Can't wait to get to the Broads.

[Guest]

I mentioned somewhere in another thread that we'll be trailing our Viking 20 to the Broads in early August for perhaps 14-21 days cruising .

We currently cruise the Thames and can't wait to get away and leave this river behind. Here's why http://riverconditions.environment-agency.gov.uk/ . These conditions have been with us on and off for the past couple of months and it's so frsutrating that we can't go anywhere . Note - depending on when you view the live link, it may not appear too bad. At this moment in time, nearly every stretch and lock on the non tidal thames is showing red boards which equals NO cruising. In the ten years I've been on the Thames, I've never known it to be this bad .

If we lived closer to the Broads, we'd keep the boat in the water and use her at every opportunity.

Keep an eye out in August for a V20 with ten fenders, four of which are pinky red ball fenders - not hard to miss .

[donnygeoff]

Well, you learn something every day...

I thought locks kept the water back and so no flow.

But then today I have learnt, they don't, and on a tidal river, they just help a bit.

Maybe on the canals they do (don't know) but on tidal rivers they dont.

Couldn't you call Thames barrier control, and tell them you want to go boating, and it would help if they closed the whole thing off

[Brian J.]

One of the reasons that we were going to move our Freeman from the Thames to the Broads. (Boat got sold halfway).

In 2009/2010, or was it 2008/2009 / - I can't quite remember - old age and memory don't go too well together, there were red boards for the complete season and we couldn't use the boat.

The next one to two years saw no red boards, typical, just when we had sold her.

[mjt]

We're having the same problems on the Gt. Ouse. After heavy rainfall we get a surge of water coming down from Bedford. The EA chains open the vee gates and controls the flow using the guillotine gates so the whole system down to the tidal stretch at Earith is closed to navigation and the flows are too strong to even navigate between locks. It's been one SSA after another this year. We're beginning to wish we'd moved to a marina on the Old West river which is free of locks and protected from the surge.

[ranworthbreeze]

It can be the same on the Trent, the marina at Sawley can be cut off by the two locks that protects the marina from flooding by not allowing passage onto the river.

Regards

Alan

[ExUserGone]

The problem with the old west is all the crap you pick up from the bottom, when heavy rain is expected Dan at denver lowers the levels to give a bit more capacity and the old west is shallow enough as it is.

I'm glad I escaped to the broads.

[mjt]

You're a smug git Dave! Ever since we bought our boat we've talked about moving to the Broads but since it has, until now, been somewhat of a restoration project we've needed it within reach. In the past we have hired on the Northern Broads and absolutely loved it but I wouldn't want to be up North during the holiday periods. I wouldn't mind being based down South though, but for various reasons the Broads probably isn't practical for us now.

[ExUserGone]

I picked up a kids fold up tent on the way through on the old west, nice spring steel loop stitched into it that took the teeth of my hacksaw in seconds, had to remove the prop to prize it off, I love the old west....

I was particularly smug saturday lunchtime driving along the A11 to the boat when the SSA recorded message came through to my phone, had a lovely run to the woods end tavern and on to the ferry house at surlingham, no such chance back in st.neots.

You could always go to bedford river festival....

It's being smug that makes up for the A11

I'm saving £145 on the licence and nearly £500 a year on my moorings on the broads, pays for a lot of diesel driving there.