The 2 W's Afloat In Oct 22

[BrundallNavy]

9 minutes ago, CeePee1952 said:

Crikey! I left 63p on our meter! If I’d known you were coming, we would have given you our mooring and hookup!  (I’ve a feeling that the NBD boat in the taxi rank may have plugged into ours when we left cos I noticed that they had used their pounds worth from last night!).

Chris

Yes they are still here.  Lots of spaces on all 3 areas today, must have been changeover today. We love Upton and the White Horse it’s probably our favourite mooring. 
 

[Karizma]

3 hours ago, CeePee1952 said:

We arrived at the Dyke at 2.35 and now moored up at the end.

Well done Chris - knew you'd be ok going up the dyke. Enjoy your meal at the White Horse ........... 

[CeePee1952]

Just now, Karizma said:

Well done Chris - knew you'd be ok going up the dyke. Enjoy your meal at the White Horse ........... 

Thanks Steve. The guys at the yacht place moved some of their yachts and I’m now stern on over on their side. Should make it easier getting out in the morning (he says cautiously ) where have you ended up tonight?

Chris

[CeePee1952]

Well, the white horse didn’t disappoint!! Excellent food, good beer and excellent customer service!!!

Chris

[Mouldy]

7 minutes ago, CeePee1952 said:

Well, the white horse didn’t disappoint!! Excellent food, good beer and excellent customer service!!!

Chris

Pleased it lived up to expectations.  It’s certainly become one of our favourites on the northern rivers!  Good moorings too, although we’ve always moored side on opposite the Whelpton’s yard.

[Karizma]

4 hours ago, CeePee1952 said:

Thanks Steve. The guys at the yacht place moved some of their yachts and I’m now stern on over on their side. Should make it easier getting out in the morning (he says cautiously ) where have you ended up tonight?

Chris

Got all the way down to Somerleyton. Rivers were very quiet on the trip 'south'. Only 1 boat moored at Yarmouth YS as we passed!

Safe trip home and see you next season.

[YnysMon]

Glad you found The White Horse lived up to expectations. We also found the crew at Eastwood Whelpton very helpful and welcoming.

[CeePee1952]

Early start this morning. Cup of coffee and tea to kick start the body! Now the job of packing crates and bags ready to transfer to the car on our return to HW for 9 this morning. It’s been a lovely peaceful night here at Upton apart from some rain at 2 ish! We’ll have a bite to eat at the Flour and Bean before setting off for home. Looking forward to getting back and picking pooch up from the kennels. She loves her time there! 
Chris 

[CeePee1952]

Got back into HW at 8.50 and nearly made a dogs ear of mooring up!! Only one space left and it was opposite the new mould that was moored opposite that space! Anyway, slow and easy and got the boat backed up to the mooring without touching anything! Car packed with all our stuff and now in Flour and Bean noshing a Belgian bun and a cappuccino (Brenda settled for a croissant with strawberry jam and butter and a cappuccino). We’ll be on our way soon and Brenda is already planning our next trip on the Broads as well as the one we’ve already got booked for September next year!!  (The lady that was about to start cleaning our boat said that they’ve got 56 boats going out today!! We’re so glad we did this week and not the half term week next week!!!

Chris

 

[CeePee1952]

Photo of the new mould opposite where I had to get in stern on.

Chris

[CeePee1952]

Well, we finally arrived back home at 1230 (2 and a half hours after leaving HW). Everything put away where it normally goes and washing basket full to the brim! I did notice on HW's webcam that the next hirers (2 adults and a young lad) were already being given a handover on the boat we had at 1.30 p.m. (HW certainly don't hang around!). When I looked again at  2 p.m. the boat had left!! Pooch collected from the kennels having been bathed and shampooed and now looking  fluffy. I'll start composing the proper holiday tales sometime tomorrow after having done the obligatory shop in the local Sainsburys!!

Chris

[CeePee1952]

Just had the email from HW regarding our fuel deposit and what we used. Basic details are:  paid £175 fuel deposit, we travelled from HW to Stracey Arms, overnighted there, Stracey Arms to Beccles, overnighted there for two nights with no cruising in between, Beccles to Loddon, overnighted there, Loddon to Thurne Dyke, overnighted there, Thurne Dyke to Ranworth, overnighted there, Ranworth to Wroxham then back to Upton Dyke, overnighted there and finally Upton Dyke to HW. HW have put 111 litres in the tank at £1.75p per litre = £194.25 therefore we have had to pay an extra £19.25 on top of our fuel deposit.  We did 33 engine hours and that works out at 3.36 ltres per hour used.

