Rescue At Ludham

[Labrador]

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/lifeboat-crew-rescues-11-people-including-three-week-old-baby-from-boat-near-ludham-1-5152484

[Guest ExMemberKingFisher]

Did this really need the lifeboat? Surely in that location, advise to put the mud weight down and call the boatyard!!

[Polly]

Three week old baby is the key point here. You get a call with that bit of info. you don't mess about. Sure we would have coped, but novices and a lot of them suggests a degree of panic, especially as 5 appear to have left to 'waiting transport' at 11 o' clock or so at night. Where do you take a three week old at that time of night unless local?

[grendel]

are there any hire boats licenced to carry 11?

[Polly]

I think some do 12 but not many, maybe they were unofficial passengers

[Guest ExMemberKingFisher]

21 minutes ago, Polly said:

Three week old baby is the key point here. You get a call with that bit of info. you don't mess about. Sure we would have coped, but novices and a lot of them suggests a degree of panic, especially as 5 appear to have left to 'waiting transport' at 11 o' clock or so at night. Where do you take a three week old at that time of night unless local?

Good point, but unless the boat was taking on water, or the baby was ill, then I don't see any immediate danger on that particular stretch of water. Different if it was Breydon or the lower reaches.

[Guest ExMemberKingFisher]

2 minutes ago, Jonzo said:

I think the limit is ten plus tinies, so it's probably alright from that perspective.

Looks like an Alpha 42 (Glint of Light) though, so they'd be a bit cosy.

I read that as tinnies at first. Made me think of the Fosters advert with the pickup truck

I've seen boats with -12 on the back which is the maximum numbers of passengers it can carry.

 

[Snowy]

It doesn't appear that anyone was injuried so a bit of fuss over nothing 

we broke down on Florida Light few years back, engine just cut out, tried to restart but nothing, we drifted to the side, secured the boat and rang the yard, waited couple of hours for engineer,  he did his thing and we was on our way again

at no point did I consider sending a flare up and calling the lifeboat 

[Matt]

And at 7:30 still daylight and presumably still some river traffic?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Springsong]

To carry over 10 plus crew you need a DOT license. Crew is the movable feast so to speak but I don't think an infant

could be classed as crew. 

[Vaughan]

The John Williams designed Westward 44, now known as Pink Champagne, was designed as a 12 berth boat, and we used to run several of them in France. 

I don't want to get into a "quote the regulations" contest here, but this goes back to the old Board of Trade shipping regs, where a cargo liner could carry up to 12 passengers in addition to its cargo. I remember the "Geest Boats" which traded from Liverpool to the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean. They were big, refrigerated ships and were, literally, banana boats. They were designed to also carry 12 passengers in addition to the crew. Any more and they would have had to conform to passenger ship regs, including the carrying of a doctor.

This regulation has "morphed" into inland waterways, so that in international regs (which may not be the same as the Broads) you can go out for the day on a hire boat with 12 passengers and 2 crew. Any more than that and you become a passenger vessel such as Broads Tours, where they have to have a lot of extra equipment and the skipper must have a B.O.T. master's ticket.

So yes, you can have 12 people on a hire boat but it must have the equipment, such as life jackets for all on board, including those specially fitted for children. 

As to whether one should consider bringing a 3 week old baby on a boating holiday, when there are 10 or more people on board - that remains a matter of opinion!

[Snowy]

3 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

The John Williams designed Westward 44, now known as Pink Champagne, was designed as a 12 berth boat, and we used to run several of them in France. 

I don't want to get into a "quote the regulations" contest here, but this goes back to the old Board of Trade shipping regs, where a cargo liner could carry up to 12 passengers in addition to its cargo. I remember the "Geest Boats" which traded from Liverpool to the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean. They were big, refrigerated ships and were, literally, banana boats. They were designed to also carry 12 passengers in addition to the crew. Any more and they would have had to conform to passenger ship regs, including the carrying of a doctor.

This regulation has "morphed" into inland waterways, so that in international regs (which may not be the same as the Broads) you can go out for the day on a hire boat with 12 passengers and 2 crew. Any more than that and you become a passenger vessel such as Broads Tours, where they have to have a lot of extra equipment and the skipper must have a B.O.T. master's ticket.

So yes, you can have 12 people on a hire boat but it must have the equipment, such as life jackets for all on board, including those specially fitted for children. 

As to whether one should consider bringing a 3 week old baby on a boating holiday, when there are 10 or more people on board - that remains a matter of opinion!

