Beccles Bound..

[JanetAnne]

14 minutes ago, YnysMon said:

...partly because we have an old 1967 Wolsey Hornet in it that hasn’t moved for years...

You too eh? 

[YnysMon]

5 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

The answer might be within!

https://www.helpforhoarders.co.uk/

We aren’t quite at that stage yet, but definitely need to start downsizing. Lockdown would have been the ideal opportunity if the charity shops and recycling centre hadn’t been shut!

[YnysMon]

3 minutes ago, JanetAnne said:

You too eh? 

Yep! At least ours has been in a garage though...which probably means we don’t have a true idea of her condition. She had quite a lot of work done to her in the early 1990s to replace floor panels etc. I was still driving her then. She was the first car we owned, bought from an Uncle who had owned her from new. 

[JennyMorgan]

10 minutes ago, YnysMon said:

We aren’t quite at that stage yet, but definitely need to start downsizing. Lockdown would have been the ideal opportunity if the charity shops and recycling centre hadn’t been shut!

Are you sure? A denialist within perhaps!

[Mouldy]

10 hours ago, YnysMon said:

 . . . . . . . . . p.s. sorry about the the thread drift!

Carry on drifting and we might get back to he subject of the OP’s original post soon!!😁😁😁😉

[Guest]

23 hours ago, grendel said:

funnily enough i learned to deal with cold water shock when i learned to swim, 

I often get that from one of Eileen's stares!..

[BuffaloBill]

10 hours ago, Mouldy said:

This time next year, we hope to be settled in a bungalow, somewhere in Norfolk.  Why should I be sorry about that?

We did it 2.1/2 years ago. Wouldn't go back to where we came from. Love it here!!

[Hylander]

19 hours ago, vanessan said:

No, not brave. Look around when you are next on the rivers and see how many people are actually wearing LJs or Buoyancy Aids. 38 years ago when we first hired, we were young and much more carefree and clearly unaware of the dangers around us. No internet then you see, no social media discussing mishaps and tragedies. If we had started hiring more recently, we may well have been more circumspect. 
I have just been looking at Herbert Woods webcam. Noticed a day boat with 6 lads on, one at the helm and the other 5 standing on the front and roof of the little boat. LJs? Of course not! 

I can tell you that the guys at HW make you put the life jacket on so no excuse for those lads not wearing them.    I suppose it is not (using that god awful word)  cool to wear one.     Well when it is your life we are talking about here,  cool doesn't come in to it.

[Poppy]

6 minutes ago, Hylander said:

I can tell you that the guys at HW make you put the life jacket on so no excuse for those lads not wearing them.    I suppose it is not (using that god awful word)  cool to wear one.     Well when it is your life we are talking about here,  cool doesn't come in to it.

And how do they ensure that you don't take them off again when out of sight of the yard ?

You can't account for plain stupid !

[vanessan]

33 minutes ago, Poppy said:

And how do they ensure that you don't take them off again when out of sight of the yard ?

You can't account for plain stupid !

Took the words right out of my mouth! As Hylander said - it ain’t cool man!

[trambo]

Unless it's a condition of hire, I don't see how Herbert Woods can make anyone wear a life-jacket? When I started hiring only a very few wore them, if you did, you really did stick out. Gradually they have become part of being afloat and no one looks twice if you wear one. What I think the hire yards can do is to point out the areas wearing one is essential rather than have an all circumstances rule, which may get through to more cavalier crews who by age or nature resent being told what to do.

Fred

 

[JennyMorgan]

When the famously failed Broads national park Bill, and the subsequent Broads Bill, went through Parliament both were touted as 'safety Bills,' rather than the 'unacceptable level of control' Bills that they were. What a missed opportunity! The wearing of lifejackets, like car seat belts, should have been made mandatory back then, at least when mooring up and working on deck. We, the great unwashed, resisted the mandatory wearing of seat belts, now it comes as second nature. So what now, a bylaw perhaps? A few deaths a year has generally failed to persuade people that wearing a lifejacket is a wise precaution, it will take a change in the law, of that I have no doubt.

[trambo]

The difficulty would be the wording to cover all scenarios. How do you enforce someone sunbathing on the top of a boat to wear one? Yet they are still afloat and still in a circumstance where they could end up in the Broad/river.

Fred

 

[floydraser]

Just a couple of ideas:

When hiring, one person signs a statement to say they have been fully instructed in all safety requirements and procedures and accept full resposibility for implementation of same. This could be worded to include the viewing of safety videos. May already be the case for all I know.

Mandatory wearing of life jackets when mooring and leaving dock.

That said, I was petrified when I had to bring the Denham Owl up the River Clyde from Bowling in case we encountered any kind of large ship. As we got out into the middle of the river the previous owner said, "We really should have lifel jackets on". Quite right; she was also petrified and we had both forgot! We very soon did have though. 

 

[JennyMorgan]

18 minutes ago, floydraser said:

Mandatory wearing of life jackets when mooring and leaving dock.

That should be mandatory.  Places like Great Yarmouth Station should become  'life jacket aware' areas, where use of the mooring is conditional on wearing a lifejacket, perhaps.

[vanessan]

56 minutes ago, trambo said:

The difficulty would be the wording to cover all scenarios. How do you enforce someone sunbathing on the top of a boat to wear one? Yet they are still afloat and still in a circumstance where they could end up in the Broad/river.

Fred

 

I have a mental picture now of someone suntanned from a Broads holiday but with a collection of wide and narrow white stripes on their torso and a square white patch around the mouth/nose area. 😷

[vanessan]

I wonder how often BA rangers stop boats (or call out to them) and suggest the crew should be wearing lifejackets if they see them actually on deck. 

