Wroxham Bridge Clearance

[kpnut]

How about this? 
We might wish the water would go down, but be careful what you wish for!

Water height at Hoveton Great Broad on EA monitor at lunchtime today  

Maybe they’ve been dredging the Lower Bure and the plug’s been pulled out? 

[quo vadis]

OK so I’m thick what does this mean?

[NeilB]

Quick!! 12ft clearance under Wroxham bridge, boat must be equipped with wheels!
Either that or the sensor has dropped off ! 

[kpnut]

1 hour ago, NeilB said:

boat must be equipped with wheels!

I was listening to that programme on radio 4 yesterday or the day before where they have to hide truths in amongst a spiel about a topic. 

In Australia, I think the place was called Henley on Bot, they hold a regatta. All the boats have holes in the bottom to put your feet through and they run along the riverbed. The 'river' is actually a dry riverbed!

Maybe we could hold a similar one at Wroxham if the situation doesn't miraculously rectify itself.

 

1 hour ago, quo vadis said:

OK so I’m thick what does this mean?

I'm sure you're not! It's just a different way of estimating the bridge clearance.

They record it as the depth of water present at their gauge in the Broad. So it was recorded as no water present.

I think Neil says it needs to show 0.38 on that gauge to be an airdraft of about 6'9" at the bridge.

[quo vadis]

I guess this is what happens when you put clever people in charge. Its going to make it very difficult for hirers let alone the rest of us. Whats wrong with a measurement like in the olden days?

[NeilB]

26 minutes ago, quo vadis said:

I guess this is what happens when you put clever people in charge. Its going to make it very difficult for hirers let alone the rest of us. Whats wrong with a measurement like in the olden days?

It’s just a way of seeing the rough bridge height without having to eyeball the actual height gauge.  Handy for planning trips.  Someone else on here showed me this trick, I doubt if many hirers are aware of it.

What we really need is NBD to sponser Project Troll to install a real time accurate height sensor.

[dom]

54 minutes ago, NeilB said:

What we really need is NBD to sponser Project Troll to install a real time accurate height sensor.

I'm quite surprised there isn't one there already. The cost for an ultrasonic sensor can be negligible these days and it's probably the easiest location on the Broads to install something. I suspect the biggest issue would be having someone to check it periodically. EA seem to check critical ones around here fairly often.

[BroadAmbition]

We can through Wroxham bridge at about noon, there was 6ft7”, way less than what there should have been 

Griff

[quo vadis]

10 hours ago, BroadAmbition said:

We can through Wroxham bridge at about noon, there was 6ft7”, way less than what there should have been 

Griff

Now I understand that type of description as I suspect other boaters and hirers alike would

well done Griff 

[kpnut]

The monitor in Hoveton Broad is still giving a very dubious reading and seeing as some of us use it to plan our trips, I've reported it to the EA flood service. They'll get their local chaps to take a look. I asked for asap as its so useful.

 

Fully agree that a project troll type monitor at the bridge would be super. The pilots do use a different height gauge to the boards we all use so perhaps they already have something in place for themselves anyway that they might like to share?

[Smoggy]

The pilots likely take the shape into consideration as well and would probably not like the liability of sharing the info with the general public without the same experience level.

[Mouldy]

13 hours ago, NeilB said:

What we really need is NBD to sponser Project Troll to install a real time accurate height sensor.

Personally, whenever I’ve passed through Gt Yarmouth, I’ve found that the measurements given on Planet Troll are nothing like those on the height boards, usually showing about four or five inches less than there actually is.  I do wonder whether they need additional calibration.

There have been no additional bridges added to Project Troll. Is it still being supported?

[rightsaidfred]

42 minutes ago, kpnut said:

The monitor in Hoveton Broad is still giving a very dubious reading and seeing as some of us use it to plan our trips, I've reported it to the EA flood service. They'll get their local chaps to take a look. I asked for asap as its so useful.

 

Fully agree that a project troll type monitor at the bridge would be super. The pilots do use a different height gauge to the boards we all use so perhaps they already have something in place for themselves anyway that they might like to share?

Its another height board in the dyke by the day boats above the bridge and more accurate.

Fred

[NeilB]

1 hour ago, Mouldy said:

Personally, whenever I’ve passed through Gt Yarmouth, I’ve found that the measurements given on Planet Troll are nothing like those on the height boards, usually showing about four or five inches less than there actually is.  I do wonder whether they need additional calibration.

There have been no additional bridges added to Project Troll. Is it still being supported?

Funny you should mention that!  Just cruised under Beccles old bridge and this was out by around 4/5 inches as well.  They are still active so I might let them know.

[Monday]

18 hours ago, kpnut said:

 

In Australia, I think the place was called Henley on Bot, they hold a regatta. All the boats have holes in the bottom to put your feet through and they run along the riverbed. The 'river' is actually a dry riverbed!

Maybe we could hold a similar one at Wroxham if the situation doesn't miraculously rectify itself.