I've often wondered why the magic number was 12, I just thought that was the biggest practical boat that could use the waterways

you learn something new every day :-)

[Guest]

To be honest I don't see it as an over response its better to be safe than sorry , I very much doubt anyone onboard knew what the problem was with the boat but even at ludham the tide can move you significant distances in not a lot of time , yes there's the mud weight which I'm sure they were told to deploy if they already hadn't , yes if I was at a call centre and that was rung in given the fact an infant is onboard I'd deffinatly send the required assistance be that life boat or what ever .

All in all a good result for all concerned .

[dnks34]

A boating holiday with a baby of that age would not be high on my to do list!

Which makes me think its possible they could have been local visitors and the waiting transport took them home.

Our son was atleast 12 months before we took him on a boat.  

Im not judging any parent but at that very young age there are very specific needs that im not sure a boat environment caters for very well. 

Given the baby the lifeboat was probably the right call.

 

[marshman]

Vaughan - you will be pleased to know you are almost correct!!! The old DOT had control about years ago but these days passenger boats come under the Small Passenger Boat Code which has been adopted and is controlled by the BA on the rivers

Your old boat (you know the old black one! ) is  licensed to carry 12 persons, all adults but infants count as one of these, and up to 5 crew - 17 in total!

Believe it or not we even had to carry out stability tests - load of 'ol squit if you ask me!!! You could have had 40 big 'ol blokes standing on the side without noticing much!!

[Vaughan]

10 minutes ago, Jonzo said:

I didn't know they came out of Westward originally. I know that AF was not the original owner of those moulds though (they called them an Ideal 45).

My brain hurts!

It's been a long time. Were they Westward or Westerly? Anyway they were John Williams, after he left Jack Powles, and they are 12 berth boats.

 

Here is Geestbay, a ship I remember well, when she called in at Antigua or Grenada. All that passenger accommodation amidships was originally for directors and their guests who wanted to cross the Atlantic but they later accepted normal paying passengers, in the height of luxury. If you wanted a 3 week cruise from Liverpool or the Pool of London, taking in the islands of the Caribbean, this was the way to do it!

I gather that Geestline still offer a similar service on their container ships today.

[Labrador]

Hope to god the EDP  don't read this thread, instead  of 11 hirers including  a baby rescued, it'll be a banana boat and 20,000 tons of bananas rescued on the Ant being reported 

[stumpy]

1 hour ago, Vaughan said:

 

I gather that Geestline still offer a similar service on their container ships today.

We didn't get many banana boats in Felixstowe but U. S. Lines and Medite box boats often carried pax - usually rich Americans of a certain age. It was great fun piling them into the works car for a trip to town so they  could experience the English pub experience. They also loved having a Customs stamp in their passports rather than boring old Immigration. 

[Oddfellow]

Self Drive hire boats can legally carry up to 12 people providing that all stability testing shows that the vessel is capable of doing so safely within the limits of heal angles and distance from the lowest downfloodng points and other regulatory tests. 

Under MCA rules, if the vessel has a crew, you can test for more persons including the crew. Stanley Arthur II, the Horning Ferry, is rated for 12 plus 1 crew member making it 13. 

There are a few 12 person vessels on the Broads including Ultima, Brink's new day hire boat (name escapes me), Acapulco from Richardsons and a number of day boats too. 

 

 

[ChrisB]

John Williams, Westward Boats based Beccles is sometimes, well often really, confused with Westwood Boats who build quite beautiful boats on the Erne. They are based at Enniskillen. I think that they are Norfolk designed though by Andrew Wolstenholme. A particularly nice feature of Westwoods and most likely due to being in Northern Ireland is they have a 9kw wet heating system that really makes them year round boats and perfect for the Shannon Erne waterways. I did not know that the 45s came from Westward, I thought they just did the 38 in two styles and the 31.

[Boaters]

It would appear from the article that 5 were. Taken off to transport ,but the remaining crew stayed to continue their holiday ,possibly visitors on board .but as said earlier would there have been enough lifejackets ? Glad it all ended well..Is there restrictions by the hire companies on the number of guests you can have aboard ?

[marshman]

The number is restricted to the number shown  after the regn no e.g A123 - 6

[HemsbyPie]

On 18/08/2017 at 09:27, Boaters said:

It would appear from the article that 5 were. Taken off to transport ,but the remaining crew stayed to continue their holiday ,possibly visitors on board .but as said earlier would there have been enough lifejackets ? Glad it all ended well..Is there restrictions by the hire companies on the number of guests you can have aboard ?

Some were taken off to safety as they were either fairly old or very young.