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Designed & Maintained By Carol Gingell
Boating Tales From The 1970s
By Arthur
Crossing Breydon it started to rain meaning we had to erect the canopy again. No real problem as we had now got this down to a fine art and could achieve this very quickly. Once across Breydon we were soon passing Burgh Castle and heading up those rather dull bits of the lower Waveney before reaching St Olaves. The rain had stopped now and we lowered the windscreen to pass under the bridge and moored up at the Beaver Fleet yard to hand in the items rescued from South Walsham.. As soon as we mentioned the name of the craft they let slip that they had now had a number of complaints about noise and speeding regarding that particular boat. They were most grateful for the return of the deck equipment and said they would be happy to allow us to moor for the night. It was still quite early and we passed away the remainder of the afternoon with a long walk toward Somerleyton.
Next day we headed upstream again and after a lunchtime break at Burgh St Peter eventually
moored up in the second Aston Yard at Beccles. There were one or two other Aston
boats in the yard and this gave the chance to have a look round with a view to future
holidays. Next day a leisurely cruise back down the Waveney with a short diversion
into Oulton Broad before eventually spending the night at Burgh Castle. The last
day was spent doing the usual chores before heading back to the boatyard for the
final night.
Not a very eventful week but enjoyable as all trips to the broads are.
To me there is just something about this part of England that draws one back again
and again.
1979
It was now the autumn of 1979 and the time had come to embark on our first holiday on a yacht. In a rather rash moment earlier in the year we had booked a weeks hire on a Corsair class yacht from Martham Boatyard and Development Co. There were now three lads on their way to Martham with only myself having any previous experience of sailing. It was quite late in the afternoon when we eventually arrived but still in time for the quoted takeover time of 4.00pm. Next job was to load our gear onto the boat. There was not a lot of room but somehow we managed to get three guys luggage aboard. Corsair was described as sleeping a maximum of 4 persons, two in the forward cabin and two on the saloon. As one of our crew was over 6ft tall we decided that he should have the forward cabin to himself. After hiring cruisers in the past the accommodation seemed very cramped. Still we would have to get used to it for the week.
It was almost 5pm by the time we had everything aboard and had taken the car to be parked up for the week. The staff at the yard were obviously now thinking about going home as the guy who came to clear us to leave the yard only gave us a brief description of how to start the Stuart Turner engine and how to operate the yacht toilet fitted on the boat. This seemed to rather a complicated operation with remembering which valve to open for each operation. I guess if we left the wrong valve open we might have succeeded in sinking the boat. For some reason he seemed to assume that we were experienced sailors and did not question our competence to handle the boat. There was no trial run and we were simply told we were free to leave. Not wanting to make a hash of casting off from the yard we decided that we would leave under power and would hoist sail somewhere where we would not be watched. We set off down the Thurne and once out of sight of the yard we moored and set about lowering the mast for the passage through the bridge at Potter Heigham.
The mast lowering operation went a lot smoother than expected and we were ready to set off again. However, something seemed wrong. I am a pretty good judge when it comes to whether a boat will clear a bridge or not and to me this boat still seemed too high even with the mast and cabin roof lowered. This was a bit odd as the yard had assured me that apart from particularly high tides this boat should be able to pass the bridge at any time. It then dawned on me what the problem was. The lowered mast was resting on the wrong crutches. There was a lower set to use for passing under bridges etc. As soon as this was corrected things looked a lot more promising and we set off downstream again. As we travelled down river I found the easiest way to see clearly ahead was to stand on the counter and steer the boat with a foot on the tiller. (I tried this after reading about it in Arthur Ransome’s Coot Club). It was certainly a very easy way to steer and maintain a clear view.
Soon Potter Heigham Bridge was in view. We waited for a boat coming upstream with the pilot at the helm. As he passed us he gave us a wave of thanks and I steered for the bridge. This was the first time I had taken a boat through Potter myself but I remembered what one of the pilots had said a few years earlier about not changing your mind half way. He had pointed out that if you were to take off power part way through then the wind as you emerged from the bridge was likely to blow you off course and into the stonework. Lined up for the bridge I could see that there was going to be sufficient clearance so I opened up the throttle and steered through the arch. Everything went well and we got thorough without a touch.
As it was now autumn there was not a lot of daylight left so our next job was to find a mooring for the night. We ended up near Thurne Dyke. Next job was to sort out rigging the awning for the night. Eventually we got this organised and were somewhat surprised how warm the boat was once this was rigged over the well. Cooking on the simple stove was actually surprisingly easy and we soon had a meal organised and eaten. The toilet was a different matter though, true it was clean but it seemed such a complication to operate. Also it discharged straight into the river. During the week we decided to try and use onshore facilities if at all possible, only using the one on the boat if there was no other choice. Uncertain how long the battery would last with the electric lights on we decided on an early night.
