Lifeboat Called Out To Martham Broad Yesterday

[HemsbyPie]

From the Facebook page: 

Saturday 20th August 2016

HEMSBY BROADS LIFEBOAT - callout

Paged by Humber Coastguard at 12:40hrs to assist an 18 foot sail boat with a fouled-up engine on Martham Broad, on the River Thurne, three adults and two children onboard. The casualties were boarded onto the Broads Lifeboat in two passages and taken to West Somerton Staithe to waiting Coastguard teams. The Broads Lifeboat returned to the Casualty vessel and returned it to the same location under tow, much to the relief of the waiting family.

Also in attendance: Winterton Coastguard Teams.

Lifeboat returned to station and were back on service at 15:50hrs

Don’t forget you can follow us on 
Twitter @Hemsby_Lifeboat

[Polly]

Martham Broad?

[ChrisB]

A Seawych. I built one in the mid 70's 

You often see these adverised as "Sadler Seawych" which is really a bit naughty! The Seawych was designed by John Sadler who was in fact a Civil Engineer and moulded  at his factory in Churchill Rd, Bicester, Oxon. The first 300 or so where white hull and grey topsides the rest were red hull and white topsides. Up until 1978 they were a complete kit of parts after that you could buy a kit with ballast encapsulated and interior moulding and hull and superstructure complete. The boat numbering was very haphazard on the white and grey boats, when you went to pick up your kit you were asked what colour sails "red or blue"  these were pre-numbered so you sail number did not mean much!

So I say naughty because a SeaWych never saw the pen of David Sadler of contessa fame or Sadler yachts run by his son Martin with some input by Rodney Pattison.

Now you know.

[HemsbyPie]

17 minutes ago, Polly said:

Martham Broad?

Martham north broad to be exact

[ExUserGone]

Quote

18 foot sail boat with a fouled-up engine on Martham Broad

How the heck does that warrant a lifeboat callout???? Surely a tow from any other vessel would get them to a mooring and from then on theres no emergency.

[ChrisB]

As a Governor of the RNLI for more years than I care to remember and a resident of the Norfolk Coast who supports our excellent four independent stations ( Mundesley, Sea Palling, Hemsby and Caister I really fail to see the constant need to question the launch of a lifeboat. The most simple situation can so easily get out of control. A small ( actually 19ft ) boat being blown across an unnavigable weed infested Broad, no way of sailing to windward out, in the winds of yesterday and the motor US. I suspect that a number of the crew of that SeaWych were very frightened and extremely greatful to the Hemsby Crew.

IMHO well done lads.

[HemsbyPie]

59 minutes ago, ChrisB said:

As a Governor of the RNLI for more years than I care to remember and a resident of the Norfolk Coast who supports our excellent four independent stations ( Mundesley, Sea Palling, Hemsby and Caister I really fail to see the constant need to question the launch of a lifeboat. The most simple situation can so easily get out of control. A small ( actually 19ft ) boat being blown across an unnavigable weed infested Broad, no way of sailing to windward out, in the winds of yesterday and the motor US. I suspect that a number of the crew of that SeaWych were very frightened and extremely greatful to the Hemsby Crew.

IMHO well done lads.

They had been blown a good 50-100m into the broad before they had a chance to get a mud weight down. Even our 40hp  on semi-flat bottomed sea-strike struggled, we had to cut ourselves free from the reeds a couple of times. The reeds were literally 10cm from the surface so most vessels would struggle on there, especially in that wind...

[Viking23]

To deploy a mud weight on a small boat can be quite hazardous if you are in a hurry, have to walk along narrow often wet side decks  etc. It can take a long time too.

On our cruiser we keep a spare mud weight in the cockpit and could sling that over in seconds, remembering to tie it off first lol... but this is not suitable for a yacht with sails up, and could make matters worse, as you need to keep the bow to the wind.

A better alternative, is to have the main mudweight tied on at the bow, but the rope running to the cockpit where the mud weight is, sling it over when needed etc. 

You also need to consider this option if crossing Breydon. You might travel a boat length or two but better than drifting 100 yards or so.

Under these circumstances, what type of other boat could have got to the stricken vessel, maybe that radio controlled life belt we saw the other day. But that is still quite a length of rope to deploy.

If it was a commercial venture doing the rescue, what would the invoice had been? I would guess several hundred pounds. 

Well done to the volunteers of the rescue services.

Richard

[Polly]

Agreed, well done. I was puzzled because I knew the Broad was unnavigable and wondered how they had got there.

[Viking23]

I must admit, many years ago, Martham Broad looked very inviting, it looked like deep clear water as you left the river, the broad was wide and open, but alas, boats were not allowed on there.

You cruise past now, and the weed cover has broken the surface, making navigation near impossible. A lot of the broad has weed growth, and I wonder what the future for this broad will be, like many of the other broads too. As the reed growth takes over, the surface area of the broad will shrink, the sediment will increase, and the broad may become marsh land.

Might take 50 years lol, but in the life of the planet, a very short time.

Richard

[marshman]

Viking - go past in the winter and its all died back!! Not really sure the weed growth is any worse than it was but it is one of the few Broads containing a large and rich collection of water plants - most of the Broads have no plants whatsoever! Certainly the fish like it as do many other sorts of wildlife - as far as I recall and thats going back a lot, it is pretty much unchanged over the years.

Thats probably a good thing but the level of plant growth does change a lot from year to year - some years some plants dominate, others others.

[TheQ]

It's noticable that the amount of greenery that comes up with Mud weights, on boats or bouys is increasing, we've been getting it on Black Horse Broad for a couple of years now. But this year it was even coming up on the mud weights out of the river in Horning. There are water lilies lining the river bank through Horning now which were not there before.

