Wild Weather

As we begin to recover from another stormy weekend, I am led to think about how to make the best of a bad weather weekend away from home. Indeed, it’s a hard one for me as I tend to shy away from venturing out in unsettled weather, but there are plenty of people who are more than prepared to do so.

Bad weather whilst being holed up in a boat, caravan or motor home is something you sometimes have to get used to or simply be prepared for. Last year, I wasn’t remotely prepared for two days of rain whilst at a festival and simply spent most of my time in the motorhome rather than getting out and enjoying the music. I moped about and had a thoroughly miserable time. It was mid-summer for crying out loud!

First Boats of 2020

This weekend sees the first holiday cruisers of 2020 on hire for us at Freedom Boats. Of course, with gale-force winds, the instructions to all those on boats was to moor-up safely away from trees and wait-out the storm; if there’s a pub and other facilities nearby, all the better!

But what do you do all day?

There’s the TV of course, but in bad weather, putting a TV aerial up on the roof is inviting trouble. But also, the chances of signal interruption increases too. At home, we couldn’t watch BBC1 last night as the signal quality was awful. DVDs then. A good few films will while away the time faster than you could appreciate.

Of course, most people have phones and tablets for entertainment these days, but these tend to be  more isolating rather than inclusive (though, to my mind, it’s not always so different to watching a group of people in a library just reading and interacting only when someone coughs and then only with a tut or an icy stare).

Card games are always good for inclusion and there are hundreds of options with a standard pack of cards alone. Other generic games like UNO and Dobble are favourites amongst our children; particularly our eldest who’s ability to see the contents of a Dobble card almost instantly is legendary; how she does it I have no idea but she usually clears up at least twice as fast as anybody else. If you haven’t see Dobble, they are circular cards with icons in various sizes; the idea is to match the card you are holding with the card face up on the pack; sounds easy but it seems, at least to this father, it is a game for young people or at least those who have retained all their faculties.

Jigsaws are another option, but the size of them makes it harder on a boat as there is restricted room. Perhaps one of those mats that allows you to roll the jigsaw up would help. Books are an obvious one and why not have a good read?

You could, of course, just roll into the pub and enjoy the hospitality and each-other’s company for the afternoon. Teas and coffees are on offer along with beers, wines and spirits and many pubs also have real fires to enjoy too.

Just Explore

A rainy day doesn’t stop you exploring either. Head out in decent wet-weather gear and go for a walk. If you’re near a bus stop or railway station, get a ticket to Norwich or Great Yarmouth and explore here too. Norwich is a great place to visit with its fabulous undercover market which has been held on the same site for over 900 years and is thought to be one of the oldest in Europe. The Norwich Lanes hide a wealth of independent shops and one of the retail operators in the country, way surpassing the likes of M&S and Sainsburys. Jarrolds, is celebrating 250 years in business in 2020. Of course, there’s also museums, cinemas, cathedrals and an incredible Norman castle sitting high on a mound looking over the city. Sadly, Norwich is often ignored by boaters; it absolutely should not be.

Great Yarmouth is the second largest seaside resort in the UK (Blackpool being the bigger). Its promenade offers the usual seaside fayre, there’s a pier, great beaches (though probably not so great in the rain), decent shopping, cinemas, a circus (I kid you not, the Hippodrome is a real jewel) and a few very good museums with the Time and Tide charting the town’s history, especially as a major fishing port and is housed in one of the few remaining herring smoke houses that used to litter the town. There’s Anna Sewell's house (the author of Black Beauty) which is currently a "Cakery", a historic museum ship in the Lydia Eva and a Theatre too. Incidentally, Black Beauty was first published by John Jarrold Printing in Norwich in 1877.

Navigation

Very windy days will prevent navigation on safety grounds, but rain shouldn’t so why not just make a rainy day part of your journey and head off to another location; maybe another pub stop for the night.

Really, like any other situation, bad weather just takes a bit of preparation and planning. If you’re like me at a festival and see only the downsides of the situation, you’re probably destined to be bored, maybe even a killjoy. Watch the forecasts, pack accordingly and just go with the flow.

Your turn

What ideas to you have for enjoying rainy days on a boating holiday?

