Radiant Light For 4 Nights

[Davecc]

Or:

“Is 3.7mph Too Slow in a 4mph Speed Limit?”

 

Radiant Light 1 from Herbert Woods.

Four nights with my brother(62) in mid-June.

The criteria for the boat was:

• Two separate cabins for bedrooms
• Sliding roof over wheelhouse/settee area
• As short as possible
• Not too expensive

The first two were achievable, and cut down the field.

Length was for the mooring, but wasn't possible with choices available. It didn't matter in the end.

Personally, I don't want the latest thing, so going a little cheaper works okay, as long as basic standards are kept.

 

My brother drove and, listening to Radio Caroline on MW for the journey, we arrived at Potter Heigham without any delays.

My hay fever went ballistic, and was pretty much full-on the whole trip but it wasn't going to get me down.

A quick shop in Lathams and then to the boat.

Oh dear, the batteries were being changed. This irked me slightly as it was a short break and we needed to be off. However, by the time we'd loaded our stuff, we hadn't lost any noteworthy time at all.

We struggled with those new(?) self inflating life jackets, trying to figure out how to put them on.

 

A non-stop cruise to Ranworth. I think just one boat overtook us the whole way. Lovely. The weather was perfect too, sunny but with a fair breeze, moving occasional clouds to cover the sun for brief and relieving periods.

With no mooring spots, we dropped the mud-weight and revealed our secret weapon! Thunderbird 4?! No, our sailing dinghy.

For me, a dinghy is an essential part of the holiday. Just going for a row to get away from the numbers and enjoying the peaceful stillness. I always upgrade to the sailing option, although they're notoriously badly maintained. This one had poor rigging, but the basic boat was passable...just. It rowed ok.

Sailing at Ranworth is always tough, the wind seems to swirl around, confusing me.

A protruding screw tore my shorts! A tender behind!

 

We rowed over to the Maltsters pub. Brother ordered the rib-eye steak, which was brave I thought, but he's more widely traveled than I, so I copied. Mistake. It was the worst steak I've ever had. He ordered rare, I went for an easy medium. Both were grey bricks akin to a freezer supermarket brand. At 15 quid it could have been forgiven, but it was 25! Did we complain? No, as we were knackered by now and we would've scoffed anything. Beer was great.

Rowing back I noticed how beaten up the hull of our boat was. Scratched and scraped, it looked like it'd been through the wars.

A lovely sleep under a pink moon.

 

Up the church tower in the morning.

The second day's cruise took us up the River Ant to Stalham incorporating a stop at Irstead. Stones and church.

I was intending to moor on Barton Broad, just beyond the green posts on the east(?) side, as I often see boats moored there, but I don't really know what's underneath it all, so left it.

I like to moor at the very end of Richardsons jetty, the division between their public yard and the spur that leads to the Museum, and there was plenty of room.

We ate on board after a Tesco trip, but later traveled into town and got a little Chinese takeaway from one of the three!

I had a quick row whilst being hassled by an overprotective daddy swan, brother observed an unabashed kingfisher.

 

 

Next day we found an excellent mooring on the mouth of the Ant going onto Barton Broad, so we stopped and set sail! Yes, the dinghy's poor. Against the tide running out of the Ant, the thing just kept going sideways on the tack so you couldn't get back to the cruiser without oars(although my brother managed it...just).

 

A leisurely cruise down the Ant when, passing How Hill I hear a “BEEP” from behind. I think that some kind soul is alerting us to a loose dinghy or some other problem but, no, “I nearly rammed you!”, shouts the helms lady, approximately my age(58) or older.

Apparently, we were going too slowly. I check the GPS. 3.7mph. Check speed limit. 4mph. I thought the GPS was a little slow as I was always told to watch the bank, a brisk walking pace equates to 5mph approx, and this looked fast to me(although the bank is close here, accentuating the speed effect). Anyway, we're on holiday and can do whatever speed we like, under the limit of course.

Soon afterward they come steaming passed, a smallish private cruiser sending wash everywhere. My brother grabs his Iphone and videos, stating his intention to report them to the Broads authority for speeding(wind-up!). These guys are clearly indulging in the wrong activity! Sure enough, at Ludham Bridge they were moored getting supplies. Brother asks if all that rush was worth it, to which she shouts abuse about a complete donkey or something.

 

We moor on the opposite side to the Swan in Horning, unleash the dinghy and take a walk to The New Inn, on up to The Ferry and back, checking out the food. The Swan wins, and the meal there(pork with black pudding mash, cheesecake, sticky toffee pud) was excellent. Beers too.

There was an incident on the river whilst eating. I think a lady of reasonable age(older than me) fell in on the way out of Horning heading toward Wroxham. The lifeguard was out in force, aboard the hired cruiser, on their inflatable and on land. No ambulance though. She was okay, apparently.

 

Last full day we motored to the Horning church mooring, visited it and moved on to Womack Water. Alot of boats moored up along the river, one guy saying that there's no chance of a space, but we have a dinghy!

It was full on entry, but as we were mud-weighting someone pulled out! So get in! It should be noted here that my brother is extremely lucky getting car parking spaces, and his luck seems to run to moorings as well as we got every one we wanted over the break.

