Bit of fun on the Norfolkbroads

RX7 · Post by **RX7** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 8:22 am

By the way mate, who do you work for as we have some friends who work for broads tours. One works in the office and her other half works in the boatyard.

Post by **Ben** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 11:23 am

Excellent vid - looks like fun - which company are you with - we'll hire one too

Stu .. race !!! ..

RX7 · Post by **RX7** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 12:04 pm

murano3 wrote:Stu .. race !!! ..

We had 2 of the day boats out at hickling broad when I was at uni for a field trip.

The throttle was limited by a wooden block, a mate got his swiss army knife out and took that off !!
Needless to say the afternoon was spent having water fights and racing.....lol
Plus the lecturer was even joining in !!!!!!

gtst lad · Post by **gtst lad** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 12:18 pm

this is us http://www.connoisseurafloat.com :-D

Bladerider · Post by **Bladerider** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 2:35 am

WOW !!

Brings back many happy memories, I guess from the name connoisseur that you must work at what used to be Porter and Hayletts old yard. That my first boating memory - when I was 4 years old - when my parents used to hire a boat from Edwin !!! Mum and Dad moved their first boat down there for a year or two at one point.

Wroxham Bridge has got nothing on Potter Higham for lowest draught, funny thing is they used to have some of the biggest boats to hire back in the day right near potter higham, none of these modern slide the top half of the boat back like the connoiseur pioneered, real old school fold it down and even then its two feet too high type stuff !!!

We used to always have breakfast in the cafe, Roys only had the supermarket ad the clothes store back then, but gradually took over the town from memory - probably long since gone bust now I expect - and there used to be the Bridge Restaurant the other side that was fairly posh considering it was in "boat holiday" central !!

Happy Days !!

J.

PS almost all the boats are limited to 7mph flat out with engine governors. My parents have even toyed with the idea of bringing their current boat back to the broads as they are pushing on a bit, but the trouble is they wouldnt comply with the speed limit on some rivers of 3mph with even just a single engine engaged on tickover - lowest speed with one engine is about 4-5mph, its 6-7mph with both !!!

gtst lad · Post by **gtst lad** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:13 am

The yard is still known as Porter and Haylett and Ed is still the hirefleet manager there, there's still a bridge cafe but the old one was knocked down and it's now about 100yards away from the bridge.
Ohh and Roys still owns half of Wroxham.

TonyB · Post by **TonyB** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:08 am

I used to have a boat on the River Cam/Great ouse, in Cambridge, life on the river brings happy memories.

We do plan to do a hired cruise of the broads at some point, but will need to find a Dog friendly company - is this much of a problem?

Bladerider wrote: PS almost all the boats are limited to 7mph flat out with engine governors. My parents have even toyed with the idea of bringing their current boat back to the broads as they are pushing on a bit, but the trouble is they wouldnt comply with the speed limit on some rivers of 3mph with even just a single engine engaged on tickover - lowest speed with one engine is about 4-5mph, its 6-7mph with both !!!

Can you not sort this out with the right choice of Prop?

Fast Eddy · Post by **Fast Eddy** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:27 am

I spent a few years at Seaglaze on Rackheath as a window builder, we used to get a couple of screens in for repair every Monday in the height of the season. Good business!

When we used to hire the little boats out years ago, as Gareth said, the limiter was a block of wood screwed to the dash, so we took a screwdriver every time and took it off. We used to let other boats start to catch us up thinking they has a slightly quicker one, then give it full throttle at speed away. Very childish :oops:

gtst lad · Post by **gtst lad** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 3:58 pm

TonyB_GT4 wrote:
We do plan to do a hired cruise of the broads at some point, but will need to find a Dog friendly company - is this much of a problem?

Not at all, we allow dogs

Bubble · Post by **Bubble** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 12:11 am

Lol - we hired a day boat from Wroxham early last year and got as far as Potter Higham. I took over from my son to turn the boat around just before the low bridge and then lost forward drive

It was quite interesting trying to turn the boat around against the current, with only reverse gear

I had a look and all the linkages seemed to be working OK to the gearbox, so it looked like an internal gearbox fault. Got a mechanic from the boatyard, who took over an hour with some fiddling and tutting to confirm my diagnosis :roll:

We were given an old clanker of a boat to get back to Wroxham, with a top speed of around 2mph

............so off came the engine cover, to discover that the throttle linkage was slipping, so it was a case of my size 11 foot jammed in there and my son steering and we made it back to Wroxham before they closed.

Happy days