weekend on a cork

[Stranger]

must apologise as we forgot the camera but anyone thinking of hiring Sparkling Light from Herbert Woods  dont bother unless your midgets and you like being rocked all over the place cockpit canopy a pain to operate toilet/shower might as well not be there   great sink  no draining board?????? bed comfy  2 drawers to store clothes and a tiny cupboard to hang things in store food where you can and the fridge is back in the cockpit under one of the seats  

this boat should be used as a picknic boat for day hire only  expensive lesson   £534 for a weekend  inc fuel deposit

oh and no means of climbing back on board if you fell overboard very dissapointing and woods advertise this boat as an ideal 1st timers boat  yeah if you want putting off for life  

[Hylander]

Oh dear that does not sound good at all.    There wasnt much 'Sparkling' about it by all accounts.      No draining board - or is that the fashion these days.     Sounds odd to me.    Will have a look see on their site what boat it is.      Sorry you were so disappointed.      Ludham Bridge do some lovely boats for a weekend / day.      Their latest ones have everything plus more besides that you would find on a hire boat so why not give them a ring for next time, that is if you can face a next time.

[loribear]

 hi stranger, that does'nt sound good at all, & it sounded very expensive for a short break,i  hope it has'nt put you off boating for good, sometimes you do get a bad one, but they're not all like that, & you do'nt always have to pay alot of money for them either, lori  

[Stranger]

we have been boating for years Lori and not been put off at all just dissapointed at being ripped off  for a weekend oh and that price was including a so called 30% disscount and we shopped round and unless you wanted an antique Hampton from Richos seemed the best deal 

[Dan]

It's only 24ft though, and the layout shows it quite accurately with a tiny galley etc, plus lots of internals on the website etc that are quite a fair and recent reflection.

 

With this in mind, what led you to choose it?

 

Dan

[Stranger]

yes Dan quite good internal pics of the boat but very deceptive on size through the pics we chose it as it was on offer from over £700 for the weekend and expected better and the  fact that a duck farting  30 meteres away rocking the boat was poor    oooops  might be an exageration there but a lesson learned i guess

[laffingfish]

I think many people learn the hard way as we did on our first trip on a poor boat. That said most people wouldnt want to stay in there own living room for a long weekend, if within that space they had a kitchen a bathroom & bedrooom. When we are down & see those similar boats from Barnes brinkcraft i wonder why anyone would want them as they are about the size of a shoe. The canopys always look a load of hassle we dont even bother with the outside curtains as that seems a pain. Who says size doesnt matter lol. Hope you get a bigger boat next time & loved the duck farting joke.

[Hockham Admiral]

Dave, Hi

 

I've had a close look at the brochure and I think the 360degs rotating view, coupled with the floor plan, back up Dan's comment.

 

We had a Beneteau Antares 25 footer and she had about the same amount of space. You can get used to it because we spent 3 weeks onboard including a trip directly across to/from Ipswich-Flushing. It's what you're prepared to put up with!

 

As for rolling about, well these sort of boats do just that unless you lash them securely to a floating pontoon! Then your duck can get on with breaking wind as much as it wants!     

 

Where I do agree is with the cost... I'd much rather have an old Alpha-type from longer for the same price! £700 (or was it £534) for a weekend? You're 'avvin a larf as we say in Norfolk! Just how much of that was the fuel deposit?  

 

[Stranger]

3 nights Dan  turns out was plenty  

[Maxwellian]

Sorry to read about your disappointment. If you want a well priced and maintained boat along with excellent service then try Maffets at Loddon. We hired Swallow in May this year and it is a lovely boat. Handles very well.

Ian

[Dan]

...and we shopped round and unless you wanted an antique Hampton from Richos seemed the best deal 

 

Hi Dave

 

I understand it can be disappointing when your expectation isn't met.

 

I guess something to remember with the aft cockpit boats is that in her already compact 24ft length at least 7 foot of that is in the open rear cockpit space, so it can really only leave 17ft or so of cabin which can probably not feel anything other than compact/tiny.  Also, the 9ft 6in beam... well, again the cockpit takes a fair share of this full width percentage within her length!

 

Also, as you price shopped her and found her to be the cheapest this seems to sort of fit right.  If you feel cheated over a supposed great discount to bring her inline with what you feel was only right (she should have been amongst the cheapest as small and over 20 years old) then I guess you just have to stick to companies who's pricing policy you agree with.

 

OK the Richardsons Safari's would be ten years older and not quite as aesthetically pleasing, but the big difference is pretty much every bit of their 25 foot is cabin, with no 'lost' interior space through an aft cockpit and through the difference in design the 9ft 6in beam benefits the accommodation more, so they'd have felt much bigger by comparison and perhaps actually were not such bad value overall, though if you do want a fair size boat at certain points in the year some Horizon 35's & Bounty 37's they run are hardly any more expensive.

 

I guess you live & learn, many people love the aft cockpit boats but I guess they are not for you unless you were to go for a grown up version

 

Dan

P.S I think perfect for first timers is marketing speak for small & easy to handle?!

[Stranger]

having hired Merlin from Maffetts a few years ago which is a Great" little boat" compared to the boat from Woods and the shopping round was mainly to find a boat available as a said before we just missed Malvern Light which would have been a lot better for us  but hey ho  heinsight is great  and we diddnt have long to book or to go scanning every little thing about the boats beforehand   was all too short notice 4 days before we booked we hadent even thought of doing the Broads this year and did everything by email as post was not quick enough

[littlesprite]

Dave,

You have shamed me into owning up, earlier in the year I moored at Reedham  for the night with the bow pointing down river toward Breydon. The following morning with a strong incoming tide I decided Carol would cast of the bow line whilst I held the stern on a loose line around the post, as the bow swung out I could release the stern line and power away.

But Murphy said! as the bow swings let the stern rope wedge under the rope of the boat behind (shared post) and lock tight, luckily the guy on said boat saw what was happening and was able to fend off.

[SPEEDTRIPLE]

Hi Dave, good to hear from you again.   What a shame the boat did`nt fulfill your requirements, as we had Maffetts Jay for last weekend to attend the meet, I`m sure at short notice, if you were prepared to make a few phone calls to the individual yards, you could have picked up something bigger and more spacious, though you may have had to have gone south to do so. You may have been able to get a good deal from Freedom, as well as Pacifics and Maffetts, and Sandersons, as they all have very reasonably priced boats, and would i`m sure, have done a deal if they had availability. I know Freedom specialise in offering boats for ANY number of nights from 1 to infinite, so they may have been a good option.

 

I`m sure i`ve read on here somewhere that like Le Boat, Herbert Woods pricing policy is a bit "optomystic", with advertising claiming huge discounts, which would bring the price down to the normal level of other yards, though i willfully stand to be corrected on this. 

 

I`m sure if Andy at Freedom is reading this, he can put me right on a few things (if i`m wrong that is?).

 

 

Regards to all .......................... Neil.