1 hour ago, JennyMorgan said:

A few deaths a year has generally failed to persuade people that wearing a lifejacket is a wise precaution,

I doubt newbies, or those that hire intermittently, get to hear of any tragedies. For privateers and very regular hirers, there is no excuse really.

[trambo]

I always had a problem with my partner who thought because we where just passing over Breydon and through Gt. Yarmouth without stopping there was no need to wear a life-jacket, which caused more than one argument! Fortunately he's a bit more sensible these day helped by using more compact self inflating life-jackets rather than the Mae West contraptions handed out by the hire yards in the 90s. Pre 70s if you asked for a lifejacket what you got was actually a buoyancy aid. On my first Broads holiday in 1962 I had not learnt to swim but have photographs of us all at Reedham messing about in dinghys just wearing one of those buoyancy aids. I suppose it just shows how attitudes change, in this case for the better.

Fred

[Vaughan]

1 hour ago, floydraser said:

May already be the case for all I know.

Sorry, I may have pressed the wrong button!  I was going to say that it is the case, and has been for quite a long time.

I have spent most of my career in the hire boat business and am well aware of the safety aspect of wearing a life jacket.  I myself always wear one in a strong current, which means anywhere between Stracey Arms and Reedham or St Olaves.  It's what my mother always taught me.

Just a minute though!  This is a matter of personal choice and it must always remain so.  You are not going to infect anyone else with anything because you have decided that, having been made aware of the potential risk, you have chosen not to do so.

These days we are already forced to walk out in public cowering behind the disposable nappies which hide our faces from each other and the hi-viz jacket has become an essential fashion accessory even if you are out in the middle of a field picking strawberries!

This is what always used to be known as a free country.  It is not China or North Korea.  If the day ever comes when I am obliged by some new law to wear a lifejacket on the River Ant in a motor cruiser, I shall sell my boat and depart altogether from the Broads.

[JennyMorgan]

33 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

 This is a matter of personal choice and it must always remain so.

The likes of thee and me have long been educated by experience and can judge for ourselves, and long may that be the case. However, even such as ourselves can and do fall in, even drowning, Alec Hampton of Hampton Boats immediately springs to mind. 

However, being in possession of wisdom and experience can not be assumed for very many of our visitors and guests. 

[floydraser]

1 hour ago, Vaughan said:

Sorry, I may have pressed the wrong button!  I was going to say that it is the case, and has been for quite a long time.

I have spent most of my career in the hire boat business and am well aware of the safety aspect of wearing a life jacket.  I myself always wear one in a strong current, which means anywhere between Stracey Arms and Reedham or St Olaves.  It's what my mother always taught me.

Just a minute though!  This is a matter of personal choice and it must always remain so.  You are not going to infect anyone else with anything because you have decided that, having been made aware of the potential risk, you have chosen not to do so.

These days we are already forced to walk out in public cowering behind the disposable nappies which hide our faces from each other and the hi-viz jacket has become an essential fashion accessory even if you are out in the middle of a field picking strawberries!

This is what always used to be known as a free country.  It is not China or North Korea.  If the day ever comes when I am obliged by some new law to wear a lifejacket on the River Ant in a motor cruiser, I shall sell my boat and depart altogether from the Broads.

Good point but:

Freedom of choice yes, but no one has to go play near the water, that is their first choice. When they get there, they abide by the rules, if any, applied to that place.

Thinking of when a tradgedy happens, I feel for helpless witnesses and others who's lives will affected for ever; they have a right to be protected don't they? I wouldn't want anyone to exercise their right to walk under a bus just as I were nearby.

 

[Vaughan]

14 minutes ago, floydraser said:

I wouldn't want anyone to exercise their right to walk under a bus just as I were nearby.

With respect, that is not a fair analogy. I am not advocating suicide as an adjunct to the simple choice of not wearing a lifejacket.

If a load of supposedly otherwise responsible adults can go swimming around in the navigation towing orange party balloons, between Burgh St Peter and Beccles and there seems to be no law against it, then I don't feel the need to wear a lifejacket on the same river in a boat.

Statistics will always show (without my help) how safe the Broads have been for decades. 

The imposition of yet another law to tell us how to be safe is all part of a creeping malaise, otherwise known as a Nanny State.  We either resist that where it is sensible to do so, or we end up just being herded around like the sheep that we have become.

 

[floydraser]

45 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

If a load of supposedly otherwise responsible adults can go swimming around in the navigation towing orange party balloons, between Burgh St Peter and Beccles and there seems to be no law against it, then I don't feel the need to wear a lifejacket on the same river in a boat.

Erm, I agree, mine wasn't probably a fair analogy but the above sounds like an organised swim? Or have I missed something?

[Vaughan]

13 minutes ago, floydraser said:

but the above sounds like an organised swim?

And if you had been there (as I was) to see the amount of safety kit, voluntary rescue squads, specialised offroad vehicles, RIBs, marshalls in yellow jackets, BA ranger's launches and a police launch, resulting in the effective closure of the navigation to other users, you would see some of what I mean by a Nanny State.

 

[YnysMon]

Personally, I’m comfortable with much of the ‘Nanny Statedness’.  ‘Elf and Safety lark gets a bad press, but every life (and limb) has a value. If I recall correctly, there were a lot of calls about nanny state before the seatbelt regulations came in, but we don’t even consider putting a seatbelt on an imposition any longer.