[ExUserGone]

Once a lifeboat is called I have no problem with it going out and I highly commend the crews for what they do and am always happy to support them, but it was a breakdown at the end of the day and there are yards that have towing boats available for that sort of breakdown, it's not down to charity funded volunteer organisations to give free breakdown cover to anyone that gets in a spot of bother.

A huge inconvenience maybe but thats it surely.

Things can go wrong for anyone out on a boat surrounded by a medium that were not designed to survive in wether happily sailing or waiting for a tow, we are getting way too risk adverse these days.

[HemsbyPie]

1 hour ago, LeoMagill said:

it was a breakdown at the end of the day and there are yards that have towing boats available for that sort of breakdown, it's not down to charity funded volunteer organisations to give free breakdown cover to anyone that gets in a spot of bother.

They had no phone signal so could not phone for a tow (just emergency signal for 999 etc)

The vessel was at least 75m into the broad so communicating with another vessel would have been impossible (which would have probably ended up in us getting called anyway as any passing vessel wouldn't have known what the issue was).

Can tow-tugs operate in such water (genuine question) and if not how would they have got them a tow line?. The water plants/greenery were literally a few centimetres from the surface, we had to stop a couple of times to lift our engine and cut ourselves free.

 

[ChrisB]

This was a response to a family who were in distress. The only persons who are in a position to question the validity of the response are the crew who attended. I doubt anybody else would take a boat into that Broad. No one else is qualified to comment.

 

[ChrisB]

For those readers who are not familiar with the North Martham Broad it is a beautiful piece of broadland wilderness with the most upper reach of the Thurne separating the north and south of the Broad. Off the river it is more like a deep water swamp, probably the nearest thing to an Everglade making passage impossible for any vessel except of the shallowest of draft and manually propelled.

[Vaughan]

19 minutes ago, ChrisB said:

For those readers who are not familiar with the North Martham Broad it is a beautiful piece of broadland wilderness with the most upper reach of the Thurne separating the north and south of the Broad. Off the river it is more like a deep water swamp, probably the nearest thing to an Everglade making passage impossible for any vessel except of the shallowest of draft and manually propelled.

Sounds like what I remember of Hudson's Bay, on Gt Hoveton Broad.

[Vaughan]

1 hour ago, HemsbyPie said:

Can tow-tugs operate in such water (genuine question) and if not how would they have got them a tow line?.

Richardsons would have arrived with a powerful towboat and  a dinghy, and then rowed a line across to the casualty, before pulling them out with a long warp.

But then Richardsons cover Barton Broad, not Hickling.

[HemsbyPie]

2 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

Richardsons would have arrived with a powerful towboat and  a dinghy, and then rowed a line across to the casualty, before pulling them out with a long warp.

But then Richardsons cover Barton Broad, not Hickling.

Rowed across? In that wind? Must have Jean Claude Van Dam as an employee

[ChrisB]

Yes, it was described on CH86 by Humber Coastguard as an unusually deep low for this time of year. 

Unfortunately my Runners and climbing French were beyond saving as were two courgette plants ripped out of the ground.

Vaughan would not know that, too busy  soaking up the sun and enjoying Moule Frites for lunch. I guess.

[ChrisB]

18 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

Sounds like what I remember of Hudson's Bay, on Gt Hoveton Broad.

Yes very like some of that area, Hoveton little is not much better in the NW corner.

[HemsbyPie]

2 minutes ago, ChrisB said:

Yes, it was described on CH86 by Humber Coastguard as an unusually deep low for this time of year. 

Unfortunately my Runners and climbing French were beyond saving as were two courgette plants ripped out of the ground.

Vaughan would not know that, too busy  soaking up the sun and enjoying Moule Frites for lunch. I guess.

Ahh my wife's courgette plant stayed rooted, but that's because she forgot to check on them this week and they are now a similar size to her Fiat 500...

[Regulo]

9 hours ago, Viking23 said:

You cruise past now, and the weed cover has broken the surface, making navigation near impossible. A lot of the broad has weed growth, and I wonder what the future for this broad will be, like many of the other broads too. As the reed growth takes over, the surface area of the broad will shrink, the sediment will increase, and the broad may become marsh land.

Got to agree with that. We spend a lot of our Broads time mudweighted on the Lime Kiln dyke arm of Barton. Over the years the reeds have encroached significantly into the open water. There's not much can be done, as it's not affecting navigation, but in time this arm of Barton will go the way of Sutton broad, most of which is now Sutton Fen!

[ExMemberBobdog]

27 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

Richardsons would have arrived with a powerful towboat and  a dinghy, and then rowed a line across to the casualty, before pulling them out with a long warp.

But then Richardsons cover Barton Broad, not Hickling.

I saw Richardson's staff rescue one of their motor cruisers that was similarly stuck on Martham Broad earlier in the season.  Apparently the hirers had engine failure and drifted on the wind across the broad a way before they could get the mudweight down.  Richardson's staff borrowed a tug and a rowing boat from Herbert Woods at Potter Heigham (I imagine all the hire boatyards have a reciprocal arrangement for rescues of this nature - but private owners may be a bit stuffed), and did exactly as Vaughan suggests above. 

[Vaughan]

2 hours ago, HemsbyPie said:

Can tow-tugs operate in such water (genuine question) and if not how would they have got them a tow line?.

Of course I was not there so I know nothing of the conditions prevailing. And yes, I did enjoy my moules frites for lunch.

You asked a "genuine question" and I gave a real answer, as I was involved in several rescues in those days, when I was your age, (and I was the one rowing) but we had no modern equipment, or communications. All we had was the nearest boatyard towboat.

I am very glad that we have you, nowadays.