Did You Crash It?

Well it's been a minute hasn't it? I bet the vast majority of you were thankful for the hiatus but for those of you who were sat at the edge of your seat waiting for an update, here it is....

This update is not actually about my boat at all, although I will say that I have been pretty busy with renovations and I have quite a bit planned for the summer. But this post, this post is about my neighbours boat, Black Owl! Black Owl is a sea going boat, made out of steel and is quite a bit larger than mine, and guess what? I was going to drive it all the way to Rockland Broad. I won't go into too much detail about Black Owl itself as I'm hoping to write a post about it, a bit of a comparison to my Bounty 37 style of blog post

Now, I know what you're all thinking, "Sus, you've never driven a boat before, how the hell are

you going to steer a rather large boat up the broads without causing some serious damage?"

My answer to that question, before a few weeks ago, would have been something along the lines of "I have no idea, I'll just wing it". My answer now? Something along the same lines but with more confidence! This all came about with me chatting away to my neighbour, one evening, about being a bit nervous about maneuvering a large boat to which he kindly offered to show me the ropes on Black Owl. Here's where I interrupt this broadcast to tell you yet again about the wonderful boating community, you see I had mentioned my nervousness to quite a few people down at the marina and was met each time with an offer to help me out on my first trip.

Anyway, the date was set! Saturday 9th April would mark my first trip out on a large boat on the Norfolk Broads and my first time maneuvering said boat out of the rather tight Loddon Marina. As much as I learnt a lot about steering a boat during the day, I also learnt a huge amount about planning your trip. Loddon Marina is tidal so we had to figure out when high tide would be, how long it would take us to get to Rockland and what time we needed to be back. A lot of essential preparation for a reasonably short trip.

I was met bright and early on Saturday morning by my crew, Baggy and his mate Dave. The dynamic between the two crew members is great, Baggy breaks things, Dave fixes it by spending Baggy's money! Nonetheless, I couldn't have asked for a better crew, both are fantastic teachers when it comes to all things boats and between the both of them, have a huge amount of experience. Baggy is also a keen photographer and artist which is fantastic as all of the content in this blog has come from him, thank you Baggy!

So what was it like steering Black Owl out on the broads? Not as difficult as I was expecting it to be, out on the wide River Yare and at a higher speed, I was very comfortable. Slowing down and making tight maneuvers where other boats are around, not so comfortable. The key to maintaining control of the boat in these situations? Going slow and making slight adjustments. You have to feel the boat, pre-determine where she's going to go and make small tweaks when needed. I most definitely didn't put this into practice when we came to moor up at Rockland and when we left, I had too much speed and may have made quite a good job at chipping and scratching some of the paint on poor old Black Owl. Sorry Baggy!

What I will say, is that this experience has given me a lot more confidence with taking mine out. I want to say a huge thank you to the Black Owl crew for giving me the opportunity, not many people would want someone with little to no experience to be in charge of their boat for the day! Baggy has put together a fantastic video of the day which you can see below, and all of the photos and videos are from him, so why not check out his Youtube and his Facebook!

This leaves me to my music recommendation, this week it's a classic from The Police (My mum would be proud!)