Next morning we set sail down to Thurne Mouth and headed up the Bure. Shortly after we left the Thurne we met a considerable number of powered craft heading downstream. It seemed like the M1 so the decision was made to moor up for a while until the motor traffic thinned out a bit. As we sat in the well drinking coffee we were privileged to see the Wherry Albion heading downstream. As she passed her skipper made comment to us about the rather large number of motor craft about that morning. It must have been causing him a few problems as well. Eventually we set off again eventually reaching Salhouse Broad where we intended to spend the night. It did not seem very practical to moor so we lay to a mud weight out in the middle of the broad. As evening came we decided to row ashore in the dinghy and walk into the village to visit the pub. Realising that it would be dark on our return we had the rather bright idea of hoisting a small torch to the masthead so we would be able to locate the boat easily on our return. As we walked back from the village it seemed to be very dark and when we left the road to follow the path to the broad we would have had difficulty had we not brought a torch with us. Back at the broad we got into the dinghy but there was now a problem. There was no sign of the light we had left at the masthead and we could not see the yacht. Shining the torch out onto the broad we still could not see it. Despite this we set out in the dinghy and started to try and find the boat. It seemed to be an age before the yacht was eventually sighted and we gratefully climbed back aboard after thinking that we would be spending the whole night in the dinghy rowing round Salhouse Broad in the dark. It turned out that the battery in the torch hoisted up the mast had long since gone flat. We did not try that idea again.
Next morning our first stop was going to be somewhere to top up the water and stock up on some food. As we moored up in F B Wilds yard at Horning we saw an elderly gentlemen heading toward us. We thought maybe he was going to tell us we could not moor there. He turned out to be really pleasant and his first comment to us was “It’s nice to see a proper boat in here for a change”. We found throughout that week that people were always coming up to be friendly. Food stocks suitably replenished we set off for Stalham.. With our vast lack of sailing experience the idea of tacking on the narrow reaches of the Ant did not seem appealing so we set off up the river under power. Passing under the bridge at Ludham with another successful lowering and raising of the mast. The plan was to moor against the island at the bottom of Sutton Broad as we had the previous year. However this was not possible as with the deep keel of the yacht we could not approach close enough to the bank. Eventually we managed to moor a short distance upstream in Stalham Dyke. That evening we rowed into Stalham and after a rather successful evening playing some of the local lads at pool we rowed back to the yacht, this time without problems.
Next morning having had a good cooked breakfast we were ready to set off back down the Ant. It was a dead calm so it did not seem such a sin to be using the engine. There was going to be a problem though. On this particular boat charging the battery put a considerable extra load on the tiny engine so there was a switch to disconnect the charging circuit which made quite a difference to the engine power. Unfortunately we had left this charging circuit in the off position with the result that the battery was now flat and the engine could not be started. The idea of quanting all the way to somewhere we could get the battery charged or a jump start did not appeal at all. Big tall lad suggested someone jump in and give it a push start or flick the prop. He nearly ended up being thrown overboard. However, we took a look at the engine and there appeared to be a fairly large flywheel to which was attached a pulley with a belt drive to the dynamo. On a whim the ignition was switched on and we tried a quick spin of the flywheel by hand. Amazingly the little engine fired up and was soon putt putting away. Somewhat relived we switched it to the charge position and left it that way to make sure the battery would be properly charged.
Heading back down river again we were soon back on the Bure and turned into Fleet
Dyke to head for South Walsham. Everyone was in somewhat high spirits as it had been
a really fine day. As we proceeded along the dyke I had left one of the others at
the helm. He suddenly shouted very loudly, “how do we stop?”. This attracted the
attention of some people on the bank who looked at us as if we really did not know.
I decided I would play along with my friend and shouted back that I did not know
but I would check the manual. I then quickly ducked down into the cabin and emerged
holding a copy of Swallows and Amazons. The people on the bank now seemed to be convinced
that this yacht had a crew of total nutters. Spotting a suitable clear space on the
bank of the dyke we swung into moor. We had no sooner moored up when a notice was
spotted. Thinking that this was maybe to forbid mooring at this point we walked over
to investigate. The notice in fact said “DANGER -
Later that afternoon after we had eaten and everything had calmed down we started to prepare for the evening. I have always been able to judge the weather fairly well and despite the fine weather we had that day and how calm it was at that moment I said we ought not to moor in the broad as it was going to get windy. Nobody believed me but we moved to the side of the broad for the night. Exactly as I had predicted, it was a wild and windy night and when we looked across the broad next morning boats had been blown all over the place. Setting off again that afternoon the plan was to get back north of Potter Heigham. The passage through the bridge was once again achieved without incident. However, it was not long after this that we had the only near accident during the entire week. Not far from Martham Ferry I noticed a small hired motor launch coming up river far too fast. I was now lined up to pass though the gap left by the open floating bridge when the small launch now following dangerously close suddenly took it into his head to open up to full throttle and overtake. He did not even do this correctly and suddenly headed past on my starboard side and cut in front of us as we were almost at the ferry. You can’t just slam one of those small auxiliary engines into reverse like you can with a cruiser but somehow I managed to get reverse gear engaged and just avoided the fool in the launch who carried on oblivious to the accident he had nearly caused. I was just about to shout something suitable at the idiot but one of the men at Martham Ferry boats had seen the whole thing and saved me the trouble by shouting himself. After all this excitement we moored for the night a few hundred yards further along.
Next morning we were only too aware that this was out last day and we spent it by taking a trip up to Hickling Broad where we moored up and spend the day making sure the yacht was clean and tidy to be handed back. All shipshape the final trip was made back to the boatyard for the last night. On the whole a different experience and great fun. Also Martham Boatyard were a brilliant yard and I was to hire from them again a year or two later.
Arthur 2009
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