Winter Boat Hire on the Norfolk Broads

Why would anybody want to have a Norfolk boating holiday in winter? 

It’s a curious question and not unlike others, such as, why do some people like Marmite or why is it always only the Toffee Coins left in a box of Quality Street.

Not everybody is the same. As I write this, Storm Ciara is battering my home on one of the few hills on the Norfolk Broads and being three storeys up also makes me very happy for our central heating. I toyed with the idea of doing a video blog earlier. I thought about going down by the river with the camera but I just couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to get dressed up in warm clothes, lace up the walking boots and drag my sorry backside out of the door; it’s just too uninviting outside today.

However, I have heard plenty of people passing the house and have even seen videos from Robin Shepard on Facebook down at Gorleston Pier at 8am showing me moving pictures of why I prefer to be indoors today.

Whilst Robin and many others are quite happy to get out there, I am not and this simply serves to highlight how different we all are.

Our winters have certainly become milder over the last few years and, apart from a blip two years ago when the Beast from the East left snowdrifts for three or more weeks, we have seen very little very cold weather recently (though it doesn’t stop my teenage children from moaning how cold it is outside despite the mercury reading eight or more degrees). 

A question of demand

Thurne Mill at Sunset - Feb 7th 2020

The actual dates of winter (and other seasons, I guess) often confuse people. Around these parts, Winter begins on the 22^nd December and ends on the 20^th March, or there abouts depending on the year. So, February is technically mid-winter (in astronomical terms) but it is generally this month that sees the demand for winter holidays pick up. By way of illustration, I was at Thurne Mill just a couple of sunsets ago and there were three hire boats moored up when I arrived and a further two cruised in before I left. If you think about it, that’s quite busy for an out-of-season mid-week.

Freedom’s cruiser bookings start this year at the end of next week with four boats booked and we have already sent our first day hire boats of 2020 out yesterday. I believe I am right in saying that we are the only yard on the Southern Broads to offer Winter Boating Holidays. I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, but with so few of us left down south, it’s quite easy to keep up. 

But what’s the attraction of Winter?

Leaving today aside (which has turned into a monsoon, let me tell you),  there are a few key features to an out-of-season Broads Boating Holiday:

In no particular order:

• Cost. February and March are typically the cheapest time you can have a boating break on the Broads
• Wildlife. The Broads is the UK’s largest wetland area and attracts many migrants that you simply can’t see during the Summer as they simply aren’t here. Other species also appear that are more hidden during times of more human activity.
• Weather. As already explored, not everybody is put off by the fact that the temperature isn’t in double figures. And, it’s not always cold either.
• Solitude: you just can’t beat. Whilst there might have been five hire boats in Thurne dyke one evening this week, that’s a fraction of the actual capacity of that inlet which is usually heaving in summer, so much so that spaces are rarely available after 3pm.

Waking up at a mooring with absolutely nobody else about is wonderful. It is truly magical if there’s fresh snowfall too; the only footprints being those of animals. The header image of this blog really conveys this, I think. This was a February morning in 2019 with a stunning sunrise. The absolute peace and quiet of a winter on the river with nobody else around is unbeatable and virtually unattainable during Spring, Summer and Autumn when there’s always someone around.

Winter considerations

Winter holidays do pose more problems to a hire boatyard. The key one is power; as the days are shorter and colder, there is a bigger demand for power for lighting and heating and so the risks of customers running batteries down increases. There’s also the possibility that people will want to cruise after sunset as the days are short; this, if you didn’t know, is illegal.   

Our main restriction is that during Greenwich Mean Time, we don’t allow boats to turn north at Reedham or St Olaves to gain access to Burgh Castle, Berney Arms, Yarmouth and so on. We are often asked why this is and the answer is quite simple; Safety and Access. If you run into any kind of problem around in these hard-to-get-at places, our ability to get to you is significantly decreased as there are just so few boats out there to help.  Also, we are typically subjected to stronger tides with bigger highs and lower lows.

What about a Christmas holiday?

