AUTUMN CRUISE

Took place Saturday 27th - Sunday 8th September 2025

  

My original plan, formed in April, was to head down to Stokesby, with the idea of doing some kind of timed sail down river to the lower reaches of the Bure. The Ferry Inn accepted my booking, and I sounded out some of the local residents who are known to us about possible overflow mooring. All looked good until I started mentioning my plan to others. There wasn't as much enthusiasm as I'd anticipated  and when I looked at the tide times it also looked difficult, making the idea of a timed sail not quite as much fun as it might have been. So, plan B. Hickling?  Garnering opinion it seemed a more popular choice, and EACC hadn't been up there as a club for a while. Consulting the tide tables it was great to see that  low tide at Potter bridge was 10:24 on Saturday and 10:55 on Sunday, perfect! So I booked The Pleasure Boat for the Saturday evening meal and all was looking good. Plan B it was.

Three weeks ago I got a panicky call from Matthew at The Lion Inn at Thurne.  Somehow they had managed to double book a wedding party for that Saturday night (oops!)  and they were going to have to go to their own plan B by re-locating one of the wedding parties to The Pleasure Boat. We have a really great relationship with Mathew and Ricky at The Lion and who also run the White Horse at Neatishead and the Pleasure Boat. I really didn’t want to cause him a problem, so I said that it was fine and we would  make alternative arrangements. So, plan C. I phoned The Greyhound and was mightily relieved to find that they were happy to take my booking. Plan C was underway. Matthew phoned me the following day to offer me another plan: He had put the mezzanine floor at the White Horse aside for us: Plan D! Of course as we were going to Hickling that really didn't work for us.

So, continuing with plan C, six boats arrived at the club moorings on Friday evening, Sun Glory 2, Sandpiper, Evergreen, Pippinjack, Picus and Bewitched, and a convivial evening was spent.

There was some chat about Potter bridge and exactly what the clearance was going to be. SG2 needs about 6', as does Picus, so there was a lot of consultation of Project Troll* before we were abed.  Sandpiper decided to not risk the possibility of being trapped the wrong side of the bridge as they had important appointments back in deepest Buckinghamshire. Was this going to be plan D? The other Farringtons were confident about their clearance and SG2 and Picus decided to 'have a look' before deciding. On the way upstream we met Brunette coming out of Womack and so we still had six boats on the cruise. All was well at the bridge with the gauge board reading 6'1' and we all got safely through. A very accommodating breeze saw us nicely up to Deep Dyke, where lunch was taken, and then a rather more robust sail took us onto Hickling Broad where we found plenty of wind and weed, but also plenty of room in the dyke.

At around 17:30 he twelve of us walked the half mile to The Greyhound where we met the fifteen non-cruisers - some were Hickling residents, some were walking wounded and some had boats that wouldn't  get under Potter bridge.  The Greyhound did us proud dinner-wise with excellent  service, a very friendly team, decent food and a very enjoyable night altogether.

Returning to the moorings, the wedding party was winding down (thankfully!) and appeared to be all over by 22:30, much to the relief of those moored that end of the dyke, no earplugs required.

On Sunday morning Project Troll was showing a healthy 6' plus at the bridge and Sun Glory 2 set off under engine just after nine for the long haul back to Wroxham. We had an easy transit of Potter bridge (no need for plan E) and then a long, sometimes technical sail with a decent wind for the first hour followed by quite light airs - we got nearly as far as The New Inn before deciding it was time for the motor and we were home by 4pm.

All in all it was a very pleasant weekend, with some good wind, mostly in the right direction, a reasonable amount of sunshine and no rain.

Thanks to all who came along, sailing or just dining, it was a great catch up - we do love it when a plan comes together.

Jo Edye & Cally Smith, Sun Glory II

*For those if you who don't know of it, Project Troll is a website that tracks live bridge clearances on the Broads, very useful.