Advice Sought From Inexperienced Boaters On How Not To Be A Nuisance

[oldgregg]

A Diamond 43! Speedtriple and I are very familiar with those. Ours needs 6' 10" at Wroxham with the light mast folded down and obviously a hireboat won't have that so you can shave a couple of inches off.

 

Beam of Ligh probably isn't allowed under Potter Heigham, but Beccles will be no problem as long as you keep an eye on the tides. I was down there two weeks ago on one....

 

Yes I remember not knowing the air draft with the Manor House boat and a particular bridge I wasn't sure if I'd get under. Which boat did you hire?

 

Ours had the turbocharged 5-cylinder Nanni and did a lot more than 6 knots. Lough Erne is indeed massive and gets quite lumpy!

 

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[Coryton]

23 hours ago, oldgregg said:

A Diamond 43! Speedtriple and I are very familiar with those. Ours needs 6' 10" at Wroxham with the light mast folded down and obviously a hireboat won't have that so you can shave a couple of inches off.

Interesting - they say it's 7 ft 2 inches...

23 hours ago, oldgregg said:

Beam of Ligh probably isn't allowed under Potter Heigham, but Beccles will be no problem as long as you keep an eye on the tides. I was down there two weeks ago on one....

You're right about Potter Heigham. They say it won't do Beccles Old bridge either.

23 hours ago, oldgregg said:

Yes I remember not knowing the air draft with the Manor House boat and a particular bridge I wasn't sure if I'd get under. Which boat did you hire?

A "Noble Captain". I believe it's a Haines 38. We were very impressed with it - not that any of us had set foot on a cruiser before let alone stayed on one. Excellent for families - a completely enclosed flydeck which was set back from the sides of the boat.

It felt a lot larger on the inside than we'd expected.

A bit on the tall side for the broads, I think.

I hope we enjoy the Beam of Light as much.

23 hours ago, oldgregg said:

Ours had the turbocharged 5-cylinder Nanni and did a lot more than 6 knots.

It must have had an engine. When we turned the key something started making a noise and let us move the boat about. But I have no idea what it was - it was well hidden away and we weren't expected to do anything technical like make sure water was coming out of the back of the boat when it started let alone check oil levels.

It went fast enough for us.

Which boat did you have?

23 hours ago, oldgregg said:

Lough Erne is indeed massive and gets quite lumpy!

Yes - fun in the way we could pretend to be at sea, but a little worrying. We spent quite a bit of time heading in the wrong direction because every time we tried to turn we started to take the waves broadside and it got too scary. We had to get nearly to the other side before we felt comfortable turning round. There were almost no other boats around and there was probably a good reason for that.

I picked a very bad time to serve tomato soup.

[BroadAmbition]

I picked a very bad time to serve tomato soup. 

They say it won't do Beccles Old bridge either

They may say it won't but at 7ft 2" on the bottom of the tide, it'll probably go through with the top still up!

Griff

[oldgregg]

Beam of Light are exactly the same basic height as Thunder and Lightning as they were built for the Broom hirefleet back in the 90's.

My guess would be that 7ft 2ins is the height to the top of the upstairs helm seat when it isn't folded down as that's the highest point on the boat and easy to forget to fold and damage on a Bridge as one of our owners did that last season. Either that or the helm seat doesn't fold, but that would be a mad thing to fit.

Yes Noble Captain is basically a Broom Ocean 38, fitted out by Haines as are most of Manor House's boats. A very nice spacious boat, one of my favourite of the Broom designs.

Incidentally, we were held up on our handover because all the engineers had to rush off in a RIB to stop one of the Noble Captains sinking as the hirer had holed it on rocks at the top end of the Lough. It came back strung alongside the RIB with big pumps running and they craned it out straight away to start repairs.

We hired Noble Chief 3, a Haines Charter 360. Very spacious inside, but I think a Captain would have handled a lot better.


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[oldgregg]

I picked a very bad time to serve tomato soup. 
They say it won't do Beccles Old bridge either
They may say it won't but at 7ft 2" on the bottom of the tide, it'll probably go through with the top still up!
Griff

Yeah, it would.

We need nearer 8ft 6 with the screens up, though I don't know the exact figure.

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[Guest]

Beam of Light is, I believe, one of the Commodore class from the old Broom's hire fleet (Thunder and Lightning are too, I think). We hired Commodores a few times and they are fantastic cruisers for the Broads, my favourite tupperware boats for a variety of reasons. We never got above Potter in one, but navigated the rest of the system with ease. Beccles old bridge, Wayford, Wroxham are all passable with care. Whether HW will allow you to do so is of course another question, but unless they have added airdraft with silly modifications the boat itself is perfectly capable of making these trips in the right conditions.

Hire boats' advertised airdrafts are, in my experience, rarely accurate and understandably tend to err on the cautious side.

[WherryNice]

On 03/06/2019 at 21:25, Coryton said:

They say it won't do Potter Heigham (what does?), Beccles Old or Wayford.
Ludham and Wroxham are maybes.

Ludham isn't a maybe with a 7'2" air draft, it's a definite yes! (quoted clearance is 8'6")

[BroadAmbition]

7ft 2" - Wroxham is a definite yes on most days too

I piloted Jewel of Lights through Wroxham bridge a couple of years ago now on our annual Lads week, no problem at all and I seem to remember they needed 7ft 2" also

Griff

[oldgregg]

A Jewel of Light has less curvature to the roof than a Diamond 43, too.

