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Aquafibre Diamond 35 Lw


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5 hours ago, WherryNice said:

The pilot at Wroxham works differently to the one at Potter I believe, the boatyards have to sign up to the Wroxham one(and they don't take private boats)whereas the Potter one is for anyone who wants to pay for it on the spot. Unless I am mistaken that is?

except for martham boats, they can only be taken through potter by their staff, all other bridges can be navigated by the hirer as long as there is about 6 ft 2"

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I notice that when we start talking about bridge clearance, people often talk about quite precise measurements e.g. 6’10”. The gauge boards are in 3” increments and often look a bit “skew wif” anyway. I always think it’s about 6’9” or 7’ (but not at Potter lol).

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8 minutes ago, marshman said:

I think they are set like that on purpose! Just remember they are an indication only and its your job as Skipper to approach with caution and make the final judgement!!

Quite! I had Brinks Duet a few years ago, a Brooms sedan, she was 8'4" and the board at Ludham Bridge read 8'5". I popped my head out of the sunroof and I'm sure I had close to 6 inches or so, if not more!

I can understand why the boards might be a little conservative. Last thing we'd want is a tall boat getting herself jammed under a bridge and blocking the river up, let alone the damage it might do to the bridge itself.

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44 minutes ago, MaceSwinger said:

I can understand why the boards might be a little conservative. Last thing we'd want is a tall boat getting herself jammed under a bridge and blocking the river up, let alone the damage it might do to the bridge itself.

Did you ever see the pictures of the Alphacraft (I think it was an Alphacraft 🤔) that got stuck under the downstream Thorpe bridge a few years back? As the tide was rising at the time I believe the boat came off worse than the bridge! 

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if you are at Marthams they have a very accurate height gauge for the bridge on their slipway, you will notice that this is what they check before driving to the bride to get one of their boats under, they tell you you need 6 foot 2 on  most of their boats, but i have been taken through with 5'10" showing at the bridge.

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6 minutes ago, vanessan said:

Did you ever see the pictures of the Alphacraft (I think it was an Alphacraft 🤔) that got stuck under the downstream Thorpe bridge a few years back? As the tide was rising at the time I believe the boat came off worse than the bridge! 

I hadn't but a quick Google found a (very fuzzy) EDP video on YouTube. Alpha Mustang wedged right in there! It never ceases to amaze me at how much punishment these boats can take though.

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1 hour ago, MaceSwinger said:

I hadn't but a quick Google found a (very fuzzy) EDP video on YouTube. Alpha Mustang wedged right in there! It never ceases to amaze me at how much punishment these boats can take though.

Sometimes it's not so much that boats can take punishment it's that boatyards have to be very good at repairing them. If you see Challenger 4 from Richardsons the central windscreen and saloon windows look different to its sisters. That's because a few years ago at Great Yarmouth, a crew rammed it in to the bridge with such force they completely wrecked the saloon and it had to be rebuilt. 

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3 minutes ago, Broads01 said:

Sometimes it's not so much that boats can take punishment it's that boatyards have to be very good at repairing them.

You don't need to tell me, my boat this year (Silver Mystaire) was resting on the bottom of the Chet 2 years ago I believe!

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49 minutes ago, MaceSwinger said:

You don't need to tell me, my boat this year (Silver Mystaire) was resting on the bottom of the Chet 2 years ago I believe!

Indeed it was. We went up the Chet either the day or the day after it had happened and it looked very sad. Not totally under though. I think it was lifted very quickly but did not reappear the following season as far as I could tell. I am sure Silverline did a fantastic job to get it back to what it was. Apparently it had hit some underwater piling that had badly broken away from the bank. The story was that the EA had been told about it but not taken action to repair/remove it. How true that is I don’t know but it did come from a boatyard owner. 

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39 minutes ago, vanessan said:

Indeed it was. We went up the Chet either the day or the day after it had happened and it looked very sad. Not totally under though. I think it was lifted very quickly but did not reappear the following season as far as I could tell. I am sure Silverline did a fantastic job to get it back to what it was. Apparently it had hit some underwater piling that had badly broken away from the bank. The story was that the EA had been told about it but not taken action to repair/remove it. How true that is I don’t know but it did come from a boatyard owner. 

We actually hired one of Silverline's bigguns later in the season, but none of us dared broach the subject with the yard! I heard a similar story though, a part of the piling had come away and the skipper had swiped it on the aft below the waterline. I had heard that she was resting on the bottom and had indeed properly sunk!

As for last season, Hoseasons have her listed as "new in" this year, so it would appear she definitely didn't cruise last year. Given Silverline turn their boats out immaculately and that they build their own too I have absolutely no worries about taking her this year. Especially as there doesn't seem to be many of those 29 footer Alpha CCs around.

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