Lads Week 2022

[Mouldy]

23 minutes ago, grendel said:

 . . . . The alternator issue had been repaired, so we have all the boats fully functional.

But for how long??  You’ve still got three full days yet and current form doesn’t look promising!

[Andrewcook]

Hey Mouldy don't put the mockers on it as they will Still be Food /  Boozing  /and Cruising and sleeping the night away 

[Mouldy]

6 minutes ago, Andrewcook said:

Hey Mouldy don't put the mockers on it as they will Still be Food /  Boozing  /and Cruising and sleeping the night away 

Just as long as they break down outside a pub all won’t be lost!! 😁

[CeePee1952]

37 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

Just as long as they break down outside a pub all won’t be lost!! 😁

Rumour has it that the beer truck has now broken down!!  You guessed it - alternator is banjoed 

Chris

[Smoggy]

11 minutes ago, CeePee1952 said:

Rumour has it that the beer truck has now broken down!!  You guessed it - alternator is banjoed 

Chris

The banjo will be next to break then.

[NeilB]

1 hour ago, Smoggy said:

The banjo will be next to break then.

Now why did a certain film pop into my head, bunch of chaps on an adventure along a swampy waterway....... 

[Smoggy]

10 minutes ago, NeilB said:

Now why did a certain film pop into my head, bunch of chaps on an adventure along a swampy waterway....... 

You got Norfolk sussed! 

[FlyingFortress]

🐘 In the room perhaps?

 

[Broads01]

Very enjoyable tale so far, thank you Peter. Good old Herbert Woods, why maintain the boats properly when you can just fix them as you go along.

 

[grendel]

We will be having a morning with  no issues to report, a lot of these issues are minor faults that some hirers would not bother reporting, or notice, however we like to make sure the boats are in tip top condition when we take them back. Ready for the next hirer to have a stress free week. And the boats are old and tired by this end of the year. We have nothing but praise for the engineers, did you know they have a 7 day stint, of being on call 24 hours a day.

[Vaughan]

It's funny how the big yards with older boats always have the best breakdown service . . . .

If you wanted to break down on Lads' Week, you should have hired the three Sea Smugglers from Jenners, back in the 60s.  They were old Leo Robinson boats with a direct cooled 3 cylinder Lister.  I don't think they ever got past Bramerton before their first breakdown and normally expired around Whitlingham ferry.

On a Saturday evening about 5PM, we set off in 3 breakdown vans and stationed ourselves at Whitlingham (Bungalow Lane), Bramerton and Surlingham.  We then sat there and waited for them all to stagger in!  Meantime the towboat set off down towards Brundall "on spec".  You could always tell when a "Sea Struggler" was coming by the roar of the exhaust and the clouds of steam that appeared round the bend before the boat did!

Jenners had 2 way radios in their vans, back in the days of "Z Cars".

[oldgregg]

10 hours ago, Broads01 said:

Very enjoyable tale so far, thank you Peter. Good old Herbert Woods, why maintain the boats properly when you can just fix them as you go along.

 

It's a shame those boats are there and not at Ricko's, as they'd have had Nannis put in years ago and got the electrics sorted.

The second-gen entrepeneur is a good boat, but I could just never bring myself to hire from Herbert Woods.

[Mouldy]

4 hours ago, grendel said:

We will be having a morning with  no issues to report, a lot of these issues are minor faults that some hirers would not bother reporting, or notice, however we like to make sure the boats are in tip top condition when we take them back. Ready for the next hirer to have a stress free week. And the boats are old and tired by this end of the year. We have nothing but praise for the engineers, did you know they have a 7 day stint, of being on call 24 hours a day.

Frankly, I’m not surprised that they’re on call 24/7.  The external appearance of a great number of their fleet is woeful.  I also don’t think that it should be left to the customer/hirer to find the faults, whether their first year novices or experienced crews.  The issues your group have experienced this year, after the issues you had last year should not happen.  There seems to be little or no preventative maintenance and a lot of reactive maintenance with that yard.  The vast majority of vans I’ve seen across the network, both north and south of Breydon this year have been from one yard.  I’ve even seen one of their fleet in a southern yard having a new engine fitted.

This week there was a post on social media where a family had lost two days of their holiday due to an issue with the stern gland, causing the boat to fill with water, a frightening experience for the hirers concerned.

I admire your loyalty to the yard, but in my view, there have been too many faults that are indicative of a lack of maintenance.  I’m with @ oldgregg here - I could never hire from there and I feel sorry for anyone who buys one of their ex hire boats.  I fear that could be a very expensive error.

 

[YnysMon]

With Grendel (obviously) being rather occupied this week, perhaps we'd best all try to avoid being too negative about Herbie Woods - after all, Grendel has pointed out that they've been very responsive. There's probably a fine line between voicing our views on which boatyards we wouldn't consider hiring from and boatyard bashing.

 

[Vaughan]

1 hour ago, Mouldy said:

I could never hire from there and I feel sorry for anyone who buys one of their ex hire boats.  I fear that could be a very expensive error.

I am sorry but I really feel we have no right to make such a judgement.  Anyone buying a secondhand boat (hire or private) should be aware that it is not a new one!

You are probably expressing views shared by a lot of us, especially those who know how big boatyards operate but I seriously question whether the forum has a right to say so "out loud".