Each year, we have to fend off a number of enquiries for Christmas and New Year boat hire. I guess we could probably have half the fleet out if we were prepared to open; which we are not. For a small boat hire business, the main boating season is a full-on work-fest of cleaning, repairs, maintenance and other related tasks. We simply have to stop some time so that we can carry out big repairs, paint boats and so on. And, crucially, we also need get a decent holiday of our own. Sorry folks, but we will not hire holiday cruisers in December or January though we may offer day boats depending on the situation at the boatyard.

Oh, and the Quality Street Toffee Coins? Traditionally, we left them for my Grandad who loved them and made us all laugh when they stuck to his false teeth.


You can reserve a holiday directly off our web site: www.FreedomBoatingHolidays.co.uk

Ready for a rut - the role of stag and hen parties on the Norfolk Broads

Why Stag and Hen Parties are important to the hireboat industry.

Each year you will see people moaning on social media about a group of men on a boat having fun. Sometimes that fun is at the cost of someone else’s enjoyment, probably by bad behaviour and occasionally through being drunk in charge of a vessel.

You rarely read the stories about the 20 or more groups of people that go out most spring and summer weekends from the likes of Herbert Woods, Richardsons, Barnes and ourselves at Freedom who cause no problems whatsoever and who are thoroughly nice, normal people. The fact is that nobody wants to hear about normal; abnormal is what makes us get on our soap-boxes 

In fact, reading some facebook groups, forums and such might have you believe that the Broads is awash with badly behaved people hiring boats and getting up the hooters of others. This isn’t the case at all and, in the grand scheme of things, it’s fair to say that Stag and Hen groups cause relatively few problems on the waterways and in the pubs.

I would argue that rather than malign these groups, we need to embrace them. My experience of hiring boats to these groups for over a decade is that they are generally courteous, decent people looking to create a memorable celebration for a friend. They are rarely yobs but more commonly respectable people and the Broads needs them just as much as it needs family groups.

The boat yards need parties of people to hire their larger boats and these groups are typically away with friends for a weekend away; rarely are they particularly large family groups. Stags and Hens generally keep our larger boats in regular use and are responsible for a not insignificant amount of revenue.

The pubs and restaurants need them too. A round of drinks for 10 people will come to at least £40 and a sit-down meal will produce vital revenue that a seasonal business needs to survive and be there for seasons to come.

The Broads needs them too. A huge number of people visiting the Broads in a group have been before – as children. Their memories of childhood holidays on a boat are brought to the fore and the likelihood of them coming back with their families increases.

We are all guilty

It is easy to sit back and have a moan about a rowdy crowd; we have all done it. But how many times have you done the same about a couple of children who are running around without any parental guidance? What’s the difference?

You might say that the children don’t know any better and are just being children; you might be right. However, the parents should know a lot better and for whatever reason aren’t properly looking after their offspring. But here’s the crux of the argument; you don’t see people making a point on Facebook about this or local newspaper headlines like “twins, aged 11 and 13, run amok at the Saddlers Arms” (that’s the kind of journalism we have come to know in these parts, by the way). 

I think people choose to malign Stag and Hen parties because they are easy targets. Some of us have forgotten how to have fun (and I think some of us never really learned). Some of us are always looking for peace and quiet and don’t want to be disturbed. Some of us want to have a good time and are vocal about doing so. In this world, we can’t please everybody all of the time and as much as many of us try, letting our hair down occasionally is always likely to have a negative effect on someone. That is a fact of life and just because you are on holiday, it doesn’t give you a right as such. Life is about a bit of give and take, surely.  

There are, of course, lines that shouldn’t be crossed and when they are, steps need to be taken to curb bad behaviour and they are. Did you know that Broads Beat asks all boatyards to inform them of stag, hen and single-sex parties arriving for boats? Or that most boatyards take a significant deposit from such groups? These measures are mostly precautionary but give the law enforcers a head’s up should anything go wrong.

What’s more, as a company, we want to know about bad behaviour. There have been many cases where we have intervened and re-read the rule book to people that have strayed into areas of unacceptable behaviour and do you know what? Most of these cases involve family groups or others that you would not necessarily expect, rather than Stags and Hens.

If you are organising a Hen or Stag party, we have some Hen and Stag Party guidelines on our web site that you should take a look at.

Your views and comments are welcome as ever. 

Stag image credit:  Tj Holowaychuk