Events > 2025 Events
Attendees At Beccles
No | Names | Boat Name | Beccles Event | |
1 | Dave & Trish | Free Spirit | Y | |
2 | Pat & Ken | Audere | Y | |
3 | Geoff & Judi | Moonshine | Y | |
4 | Elaine & Robert | Minnow | Y | |
5 | Tony and Liz | Veyatie | Y | |
6 | Roger & Sandra | Herge | Y | |
7 | Les, Doug & Sue | Hyperion 3 | Y | |
8 | Jim | Chiltern Lady | Y | |
9 | John & Mel | Tight Lines | By Car | |
| 10 | Claire & Lawrence | Opal | By Car | |
11 | Dave | (Ex-Safari) By Car | By Car | |
11 | Keith | (Ex-Safari) By Car | By Car | |
13 | Baz & Kaz | Safari Mk1 Great Ouse | By Car | |
2025 Beccles Event
Attendance at both of our events this has been impacted by ill health, unexpected faults, accident damage by 3rd parties, and other unexpected events causing last minute changes to plans!
Our numbers registering vs attending have fluctuated quite wildly and at one time we thought we were going to have a record 16 boats at Beccles with more boats and crews visiting from the Northern Broads.
As always, formal organisation stops on arrival and crews are able to mix & mingle, go exploring (pubs, shops etc) or just sit, relax and catch up with boating friends. It was good to see Jim, Keith and "Young" Dave, all ex- Safari owners, coming across and joining us for the craic & with the odd (mutual) leg pulling still continuing...
It was also good to meet up with "Baz & Kaz" - Safari owners visiting us from the Great Ouse. We hope that we were able to answer most, if not all, of their Safari related queries. It was also good to hear of the great progress being made by Clare and Lawrence after extensive refurbishment of their Safari, and for the surprise visit by Mel and John (Tight Lines).
After the usual day time activities, Saturday was rounded off by a mass exodus to the "Cod House" for (very good) Fish & Chips. As the evenings are drawing in at this time of year, things tailed off at around 7pm....
The weather forecast suggested some strong winds, heavy rain and bigger tide ranges to come overnight , but I still didn't expect to be out in my "Jim Jams" at 02:30 hrs tying on extra spring lines to try and stop our Safari from swinging about so much - I'd been rolled/bumped out of bed twice, with the heavy gusts (despite already having the mud weight deployed off the bow). Perhaps having a 2 boat gap in the line up exposed us to the wind a little more than usual. Even more surprising, was the appearance from out of the darkness, behind the lights on the quay heading, two PC's patrolling the town on foot! ("Evening All" 😉).
Sunday morning duly arrived and the weather had calmed down considerably, and after some further morning banter and chat, most crews departed Beccles at around 10:30 hrs either heading back home or out for a few more days cruising. The combination of strong North Westerly winds and several consecutive, higher than average, Neap tides pushed sea water higher up river than normal (known as the Broads tidal surge). As a result, plans for mooring destinations (e.g. Somerleyton) after departing Beccles on Sunday morning were hastily amended due to the river rising above the quay headings on the incoming tide...(see images of Waveney River Centre at around high tide).
Our post event return journeys provided more than a bit of excitement this trip. A big "well done" to Liz & Tony (Veyatie), who came across another Safari returning from the meeting, marooned in the weeds along the Bure, a couple of miles up river from Great Yarmouth. They had suffered a mechanical breakdown and complete loss of engine power, and the evening light was failing quite fast. With with some initial help from the Hemsby lifeboat crew (who had reacted to an emergency call for assistance) Liz and Tony volunteered to tie on to the other Safari and "butty" them up further up river towards Acle. This was accomplished in tricky weather and increasingly poor light (or rather a lack thereof!) - "Murphys Law" coming into effect as always - breakdowns always occur at the worst times....) until, after a long trip up river in by then, complete darkness and with just the assistance of a powerful torch, Liz and Tony demonstrated considerable skill by completing a shallow turn across river into the incoming tide and a "ferrymans glide" in towards the quay heading to moor, all the time strapped together with the other Safari. Liz and Tony over-nighted on the same quay heading, and departed next morning for their own home mooring at Acle.
Our own return journey also had a surprise in store. After a pleasant extra couple of days spent upstream at Rockland Broad and Bramerton Common, we returned to our home mooring at Chedgrave in great (wind and tide) conditions such that we could have reversed into our berth much more easily than is usual. Murphy's Law came into play once again however, as after turning across the river at 90 degrees to start reversing, instead of motoring in reverse we unexpectedly shot rapidly forward, bow first into the mud and river bank opposite.😮🫣. We were stuck bow first and having no reverse drive couldn't back it off 😵💫💩! Some quick checks showed that our Morse control had thrown a "wobbly" and although the throttle cable was working OK (in both directions) our gearbox cable and gear box control was jammed solid. To cut a long story short, with absolutely no one about on the river, or our moorings, after some cursing, pushing with a broom, and rocking side to side we managed to get off the mud and facing in wrong direction back alongside the river bank. We were then faced with how to get into our stern mooring, with no reverse, and with by then, a strong current running as the ebb tide had started. After 2-3 failed attempts to try and approach on the right side of the river, and needing to slow against the tide (with no reverse control), we eventually managed to time slowing down to draw to a halt straddling our mooring slot, while close enough to step off and pull the boat around and back into the mooring using ropes and no power! Finally, 10-11 years of boating/mooring had paid off - the experience was not something we'd have enjoyed in our early years of boating, or necessarily want to repeat in a hurry... 😀😎.
Following further investigation a few days later, I found that the Morse control had indeed thrown a real "wobbly" & the control arms that control the Bowden style cables had conspired to push the whole cable (inner and outer) forward several centimeters out of their clamps, effectively jamming the gear box lever. Further removal and close inspection showed that the internals of the Morse control had failed. A replacement (Vetus) Morse control and cables fitted before winterisation has fixed that problem in good time for next season, but final proof of the pudding will be thorough testing on the first trip out of 2026!🫰