Hints and Tips for Planning Trips to Our Events.
- Plan your (return) trips across Breydon water based on tide times, weather forecast (mainly wind), and travel times (to/from) your chosen start and finish point for the journey (to stay within reasonable daylight hours). If crossing between Northern and Southern Broads to/from an event it may be best to plan on a 1 week minimum duration trip to avoid rushing to/from venues...
- We use the excellent http://www.norfolk-broads.org/tides tide tables (© Shorebase.co.uk) which are useful and reasonably accurate for predicting tides times several months ahead - I use these to schedule the club meets.
- Here are the tides for the 2026 Beccles Meet and the 2026 Salhouse Meet. Don't forget that the times shown on these tide tables need to be adjusted (+1hr) for British Summer Time between 29th March and October 25th!
- We also use the © NBN Forum Norfolk Broads Journey Times planners as an approximate guide for journey times. The timings are reasonably generous (being based on leisurely cruising speeds below the limts) so as you will travelling with the tides, you should have sufficient contingency (extra time) built in, but you can check and adjust your progress based on passing the interim way points along your journey (even if you can no longer moor at them) - see below.
- Coming from North to South you will normally aim to start the journey across Breydon Water at Great Yarmouth LOW WATER SLACK (see tide table + don't forget to add 1 hr for BST). Coming from South to Northern Broads you would aim to leave Burgh Castle or Berney Arms at or about Great Yarmouth Low Water Slack ( allowing for the 45-50 minute crossing, the tide will by then be coming in at Yarmouth which should help "push" you up river, as sometimes the Bure tide continues to flow out & it can feel like you are travelling uphill!).
- Having decided on your crossing day and time, you then need to work backwards using the journey times planner to calculate your departure time from wherever you are starting from e.g from ACLE Bridge or Stokesby (nearest Northern moorings to Gt Yarmouth) and/or forwards e.g to your final destination for the day e.g Burgh Castle, Berney Arms, Reedham, Herringfleet, or Hardley Cross (on Southern side as convenient start/end points...
- Note that with the current closure of the Stracey Arms moorings there are no recognised overnight moorings between Great Yarmouth and Stokesby/Acle. This means that on late afternoon crossings at/around Sunset you will either need to plan to stay at Gt Yarmouth or allow sufficient time to travel to Acle/Stokesby (2-2.5 hrs) or beyond (!) to find an overnight mooring (not a recommended activity in diminishing daylight & when there are no spaces!).
- We normally plan on around 2-2.5 hrs from Acle to/from Great Yarmouth travelling at around 5mph with the tide, and around 1 hour from Burgh Castle/Berney Arms to get to Herringfleet (Beccles direction) or Hardley Cross (for Norwich direction) assuming you choose not to stop over at Great Yarmouth, Berney Arms, Burgh Castle, or Reedham Ferry, where the tides run particularly fast (unless you wait for Low/High water on departure).
- We usually try to plan our crossings for a mid morning/mid afternoon crossing times to give sufficient daylight hours and avoid very early starts (I'm no longer at work!😉)....At this time of year you can travel across a bit later in the day (longer days) but remember that you still need to find a vacant mooring at the other end...
- The main guidelines for crossing Breydon Water are:
a) To make the crossing on the low tide cycle (when bridge clearances are maximum and tides work in your favour),
b) Not to cut the corner at Great Yarmouth (i.e go around the OUTSIDE (midstream) site of the YELLOW POST),
c) Stay within the RED and Green Way-posts marking the channel across Breydon.
d) If the Wind Speed is below 10-12 mph the crossing should be good, higher wind speeds make the crossing a bit choppier, Above 20-25 mph predictions & I would think about a different journey day!
e) The BA will close Breydon Water to small boats if it's too windy, choppy or poor visibility!! - Last but not least - We recommend taking out breakdown/recovery cover e.g services offered by Suffolk Staithe Boatyard or Boulters - if you need it it will pay for itself many times over - we once had an oil filter seal "fail" half way across Breydon, spewing engine oil into engine bay, with us having to try and catch the oil to top up the engine "on the fly" to avoid an even worse engine seizure. The fix was simple enough after limping in to Great Yarmouth YS, but worth the assistance for repair/parts (e.g a new filter & seal, 5L diesel engine oil, engine bay clean up, etc) which were there waiting by time we made it across, and not available locally at 18:30 hrs on a Saturday and potentially miles from a relevant spares stockist....this was a "simple" breakdown - it could have been worse...
- If you've not crossed Breydon Water before and would like to accompany others making the same trip - let us know your planned departure day/crossing (outbound and return) and we will try to link you up accordingly (if possible)....