I don't think we did at all too badly but stand to be corrected?

Chris

[Broads01]

111 litres is higher than I'd expect but it does depend on how much you pushed the tide on the southern Broads, how much throttle you used and how many hours you used the heating for. By way of comparison, I did a fairly energetic week in April this year, cruising 4-5 hours per day north and south and I used 89 litres.

[CeePee1952]

9 minutes ago, Broads01 said:

111 litres is higher than I'd expect but it does depend on how much you pushed the tide on the southern Broads, how much throttle you used and how many hours you used the heating for. By way of comparison, I did a fairly energetic week in April this year, cruising 4-5 hours per day north and south and I used 89 litres.

We only used the heating once during the week and that was for about 20 minutes at 22 degrees just to take the chill off the cabins. Throttle use was kept as low as possible to ensure that we kept steerage and we even crossed Breydon on the way back up north at a steady 4 mph! I know that we punched the tide at least once on the southern broads and once on the northern broads. I'd have to analyse my written log in more depth to see where we punched the tide.

Chris

[Mouldy]

42 minutes ago, CeePee1952 said:

We only used the heating once during the week and that was for about 20 minutes at 22 degrees just to take the chill off the cabins. Throttle use was kept as low as possible to ensure that we kept steerage and we even crossed Breydon on the way back up north at a steady 4 mph! I know that we punched the tide at least once on the southern broads and once on the northern broads. I'd have to analyse my written log in more depth to see where we punched the tide.

Chris

We went on Moonlight Shadow with friends at the beginning of May, when she was still based at Brundall.  We crossed Breydon, cruised the northern rivers extensively and returned to Brundall calling in to Loddon on the way back.  You can read about it on my Moonlight Shadow Tales thread somewhere on here for more details on when and where we went, but we only used 64 litres for the whole trip.  111 litres does sound more than I’d expect for your holiday given frugal use of the throttle and heating.

 

[CeePee1952]

53 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

We went on Moonlight Shadow with friends at the beginning of May, when she was still based at Brundall.  We crossed Breydon, cruised the northern rivers extensively and returned to Brundall calling in to Loddon on the way back.  You can read about it on my Moonlight Shadow Tales thread somewhere on here for more details on when and where we went, but we only used 64 litres for the whole trip.  111 litres does sound more than I’d expect for your holiday given frugal use of the throttle and heating.

 

I never did ask HW to dip the fuel tank when we took the boat over - too worried about getting away early to make Stracey Arms before sunset! I have to admit we thought we'd maybe get £30 or £40 refund but hey ho - we had saved £184 when booking the holiday last year (Early booking/Loyalty discount and Blue Light card) so all in all not bad at all.  We also booked Royal Light for next year in Sep when we had finished our holiday last year and made a saving of £207.36 on the holiday price.  

Chris

[Karizma]

Chris, I certainly didn't do as much travelling as you, but we did:

Beccles to Acle, Acle to Womack, Womack to Ranworth (where we met you), Ranworth to Somerleyton and finally Somerleyton to Beccles:

This resulted in 32 ltrs of diesel and 16.6 taco hours = 1.9 ltrs per taco hour compared with your 3.36 ltrs per taco hour 

[CeePee1952]

Now the full blog starts of our holiday!  (No pics from the first day cos too engrossed in boat handling skills and admiring the scenery 

