Beccles - 16th July 2011
On a warm a sunny Friday we arrived at Beccles for what was to be a fabulous weekend of hot sunny weather and a BBQ on Saturday. Vice Commodore, Robin was already moored up as was Mistral Maid and Ocean Way. Lioness followed us in and on a warm a sunny evening and we prepared our selves for the weekend. It was decided in view of the weather forecast we would delay in the erecting of the gazebo until Saturday. Saturday morning arrived and for those who were up early enough found it was not raining but a strong wind, very soon after that came the rain , which was a downpour for most of the day but did ease to being heavy with gale force winds in parts, needless to say every one was confined to their boats for most of the day. the evening was better with the rain stopping and what turned out a reasonable sunset with Robin and Dave (Ocean Way) managing to BBQ and sit out for a short spell. My Sincere thanks to those who were there, commiserations go to John and Sandra (Kontiki) who had terrible fuel problems (See Below) and after having repairs carried out wisely returned to their moorings, to those who did not attend ,a very wise move in the circumstances. Bramerton fun day is the next event and the weather could be the same as Beccles but could be worse!
Bob.
Oulton Broad Motor Boat Club
'Kontiki' - Fuel Problems
We were on a weeks holiday and had planned to end up at Beccles for The Meet. After a night on the 24 hour moorings at Burgh Castle, the weather on Thursday was atrocious so we decided to make our way up to Beccles. We got about 500 yards up river when the engine cut out and wouldn't restart. If this has happened to any of you, you know what a frightening experience this is, left totally at the mercy of the strong wind and a fast ebbing tide. Luckily we were blown into the reeds which we held on to until we managed to get off the boat and plant two rhond hooks that stopped us drifting with the tide. Again, luck was on our side when a BA Rangers boat appeared. Steve and Mike were great; they came alongside, pulled us off the mud, rafted us the short distance to Goodchilds Marine and got us safely tied up on the service pontoon. The staff at Goodchilds were very helpful, promised an engineer the following morning and let us plug into their 'leccy' post. That evening the weather cleared and we were treated to a fabulous sunset over Berney Marshes.
The following morning brought bright sunshine and engineer Harry assisted by Paul who proceeded to work their way through the fuel system. It appeared that water had caused the engine failure but on further investigation they found sludge in the filters. They opened up the fuel tank access cover and pumped out the diesel. On the bottom of the tank was about two inches of black ‘gunge’ which Harry managed to get out by hand, leaving the tank clean. What a job, Harry said he’d never seen anything like it! We thought it best not to put the old diesel, about 80 litres, back so after fitting new filters, they half filled the tank with fresh fuel, added a bug inhibitor, bled the system and the old BMC 1.5 was up and running again and got us safely back to Brundall.
We took a sample of the 'gunge' which we will try and get analysed, is this anything to do with this new bio-diesel we wonder?
We would like to thank the staff at Goodchilds, for their excellent and friendly service, and Rangers Steve and Mike for coming to our rescue.
Sandra and John
Burgh Castle 14th July 2011
The Beauty of The Broads It's why we love it!