Looked in at the village (pork pie from butcher – great!) and sad to see the Fish and Chips gone. We ordered from Wroxham's Indian Spoon which was fantastic.

 

And so the final morning back to the yard.

To summarize;

The weather was perfect.

The boat handled very well, my two stern-on moorings a piece of cake.

But;

It was very tatty outside.

The cooker blew out if used on the move.

Dinghy was rough, tearing my shorts, and the sail particularly bad.

Money spiders! Maybe not exclusive to this boat, but it indicates uncleanliness.

The design, whilst basically what I wanted, has drawbacks. The side door isn't as good as a rear door.

The sliding canopy leaves a huge gap to negotiate without handrails. We sometimes put the roof half up to shorten this(and leaving the side door clear).

I rented a Connoisseur back in he '90's and wasn't overly impressed(especially at the price then), but I liked it more here, despite the problems.

 

In short - We came, we banged our heads, we left(happy).

[YnysMon]

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like you had a good time despite a few drawbacks with the the boat/dinghy.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

1 hour ago, Davecc said:

Or:

“Is 3.7mph Too Slow in a 4mph Speed Limit?”

A leisurely cruise down the Ant when, passing How Hill I hear a “BEEP” from behind. I think that some kind soul is alerting us to a loose dinghy or some other problem but, no, “I nearly rammed you!”, shouts the helms lady, approximately my age(58) or older.

Apparently, we were going too slowly. I check the GPS. 3.7mph. Check speed limit. 4mph. I thought the GPS was a little slow as I was always told to watch the bank, a brisk walking pace equates to 5mph approx, and this looked fast to me(although the bank is close here, accentuating the speed effect). Anyway, we're on holiday and can do whatever speed we like, under the limit of course.

Soon afterward they come steaming passed, a smallish private cruiser sending wash everywhere. My brother grabs his Iphone and videos, stating his intention to report them to the Broads authority for speeding(wind-up!). These guys are clearly indulging in the wrong activity! Sure enough, at Ludham Bridge they were moored getting supplies. Brother asks if all that rush was worth it, to which she shouts abuse about a complete donkey or something.

The "lady" sounds like an oik as my sister would say. Sadly such behaviour can be found behind the wheel of a boat, a car and pushing a shopping trolley in a supermarket but glad it didnt ruin your holiday.

[Davecc]

2 hours ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

The "lady" sounds like an oik as my sister would say. Sadly such behaviour can be found behind the wheel of a boat, a car and pushing a shopping trolley in a supermarket but glad it didnt ruin your holiday.

I can't be angry about this as it provided a very humorous anecdote.

She was clearly having a bad day, but I felt for her man who was stuck in the middle. 

They said they'd been coming for 40 years which I thought to be unbelievable.

 

[Broads01]

Thanks for sharing your well-written and entertaining tale. I find I staggering that someone can claim they "nearly rammed you" and make it your fault. 

[andyg]

Fantastic read thanks for sharing, I really do struggle to understand why HW don't look after these boats more. They are some of there more popular craft. Back in May I was in woods yard and saw one of the bigger old cc boats which was clearly privately owned. It looked absolutely fantastic, it clearly had been recently re painted gleaming white all over with the decks painted navy blue. Why woods couldn't do this is beyond me. Some of there cc fleet look absolutely dreadful in my opinion.

[NeilB]

21 minutes ago, andyg said:

Fantastic read thanks for sharing, I really do struggle to understand why HW don't look after these boats more. They are some of there more popular craft. Back in May I was in woods yard and saw one of the bigger old cc boats which was clearly privately owned. It looked absolutely fantastic, it clearly had been recently re painted gleaming white all over with the decks painted navy blue. Why woods couldn't do this is beyond me. Some of there cc fleet look absolutely dreadful in my opinion.

I've noticed they only seem to take them out the water every other year, I noticed a Radiant Light a few weeks ago that looked like it had just been raised from Davey Jones' locker, it was that bad.  On the other hand the other half the fleet looked good at the start of the season!  If Richos can manage it I'm not sure why Woods cannot, they have enough shed space, they seem to have money to build the odd new boat so all I can think of is penny pinching.  

[Popeye]

5 hours ago, Davecc said:

“Is 3.7mph Too Slow in a 4mph Speed Limit?”

Not at all. You were doing the correct thing. The Ant is a lovely little river and not a race track.

Incidentally, I have noticed, apart for a few speedheads that the general speeds on the rivers is much lower recently. Probably the fuel prices are making people think before grabbing handfulls of throttle.

[SwanR]

Enjoyed your write up and perspective. Choosing a hire boat can be a game of chance at times.

[Davecc]

As we were an all male party I reckon we drew the short straw. I think they hired other Radiant Lights that day and we got shuffled down the order as, with hindsight, the boat was ill-prepared(batteries not ready, more cleaning needed, way too much bedding for two).

I stated earlier that the cooker blew out whilst motoring. It was only the oven with this problem(which makes it worse as it's not visable) and not the hob. 

I like to rough it a bit, rather than reclining on a gin palace, but this felt a drop too far.

Still enjoyed it though.