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[Coryton]

19 minutes ago, oldgregg said:

Yes Noble Captain is basically a Broom Ocean 38, fitted out by Haines as are most of Manor House's boats. A very nice spacious boat, one of my favourite of the Broom designs.

We couldn't find much to fault it. Larger windows in the front cabin would be nice. I don't know how there was quite so much space inside.

19 minutes ago, oldgregg said:

Incidentally, we were held up on our handover because all the engineers had to rush off in a RIB to stop one of the Noble Captains sinking as the hirer had holed it on rocks at the top end of the Lough. It came back strung alongside the RIB with big pumps running and they craned it out straight away to start repairs.

We managed not to do that. Must have put a pretty abrupt end to their holiday.

I must confess there were occasions we cheated a bit with GPS on my phone to find out where we actually were so we didn't hit the rocks.

And there was an occasion where the entrance to a lough did a very good impression of being a curve in the river and carried on looking quite convincing until it started to get full of reeds.

19 minutes ago, oldgregg said:

We hired Noble Chief 3, a Haines Charter 360. Very spacious inside, but I think a Captain would have handled a lot better.

Looks a nice one too.

The Captain handled a lot better than the day boat we hired for a week on our first go at a boating holiday. (Ex sea boat that had seen better days).

23 minutes ago, Spider said:

Hire boats' advertised airdrafts are, in my experience, rarely accurate and understandably tend to err on the cautious side.

Can't blame them for playing safe, I suppose.

22 minutes ago, WherryNice said:

Ludham isn't a maybe with a 7'2" air draft, it's a definite yes! (quoted clearance is 8'6")

Yes - I have been wondering why they list Ludham as "subject to weather and tide conditions" given the rather large difference between quoted air draft and bridge clearance.

22 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:

7ft 2" - Wroxham is a definite yes on most days too

I piloted Jewel of Lights through Wroxham bridge a couple of years ago now on our annual Lads week, no problem at all and I seem to remember they needed 7ft 2" also

Griff

They quote 7 ft for Jewel of Lights.

They require you to use a pilot for Wroxham. (Bridge pilots are a new concept to me).

 

[oldgregg]

 

 

 

They quote 7 ft for Jewel of Lights.

They require you to use a pilot for Wroxham. (Bridge pilots are a new concept to me).

 

 

That's odd then. Surely even Woods aren't stupid enough to have put a fixed helm chair on the Beams?

 

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[Coryton]

1 minute ago, oldgregg said:

That's odd then. Surely even Woods aren't stupid enough to have put a fixed helm chair on the beams?

 

I'm not very well up on such things, but from the photo on their web site there seems to be a metal hinge-y thing on the seat...

[BroadAmbition]

They state to use the pilot when we took them through - However it was October, the pilots had ceased to operate until the spring.  I got clearance of H.W's prior to the Lads week commencing to take them through without a pilot

Griff

[Coryton]

8 hours ago, BroadAmbition said:

They state to use the pilot when we took them through - However it was October, the pilots had ceased to operate until the spring.  I got clearance of H.W's prior to the Lads week commencing to take them through without a pilot

Griff

Reading my post again, it looks as if I was accusing you of doing something naughty.

I assure you that wasn't the intention - I was just commenting on what their web site says now for the Beam of Light.

[oldgregg]

10 hours ago, Coryton said:

I'm not very well up on such things, but from the photo on their web site there seems to be a metal hinge-y thing on the seat...

Okay - Just being very cautious then I think!

Anyway, I seem to remember the Wroxham Bridge Pilot telling me last year that we (Thunder) were the tallest of the ex-Broom Diamond 43's because of our light mast.

[grendel]

I believe the only boat yard that regularly allows their hirers to navigate wroxham bridge without a pilot is marthams, they allow you to navigate any bridge but Potter Heigham (which is done by their boatyard staff) I think Barnes (or one of the yards at Wroxham) use their own staff to navigate wroxham bridge.

outside the season the pilots run however you would have to show some experience (Griff owns his own boat) and ask the yard nicely (to be fair every one of the boats on the lads week has a seasoned skipper in charge.

I have now done Wroxham bridge 4 times on my own in a Marthams boat, and its not too daunting (mind you they tell you that you can get under any bridge at 6 foot 2" inches on the boards- and take their boats through potter heigham when there is less than 6 foot at the bridge)

[Coryton]

5 minutes ago, grendel said:

I believe the only boat yard that regularly allows their hirers to navigate wroxham bridge without a pilot is marthams, they allow you to navigate any bridge but Potter Heigham (which is done by their boatyard staff) I think Barnes (or one of the yards at Wroxham) use their own staff to navigate wroxham bridge.

Having seen photos of boats going through Potter Heigham bridge, I wouldn't think of trying it on my own.

I found the bridges on the upper Shannon and Loch Erne interesting enough, and they were extremely generous in comparison.

[grendel]

I have been taken through several times with about 1/2" to spare, but once last month I was taken through with plenty of space, I think the bridge marker was at 6 foot 7 inches (unusual)

[tim]

I took Pacific Dawn through Beccles old bridge last year, the boat is officially 6'7'' but chatting to Richard from Pacific when I picked it up, he said it was 6'5'' (he obviously trusted me)

I took everything down went through at low tide and I cleared it by about 2 feet!