Mystic Horizon

[MaceSwinger]

2 hours ago, Mouldy said:

Hmmmm!  Not entirely sure I agree with all of that.  Do you really need a 40ft two berth boat?  

I don't recall at any point saying I needed a 40' 2 berth boat. And I happen to agree that people expect too much from a boat. It's annoying that people slate boats and yards because they thought that the 27' by 10'6 cruiser was going to afford them absolute luxury, and funnily it didn't!

 

44 minutes ago, grendel said:

This is a 43 foot 9 berther and passes under Potter Heigham bridge regularly

I will concede that I very foolishly overlooked the older wooden boats. But given the issue at hand seemed to be the width of Ludham Bridge I don't see how that would be the solution now unless they were considerably skinnier than 9 foot, given Ludham is listed as being 18' wide.

[grendel]

granted the nearest Martham boats get to modern definitions of luxury is a usb socket, but if by luxury you mean the warm glow of a mahogany interior, then for me they are as luxurious as I need.

[Mouldy]

2 hours ago, MaceSwinger said:

I don't recall at any point saying I needed a 40' 2 berth boat. . .. . .

And I wasn’t implying that you had, but you did say that the thought of hiring smaller boats would put people off coming, which is the point I was picking up.  You only have to look at Ferry, NBD, Barnes and Richos to see super luxury 2 and 4 berth boats between 36 and 45 feet long with bathrooms that wouldn’t look out of place in your house, never mind on a boat.  This seems to be what we want now and by we, I mean the consumer, which is what drives the hire industry.  We are no longer happy to ‘rough it’ or go without our modern day toys, which is why you can hire a yurt, with a log burner instead of a tent now.

[MaceSwinger]

20 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

And I wasn’t implying that you had, but you did say that the thought of hiring smaller boats would put people off coming, which is the point I was picking up.  You only have to look at Ferry, NBD, Barnes and Richos to see super luxury 2 and 4 berth boats between 36 and 45 feet long with bathrooms that wouldn’t look out of place in your house, never mind on a boat.  This seems to be what we want now and by we, I mean the consumer, which is what drives the hire industry.  We are no longer happy to ‘rough it’ or go without our modern day toys, which is why you can hire a yurt, with a log burner instead of a tent now.

I think we're both saying the same thing a possibly doing not a great job of realising  I hate the sight of those massive things cruising down the river, and it saddens me a little that there's a market for them. But then for my entire life part of the fun of a boating holiday for me has been squeezing onto a fairly cramped boat, because a Broads holiday to me should be about what you do and see when you're awake, not how luxurious your bed is when you're asleep. In terms of space my favourite hire boat was Brinks Sonata. They didn't last too long, largely because of how cosy they were I suspect, but I absolutely adored the berth under the rear deck. It felt like a proper little boat on a real adventure.

[Poppy]

20 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

 We are no longer happy to ‘rough it’ or go without our modern day toys, which is why you can hire a yurt, with a log burner instead of a tent now.

'We' have been told that 'we' shouldn't have to go without our modern day toys, because there's more money in super luxury.

For the same reason 'we' must have moorings with electricity, and for most now it seems only at most 100 yds walk to the pub bar.

The concept of a wild mooring or mudweighting  on one of the Broads over night is anathema.

[MaceSwinger]

2 minutes ago, Poppy said:

For the same reason 'we' must have moorings with electricity, and for most now it seems only at most 100 yds walk to the pub bar.

I still have 2 electric cards in my wallet from 4 years ago. I started the week with 2, and brought them both home. Honestly this year it was only when I looked at the boat I'd booked for the millionth time that I saw it had shore power and an inverter. Couldn't give a monkey's about that usually.

I will absolutely be mudweighting and looking for wild moorings next month. It's what I love about the Broads. A proper bed with all the scenery of wild camping.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

So let`s say you own a hire yard and you are doing ok but want to do better and grow bigger, do you listen to what customers say when they return the boat, possibly take comments on board and implement things into the next new build or laugh at them?

[SwanR]

There’s plenty of choice out there for all tastes and all budgets. We wouldn’t want to hire anything more than 35 feet in length preferably. Why pay more for space we don’t need. But equally given that there is only ever the two of us on board, we like a boat fitted out for a couple rather than space wasted on an extra cabin that we don’t need. That’s why we like the boats from Ferry Marina and NBD.