Sat 15th Oct 22

So, awake at 6! Breakfast sorted and last-minute checks to make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything.  As always, we did forget to pack a battery powered vacuum cleaner and a window squeegee but didn’t realise until we needed them!  First port of call was the kennels and Luna was full of energy when we got there.  Then back home to take the dog guard out, drop the back seats and pack the car with our bits and pieces.  We set off from Church Lawford at 10 and arrived at HW at 1235 after an uneventful (for once!) drive from Rugby down the M6, A14, A11 etc. Our boat wasn’t due to be ready until 2.30 but on booking in we were told that it would be ready at 1.15 (bonus!).  We decided to have a bite to eat in the Flour and Bean and had bacon sarnies and a couple of cappuccinos. £16 lighter we sauntered back over to HW and purchased five electric cards to add to the ones that we had saved from last year. (What we don’t use we carry forward to the following year). Having grabbed a trolley we then started to load the boat. Our intention was to just plonk it all in the front cabin apart from items for the fridge/freezer and sort it all out when we got to Stracey Arms. Handover was fairly quick and we were soon on our way. I remembered to take a photo of the engine hours before we set off so that I could work out figures at the end of the holiday. There was a strong cross wind on the journey down towards Acle which made helming the boat quite interesting! We kept to the speed limits but still managed to be overtaken by another couple of HW 44 footers before the junction for the River Ant where the two 44 footers rapidly disappeared round the bend! We poodled along admiring the scenery that we hadn’t seen for 12 months and noticed that Thurne Dyke was fairly full and there were a fair few moored at Acle both before the bridge and outside the pub. In contrast – Stokesby was empty to my surprise. My first mooring of the holiday at Stracey went like clockwork and I was well chuffed – we were the third boat now moored there. I popped down to the shop to pay the mooring fee while Brenda set about stowing everything away. While chatting to the lady in the shop, it transpired that she also had a GSD and it was all white and also called Luna!! Spooky! So after half an hour of swapping doggy stories I wandered back to the boat.  With everything sorted it was time to heat up our previously prepared spag bol and chuck the garlic bread into the oven. About 45 mins later we felt a gentle bump and on looking out of the saloon window I noticed one of NBD boats side on across our stern (we were moored pointing towards Yarmouth). Bless him, he had got the tide direction wrong, moored up his bow behind us and the falling tide had swung his stern out towards midstream and he couldn’t quite resolve the problem. I went out and helped him sort it out and got him safely moored up a few feet astern. With that sorted, it was time for dinner and a drink and then retire for the night – it had been a long day!

Chris

[YnysMon]

1 hour ago, CeePee1952 said:

Bless him, he had got the tide direction wrong, moored up his bow behind us and the falling tide had swung his stern out towards midstream and he couldn’t quite resolve the problem. I went out and helped him sort it out and got him safely moored up a few feet astern. With that sorted, it was time for dinner and a drink and then retire for the night – it had been a long day!

Chris

That happened to me the first time I moored at Stracey Arms, only I was more lucky as there wasn’t another boat in the way. In my defence I had read the advice to take the wind not account as well as the tide when mooring and had assumed the wind was the stronger of the two…not at Stracey it wasn’t!

[Tractorted]

Hi 

We had two weeks on Swan rapture and travelled from Stahlam as far as Rockland St Mary, Loddon , coltishall, potter & a  points in between, pushed the tide some of the way coming back up through Yarmouth heading north. We had the heating on for about couple of hours for about 4/5 nights in our second week as it was colder & damp. I fully expected to have to pay additional to our £150 fuel deposit, chatting away to the richardsons guy as he refuelled the boat and noticing the price on the pump asked if that was the price we would be paying, £122 so £28 pound refund, I had been expecting to pay richardsons as we'd had the heating on, also got reimbursed on a pump out from Bridgecraft- this was new , never been advised of this in the past. Having hired Calypso 3 years previous and done much the same travelling around, don't remember what heating we used, but we paid about £20 over our deposit (£150) then, maybe we did less miles this time or a newer boat but diesel are far higher now than then

[pastboating]

Interested to see HW calculate fuel usage by dipping the tnk whilst Richardsons refuel the boat. Two comparable yards I wonder what system other yards use. I know Aston at Beccles used to refuel the boat to calculate fuel usage 25 years ago.

[Wussername]

Richardsons used to dip tanks a few years back out of necessity, but times have changed and will continue to do so. As will become evident over the coming months.

Old Wussername 

[MrBlueSky]

I was not aware that Richardsons give refunds on pump outs as it has never been mentioned on handovers.

[Wussername]

If I remember correctly, and of course I may be wrong, it was some time ago, a two week holiday was reimbursed for one pump out. But only a two week holiday.. 

[Vaughan]

It could also be a question of Weights and Measures.  If you have your tank topped up from a properly metered diesel pump there is little room for argument, whereas a reading off the notches on a bit of wooden batten can be open to dispute!

We don't have dipsticks in France as everyone charges for diesel by the hour and we fill the boats up later during servicing.  Even then we nearly got sued on one occasion, by some lawyer who complained that the VDO hour meter on the dash was not a certified time clock!

There is also the fact that most older Broads boats have the diesel tank under the side deck against the hull but nowadays that is not always so, by the time you have found room for holding tanks as well.  If there is a bend in the filler pipe then a dipstick is not possible.  The tank should also have a striker plate on the bottom under the filler, to prevent damage from dipsticks being rammed down the hole!  There is also the danger of slipping on spilt fuel on a Fibreglass deck.