[Andrewcook]

Hi looking at this post I've noticed as to Hirers handing back the Boat for the next one as the Boatyard doing the Pump out and Just checking the Engine Oil and Water and also refilling the Tank of Diesel but they don't run the just check on the Dash Board for Temperature and Oil and Battery is Charging. As for Hirers, it does not cost them anything to report any problem with the Boat but saying that as Hirers paid with their hard-earned cash they should have a stress-free Boating Holiday as these Ladds and Griff should be having. 

[Smoggy]

I'm sure it would be easy enough for yards to leave a form of defects found on board that hirers could write on if they find any issues that they can't be arsed calling the yard about, that way when the boat is handed back the yard will have a list of niggles, most will be minor and ignored but bigger issues can be looked at before they go back out, the minor ones can be logged for winter maintenance.

[YnysMon]

It's ages since we hired, but I have a vague recollection that we were asked to complete a feedback form by either Ferry Marina (when Len still owned it) or NBD (before Len owned it) or both.

[Broads01]

40 minutes ago, YnysMon said:

It's ages since we hired, but I have a vague recollection that we were asked to complete a feedback form by either Ferry Marina (when Len still owned it) or NBD (before Len owned it) or both.

On my recent hire Ferry Marina had a fault sheet which was completed as a matter of course when I returned to reception at the end of the week.

[Mouldy]

When we used to finish at Summercraft, one of their lads used to come on the boat, dip the fuel and ask if we’d had any issues.  In seven years of hiring from them we suffered one blown light bulb in the toilet and a hairdryer that didn’t work.  I replaced the bulb in the lamp myself and we weren’t bothered about the hairdryer, but Sue insisted she reimburse me for the bulb and was apologetic about the hairdryer, saying we should have rung her and she’d  have got one out to us.

Exemplary service in my book.

[andyg]

3 hours ago, Mouldy said:

Frankly, I’m not surprised that they’re on call 24/7.  The external appearance of a great number of their fleet is woeful.  I also don’t think that it should be left to the customer/hirer to find the faults, whether their first year novices or experienced crews.  The issues your group have experienced this year, after the issues you had last year should not happen.  There seems to be little or no preventative maintenance and a lot of reactive maintenance with that yard.  The vast majority of vans I’ve seen across the network, both north and south of Breydon this year have been from one yard.  I’ve even seen one of their fleet in a southern yard having a new engine fitted.

This week there was a post on social media where a family had lost two days of their holiday due to an issue with the stern gland, causing the boat to fill with water, a frightening experience for the hirers concerned.

I admire your loyalty to the yard, but in my view, there have been too many faults that are indicative of a lack of maintenance.  I’m with @ oldgregg here - I could never hire from there and I feel sorry for anyone who buys one of their ex hire boats.  I fear that could be a very expensive error.

 

Ive used woods twice in the last 12 months. I've only hired from there elite range, dazzling light 2 and Prince of light 1. Apart from having the batteries change ( which turned out not to be a fault as such) We'd accidentally turned the 240v fridge thermostat to full which was draining the battery. We had no problems or issue with woods or its staff. We've also hired a starlight for a day which was fantastic. Unfortunately I wouldn't hire any of there older boats because malcom is spot on with his opinion sadly. I also won't use them again as they allow pets on all there boats. I'm not anti dog before anyone jumps on me, I just choose not to get covered in other people's pets hair, and trust me we have. I see enough pictures on social media of dogs sitting all over bedding and soft furnishings. Not for us I'm afraid. 

[grendel]

I am happy to report that preventative maintenance had been done, we had to wait while one boat was given an oil change before we took it over, so at least some is done

[CeePee1952]

28 minutes ago, andyg said:

Ive used woods twice in the last 12 months. I've only hired from there elite range, dazzling light 2 and Prince of light 1. Apart from having the batteries change ( which turned out not to be a fault as such) We'd accidentally turned the 240v fridge thermostat to full which was draining the battery. We had no problems or issue with woods or its staff. We've also hired a starlight for a day which was fantastic. Unfortunately I wouldn't hire any of there older boats because malcom is spot on with his opinion sadly. I also won't use them again as they allow pets on all there boats. I'm not anti dog before anyone jumps on me, I just choose not to get covered in other people's pets hair, and trust me we have. I see enough pictures on social media of dogs sitting all over bedding and soft furnishings. Not for us I'm afraid. 

In their defence, we hired Sovereign Light last year (Sep 21) for a week and we never found one pet hair throughout the entire boat (perhaps we were lucky!).  I accept that there will be some pet owners who perhaps don't respect their boat when on holiday but I believe HW are pretty good when it comes to maintaining their Elite fleet, after all - the elite fleet is more expensive than the rest of the fleet! As most of you know, we are on Supreme Light from this Saturday for a week, I'll let you know in our holiday blog how it goes  (now I've gone and set myself up ).

Chris

[oldgregg]

10 minutes ago, grendel said:

I am happy to report that preventative maintenance had been done, we had to wait while one boat was given an oil change before we took it over, so at least some is done

Were they actually changing the oil, or is that just what was said?

If Thunder's old donk was anything to go by, those MC42's do their own oil changes - You put fresh oil in the top regularly and it helpfully deposits used oil into the bilge for you, or pops it into the combustion chambers.

[grendel]

Wednesday, today we departed great Yarmouth with the tide behind us, destination Acle bridge,  arrived and had a drink or two, one of the  lads fell while disembarking, and the team went into  action, accompanied by a nurse who happened to be on a  vessel just mooring. He was quickly patched up .

After lunch it was time to head up the ant, destination was supposed to be Neatishead, but there was only room for 1 boat, so Griff reversed back to guys Staithes, where we not only squeezed in our 3 boats, but managed to make room for another boat too. White horse for tea today