Anyone For Hickling?

[JennyMorgan]

14 hours ago, expilot said:

I, of course, at this point have to declare a personal conflict of interest!  Some day very soon, I hope to get Broadland Swift back in the water.  With a bit of luck, she will be running (silently!) up and down to Hickling, Horsey and West Somerton with onlookers wondering, perhaps, how she got under THAT bridge.  My worry, of course, is that I may soon be restricted to only being able to navigate the Upper Thurne because the water levels prevent me going downriver beyond the bridge with Swift.  I've already lowered her as much as practically I am able.

Gone is the monster, weighty old diesel engine and the half ton of diesel. replaced by a light weight leccy motor and a couple of batteries, will she now float higher, or to put it another way, does the bridge seem nearer?

[expilot]

11 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

Gone is the monster, weighty old diesel engine and the half ton of diesel. replaced by a light weight leccy motor and a couple of batteries, will she now float higher, or to put it another way, does the bridge seem nearer?

JM

I reckon to have removed a tonne and a half of a Lister FRM4 marine diesel engine and Blackstone gearbox, an obscenely heavy cast iron silencer, two 40 gallon diesel tanks and contents, two ten feet long engine bearers that would have served a combine harvester well, an eight gallon remote oil tank and all gear change solid steel linkages.  Swift will probably be two tonnes lighter when she first goes back into the water.  I shall be 're-ballasting' with at least two tonnes of lead acid traction batteries.  

[TheQ]

I hope you can get all the batteries where you want them, they aren't in mine. I still have to get some bags of something heavy, to get the stern down about 4 inches.. Being centre cockpit limited the choices of getting the weight where I wanted it..

[grendel]

I'm guessing, but there should be plenty of space where the engine and tanks used to be.

[expilot]

The weight will go back into the boat exactly where the weight used to be.  As Grendel says, the engine bay is cavernous at 6' +  long, 5' + wide and 3'+ deep.  And then there are two huge holes where the fuel tanks used to be.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, grendel said:

I'm guessing, but there should be plenty of space where the engine and tanks used to be.

Is there any opportunity/space here to install internal river water ballast tanks and pump system, so the tanks can be temporarily filled and emptied for that "extra couple of inches" to get under PH bridge? 

[expilot]

11 minutes ago, Philosophical said:

Is there any opportunity/space here to install internal river water ballast tanks and pump system, so the tanks can be temporarily filled and emptied for that "extra couple of inches" to get under PH bridge? 

I distinctly remember Alan Royall insisting that we fill Royall Stuart's bilges with river water in order to get her back through THAT bridge.  Apart from making the boat horribly less stable, I don't remember all that extra water lowering her much.  I wouldn't even consider water ballast tanks without having baffle plates installed internally into the tanks.  I effectively already carry two ballast tanks.  Each of my balanced port and starboard freshwater tanks hold 50 gals!  Everything about these Broadland Somerleyton boats was belt and braces over-engineered.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, expilot said:

I distinctly remember Alan Royall insisting that we fill Royall Stuart's bilges with river water in order to get her back through THAT bridge.  Apart from making the boat horribly less stable, I don't remember all that extra water lowering her much.  I wouldn't even consider water ballast tanks without having baffle plates installed internally into the tanks.  I effectively already carry two ballast tanks.  Each of my balanced port and starboard freshwater tanks hold 50 gals!  Everything about these Broadland Somerleyton boats was belt and braces over-engineered.

A 12m overall length boat with 2x 500l wing tanks of fuel and 2 x 250l water tanks, when full will lower the boat by about 60 mm over empty tanks. 

I agree large areas of un-baffled water (in or out of tanks) will make the craft vunerable to extreme instability due to the free surface effect of the water. 

[TheQ]

My engine bay is about 5 ft fore and aft and 9ft 6inches wide. but with the fuel tank for the genny one side and the genny the other, they had to put the batteries in a U round the front of the electric motor. Centre cockpit Eysians are a bit nose heavy anyway, this has made it a lot worse...

[ChrisB]

A very respected Broadland Yard owner once warned me off water ballast because the water is not clean and goes stagnated very quickly. To demonstrate he took me aboard a Macgregor 26 he was working on and it was very whiffy.

I was actually in correspondence with Swallow when my wife fell ill for the last time about sealed ballast tanks that I could fill with a hose and add a cup of bleach to overcome the problem.

[BroadAmbition]

Didn't the Porter and Haylet yard at Wroxham use 45 gallon clean plastic drums full of water then pumped out to get boats under Wroxham bridge if the rivers were high?

Griff

[NorfolkNog]

I think so, I'm sure that I've seen a video somewhere. They looked like they were strapped to the side decks in some way, not sure how they did it.

[Broads01]

The video is on You Tube if you can find it. Didn't Whispering Reeds used to use ballast as well? 

[trambo]

We hired Hawaiian Goose, an aquafibre opel from Whispering Reeds in 2010 and I remember she went under very easily.

Fred

[rightsaidfred]

13 hours ago, BroadAmbition said:

Didn't the Porter and Haylet yard at Wroxham use 45 gallon clean plastic drums full of water then pumped out to get boats under Wroxham bridge if the rivers were high?

Griff

Yes and flooded the bilge, watched them do it gave them an extra 3" they reckoned.

Fred

[Broads01]

4 hours ago, trambo said:

We hired Hawaiian Goose, an aquafibre opel from Whispering Reeds in 2010 and I remember she went under very easily.

Fred

I hired the same boat in 2008 and had no issues but I think 10 years on things would be different (present unusual conditions not withstanding). The following year I hired Canada Goose (Bounty 37) and the pilot had to enlist the help of a crowd of people to come on board and make the boat lower. In October 2010 I booked Bittern but cancelled it on the start day because it wouldn't pass through. 

[JennyMorgan]

If this evening's low tide at Oulton Broad is anything to go by then there should be plenty of room under Potter bridge.  

[Hylander]

More room than you can shake a stick at tonight.

Lots of holiday makers making the most of this opportunity to get under the bridge.

May be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JennyMorgan]

1 hour ago, Hylander said:

More room than you can shake a stick at tonight.

Lots of holiday makers making the most of this opportunity to get under the bridge.

May be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

So long  as they can get back!