabin. I kept popping in reassuring him that his boat was fine, the crew were looking after Indy and she would in turn look after us. The crew were dealing with the situation in hand. Indy was fine too. She was handling the sea state and shrugging off even the now more regular rogue waves that she pounded through. Nothing was coming loose (Well it did actually, the fwd berthing rope that was tied onto the cleats – Howard dealt with that one) or was breaking, the water tight integrity was to the good. The engineering department was purring along just as it should do. The crew however were now under no illusions that they were not on a Sunday afternoon cruise down the Yare, far from it. Our crabfat was doing just fine so we had four of us operating normally. Upper deck rounds – Well that is to say venturing onto the sun deck (Sun deck? – should have been named monsoon deck) and fly bridge was not for the faint hearted but it had to be done. Robin came up for a word, could we alter our destination to Dover and get out of this sea state? Griff

Looking Brilliant Polly, however no way can I see her being ready for May, not unless Doug is able to retire PDQ Griff

'B.A's are not on the hull, but on the cabin sides and aft bulkhead in the well deck. Never had a problem with any of the Rangers Griff

Would be good to get Griff's view on the final leg from Dover to Gt Yarmouth to complete to story if he has the time. I'll do a write up when I get a moment Griff

Can someone give Doug a 'Heads Up' not to watch blog #3 unless he has a bucket close by and a handful of Sherbert pips! Griff

Robin I Nigel along with Peter (Grendel), were the two idiots who braved a force 8, to come down to Dungeness. I'm glad you did, you got to film similar idiots that were out at sea in the same force 8! The video / photo's you took give some idea of the conditions, it got worse than that before we initiated Robins plan B and dived into Dover Griff

That's why its being done now - its only 4 days!!! Er, actually its a total of ten days from the OP that I can see. I agree though it all seems fairly reasonable and is the correct time of year to do it. Griff

OM = 'Old Man' TVMOM = 'Thanks Very Much Old Man' Griff

Overall MS, Your post above is imho (and only my opinion), arguably the best one I have seen on this thread. I just wish I had written it! Well done OM and TVMOM for saying it so well Griff

Looking good there Peter, What's the model in the background, is that one of yours too? Griff

Sigh, Today is clay shooting day again. Only it's chucking it down with rain here good n proper. Now where me n hobbies are concerned, and I mean outdoor hobbies - shooting, fishing and Tiger riding and the like, they ain't much fun in t rain. And they by their very nature are supposed to be fun. So it looks like a day indoors then Griff

Woke up to yet another fresh snow covering. I really need to use the van later on today to collect materials - this could scupper my plans good n proper. It'll have to be the jeep for my first call Griff

Well done Robin for posting up the second leg and about time too!. Back on track once more then Griff

This coming Friday 03rd I am supposed to be onboard and taking 'B.A' round to Horning on Saturday for a memorial cruise on that there party boat - Can't see that happening Quoting mysen here, got my dates mixed up and in front of mysen too. It's Fri 9th we are supposed to be coming down not this Friday so there is time yet Griff

Not for us on 'B.A' it won't as there is river ice on the Ant as of now, I can't see it thawing out between now and Saturday morning. There are supposed to be three of us coming down, taking 'B.A; round to Horning and having four guests onboard overnight. Not a prayer I think Griff

I think we have had a total of about 6" here today. It's been snowing then sunny then snowing again on and off all day long. Tomorrows client is on the main road so might risk the van. Mind you the main through roads our and neighbouring villages were not gritted / ploughed today at all. I have cleared the paths / drive good n proper when I got in. Now covered again. This coming Friday 03rd I am supposed to be onboard and taking 'B.A' round to Horning on Saturday for a memorial cruise on that there party boat - Can't see that happening Griff

If only Vaughan - ICE - a boat stopper even the thin stuff, well it is for us woodies Jeep - Flat battery - Now running and warming up, gear transferred over from van (Well just as much as I need) What I really need is a spare set of rims with dedicated winter snow /ice tyres on them ready for the van each winter but that is a lot of expense not to mention the faffing around, and how many winters would I need them? - They would probably perish / degrade before they got worn out. So having the jeep as a back up is the way to go for me. Griff

Great, there is now around 3" lying this morning and it has started snowing a good un about 20 mins ago with no signs of any breaks in the cloud. If this keeps up I will end up going up in t loft and getting out my Langlauf gear (Still have all the kit from when we lived in Norway) Griff

To be fair, unless I have read Robins posts wrong, the biggest job on the list (due to access and dismantling involved) will be to correct an omission at build rather than a difference in regs, so actually in this case a sea boat has complied quite well to the BSS. Agreed. and the biggest fuel leak was caused by incorrect installation too. Indeed whilst out on the trip I noticed the warm air heating was not performing very well up fwd. On investigation in the engine room I soon found the connectors were loose and some has just been push fitted together and would never have stayed in place for more than five minutes alongside let alone at sea. It was an easy fix though Griff

Far too many "experts" and armchair admirals on this forum for my liking. Hence the reason why I have stopped posting about our restoration of BG, and will not be participating in the Forum after this post. Brilliant Socrates, just great. By not posting about your excellent BG restoration project means the background static, constant whine and armchair admirals of a tiny minority of members denies the rest of us to enjoy / admire your adventure. Don't pay any heed to em and let the rest of us enjoy your ride too. You have a lot of friends in here. Griff

High6 - Like it, I have liked it and would like to like it some more too But I will be lazy and just state:- 'What High6 posted' in it's entirety word for word Now where's that OFF button? Griff sent from my home based P/C tower thing using a keyboard and my finest sense of humour