 

It's the Todd River Regatta in Alice Springs.  Our Alice office used to enter a team.  My wife once paid extra for a 'river view room'!  Australian humour.

[kpnut]

That was it Mouldy. Thanks. 
Must have been a dusty view!

[grendel]

I have noticed that even project troll sensors go down occasionally 

[kpnut]

Normal service seems to have been resumed, or at least Hoveton Broad now has water back in it 😂

Showing 0.47m this morning a while after low tide. 
 

As an aside, I think the monitor is positioned at the northern end of Hudson’s Bay. Looking on Google maps this morning, Hudson’s Bay looks pretty ‘vegetated’ up.
I read a book last week that said by about the end of the 80s, the surface area of the actual Broads had diminished by a massive amount, and also that Upton Broad was the only one with grade 1 status as regards traditional ecological markers (nutrient load, water quality, floral growth etc). Sad that the intervening years has made little inroad into improving the situation.
Too many ‘interested parties’ all disagreeing with other about what needs to be done and now, far too expensive to do much. 

[dom]

18 minutes ago, kpnut said:

Looking on Google maps this morning, Hudson’s Bay looks pretty ‘vegetated’ up.

Judging by the change from when we used to sneak into places we weren't meant to go when I was a kid and now, I don't think it'll be many years before it starts to be lost completely. I suspect the situation is probably similar with Norton's and Belaugh Broads too.

[kpnut]

7 hours ago, dom said:

I suspect the situation is probably similar with Norton's and Belaugh Broads too.

I looked up where they were on Google and yes, looks like you are right. 

Were these broads ever open to navigation or have they always been private?
If private, I wonder why the owner is happy to let a visual asset just disappear.

It does seem a shame as once silted up, it doesn’t take long to get established as carr and then scrub and then woodland, losing the unique attributes of the wetland environment of Beoadland. 

[dom]

49 minutes ago, kpnut said:

Were these broads ever open to navigation or have they always been private?

I'm not sure if it was every fully navigable, but Norton's Broad was accessible in small, shallow draft boats in the 70s. A tree then fell across the entrance one winter, rendering it inaccessible. I've wanted to get up to that area (and several others) in a kayak to find out the situation now, but have never got around to it. I suspect it's probably too silted to get in now.

Belaugh Broad was navigable in 1887. From what I've been told in the past, after buying the estate in the early 19th century, the Traffords closed off access when the boating industry started to develop, so that they could use it for wildfowling without disturbance.

A decade or so ago, BA made a load of grand statements about how they intended to press landowners to open up access to places like this for small craft. Tom Blofeld agreed in principle to allow access to Hoveton Great Broad. The whole thing then went very quiet. I suspect EA probably blocked it on environmental grounds. I think Hoveton is now leased to Natural England.

49 minutes ago, kpnut said:

If private, I wonder why the owner is happy to let a visual asset just disappear.

It does seem a shame as once silted up, it doesn’t take long to get established as carr and then scrub and then woodland, losing the unique attributes of the wetland environment of Beoadland. 

The Traffords probably won't be overly concerned about Belaugh, as they also have Wroxham Broad on their estate and it's out of the way anyway.

The situation with Hudson's Bay is similar - I believe the Blofelds still own both this and Hoveton Great Broad. It's been a very long time since I've been to Hoveton House but, from what I can recall, none of the surrounding water is visible from the house, so probably "out of sight, out of mind".

It does really annoy me that whilst the Broads are part of the National Park family, the powers that be are very selective about what they make an effort to preserve. Things which are out of sight and don't generate revenue seem to be all too readily forgotten about. Try and put up a yurt in the wrong place and BA will go to huge lengths to stop you - but large landowners can leave rare and unique landscape to slowly silt up and no-one does a thing.

[William92]

On 13/08/2024 at 21:06, kpnut said:

In Australia, I think the place was called Henley on Bot, they hold a regatta. All the boats have holes in the bottom to put your feet through and they run along the riverbed. The 'river' is actually a dry riverbed!

There is a mountain village in Spain that (probably in good humour) claims to have invented the sport of curling a year before Scotland did, has a curling club, and every year they throw a stone into the reservoir to see if the ice is thick enough.

There's never been ice on the reservoir. Disappointed, they retreat to a restaurant for a meal and toast "we shall play one day!"

[RumPunch]

It's proving insufficient for the poor so and sos stuck under it just now

[PAULG]

7 minutes ago, RumPunch said:

It's proving insufficient for the poor so and sos stuck under it just now

I missed the perfect shot of this which had tried and failed as the camera at Barns zoomed out but this was about a minuet later.

[dom]

There's video of the extraction on Facebook, showing the sliding roof getting on for 6 inches off its track, even with barrels of water on the rear deck - so I'd suspect probably a fair bit of damage.

It's an odd one, as it's a Richardson's boat, so presumably they've ignored the need to use a pilot.