Just how many hire boats are there?

[goodall_m1]

Does anyone know of anywhere that shows the number of hire-boats on the Broads by year.

I seem to remember being told that when I first came up in the early nineties there were about 600

and that it had fallen to about 400 when I next visited the Broads in 2007.

[C.Ricko]

Hi Martin,

There is a graph somewhere but i think if you roughly double your fingers you may be more on target.

[goodall_m1]

Hi Martin,

There is a graph somewhere but i think if you roughly double your fingers you may be more on target.

Clive possibly a good bit of Norfolk sterotyping there, double my fingers does that mean counting my toes as well...

But as I can count up to 20 and I know that you have more than that in your own yard..

So you reckon about 1200 in the nineties and down to about 800 by 2007.

Are the numbers coming back upwards these days or are the number of new builds

being balanced by the number sold on to private ownership?

[C.Ricko]

I will just blame the Iphone (not that I have one )

we introduced 40 over the last two years but I should imagine that although others are also building there are more leaving.

Here is a out of date graph (page 16) as for the rest remember that since then we have lost P+H, Aquafibre, Corvette, most of Brooms, plus a few others..

http://www.broads-authority.gov.uk/broa ... report.pdf

[goodall_m1]

Thanks Clive,

So in 2007 we had about 5600 motor cruisers registered on the Broads (4700 private, 900 hire)

as compared to the "peak years" of 19866/87 when there were 6300 (4300 private, 2000 hire).

No wonder I have always reckoned the rivers were busier in the late eighties / early nineties than they are now.

The aim with hire boats is for them to spend a lot more of the season actually moving,

if they don't then the hire yard changes its boats or is forced into changing its business.

I can still remember the stretch between the Ant and the Thurne om a Sunday afternoon,

with two lines of cruisers going in each direction and a line of day boats closer into the banks on either side.

My nick-name for it was "The M25!"

[C.Ricko]

so if the average hire cruiser pays £700 and each time a boat goes private 2 thirds of that revenue is lost it does not take a scientist to work out that the model is not sustainable.

[Poppy]

so if the average hire cruiser pays £700 and each time a boat goes private 2 thirds of that revenue is lost it does not take a scientist to work out that the model is not sustainable.

Guess they'll just have to increase the hire boat multiplier.........

[C.Ricko]

Guess they'll just have to increase the hire boat multiplier.........

I had not thought of that, I suppose that is why people of your calibre are at BA.

that should keep up with 'golden egg' production for a while

[Poppy]

I had not thought of that, I suppose that is why people of your calibre are at BA.

I'm sure they'd have me.........

[Oddfellow]

You sound surprised