Carnage at Wroxham (1998)

[JimG]

Thought I'd share this with you.......

In 1998 six of us hired Aston Jupiter from Aston's Beccles yard. At the front of the boat was a Hoseasons flag which was according to the boatyard the same height as the canopy when full retracted.

So we are approaching Wroxham bridge (before pilots were compulsory) with the canopy fully back, the flag goes under nicely........and........crash. The top of the canopy hits the bridge and gets knocked off completely!!!!! Thankfully the dinghy we are towing is tied with two ropes creating a triangle shape with the stern of the boat. This is where the canopy lands!!!!!

A local boatyard fishes the canopy out of The Bure and places it as well as possible back in place. Obviously Aston Boats get in touch and we agree to return the boat a day early to get in repaired. Now about that flag that was supposed to be the same height as the canopy.......it was at a slight angle and therefore no good. Amazingly the boatyard saw the funny side and still refunded our security deposit, they deemed the incident accidental.

I hired another two Aston Boats after that so they obviously didn't bear a grudge

[BroadScot]

Hi Jim,

 

Funny that about the flag, as for sure it was suppose to err on the 3" safety margine. I never heard about that accident from the Loddon yard, as they did compete with Beccles for who got most silly stories and accidents in a season.

 

My classic is at Hearts, someone who had taken over the boat on a Thursday, phoned the yard on the Friday morning, to ask, how many bottles of water does it require to fill the water tank !

 

I have though, had a ring side seat at Hotel Wroxham watching bits of boat leaving their fixings whilst going or coming through Wroxham Bridge. 

 

I guess the Insurance Companies said, enough was enough, so hence Pilotage now.

 

 

Iain.

[Arthur]

Astons were always a good yard and treated their customers well.

 

I hired boats from both their Loddon and Beccles Yards  regularly over a period of around 35 years.

 

It was sad to see yet another yard close on the southern broads when they finished on 2008.

[BroadScot]

Hi Arthur,

 

No finer words to describe Astons IMHO. I wasn't a customer, more a local the way they treated you.

There was a thread a while back on here, discussing how many of the fleet are still on the Broads, private owners.

 

Iain.

[Arthur]

You may remember Iain that I used to have a website and forum devoted to the topic of Aston Boats.

 

 Unfortunately the site was constantly the target of malicious  hacking attacks and in the end I gave up on it.

 

 There were a fair number of pictures of the Aston Fleet which were kindly supplied by various members.

 

 Maybe one day I will risk trying again as I still have much of the material.

 

 Interesting story of the Wroxham Bridge incident.

 

The two major ones I recall hearing about were Aston Vanguard  starting to sink at reedham after a propshaft broke and Aston Penguin getting hit by a coaster  whilst moored on the Yare.

 

 

Arthur

[BroadScot]

Hi Arthur, 

 

Yes I was a member on your site. Evil these hackers. Remember Dave Pipe mention the Reedham one. Snowdrop? was let loose at the top of navigation at Norwich YS.  The boats were doubled moored in those halcyon days in the 70's there. The inner boat just left the other boats ropes loose and left!!!

 

I hope you are getting some rest Arthur.

 

Iain.

[Chelsea14Ian]

Hi Iain

 

like your story about Wroxham bridge.I think we all have seen all sorts happen at the bridge,just the other week we were moored at the hotel.I was getting some dinner ready,marina was at the laundry across the bridge.Then I saw a hire craft come out of the aircraft yard heading for the bridge windscreen up crew drinking I thought perhaps they just wanted a closer view of the bridge no they intended to go under.a lad cleaning the day boats told them not as the needed a pilot.

 

 

By the way is it more bottles of sparkling or still water to fill you tank

 

Ian

[BroadScot]

Hi Ian,

 

By all accounts the staff were in fits of the giggles when they got that phone call about the bottles!

 

Iain.

[ranworthbreeze]

You may remember Iain that I used to have a website and forum devoted to the topic of Aston Boats.

 

 Unfortunately the site was constantly the target of malicious  hacking attacks and in the end I gave up on it.

 

 There were a fair number of pictures of the Aston Fleet which were kindly supplied by various members.

 

 Maybe one day I will risk trying again as I still have much of the material.

 

 Interesting story of the Wroxham Bridge incident.

 

The two major ones I recall hearing about were Aston Vanguard  starting to sink at reedham after a propshaft broke and Aston Penguin getting hit by a coaster  whilst moored on the Yare.

 

 

Arthur

Hello Arthur,

You may have seen our pages of Broads built boats, I am sure that Jonzo would host you a section for you post your information on Aston's.

Regards

Alan

[Arthur]

Thanks for the reply and suggestion Alan.

 

I still own the Astonboats.co.uk domain name and have spare webhosting capacity so as there still seems to be some interest in the Aston fleet I will try and rebuilt the site shortly.

 

Unfortunately for various reasons I have very little time to do anything much at the moment but as soon as the site is live again in some form I will announce it on here,

 

The attacks on the site were not random hacking but deliberate.

 

However this was a couple of years ago so maybe it will be OK now.

 

Lets hope

 

Arthur

[SPEEDTRIPLE]

My Brother and i hired Jupiter in 03 i think?. It looked like the fwd coachroof had taken a beating, as it looked very uneven and patchy, and the chracteristic "brow" on the fwd face was missing. She was a lovely boat to handle, but the oven was crap, and the inverter sounded like it was going explode if you had the central heating on at the same time as the tele. We hired (well, dad did) the Aston Orion when she was new back in 1970, She was absolutely stunning, and we felt like gods of the river on such a brilliant boat.

 

The worst story i heard regarding an Aston boat was told to me by John from Maffetts. Apparently, the crew picked up one of the Astons, then when approaching Gt Yarmouth turned down the Yare and out into the North Sea. It was then they got scared, and instead of turning back, they simply ran it up on the beach. Apparently, it cost Astons nearly £2,000 in salvage costs and repairs, and that was back in the 70s.

 

Does anybody know if that`s happened before or since?.