Basic essentials and getting them in order!

The Norfolk Punt Club is one of the few sailing clubs I know that operate throughout the summer season from a collection of pontoons in the middle of Barton Broad in Norfolk instead of a flashy club house on a river bank somewhere.

A broad – for those who do not know is an inland open area of water created as a result of medieval peat diggings. These eventually became flooded and were incorporated into the navigable river system of Norfolk.

Don’t for a moment think a Norfolk Punt is one of those things you see in Cambridge manned by university students. A Norfolk Punt is a very fast, slick racing yacht  – keep watching the blog and you will see some in a week or two.

This needs thinking about
That one first
Er…perhaps not!

However back to those pontoons I mentioned. During the winter they are towed away from the middle of the broad and moored close to the bank so that repair work and maintenance can take place.

Getting them back out to the centre of the broad in the Spring is a work of art and has to be done in a specific order. Think of it like a jigsaw puzzle with the rectangular pieces measuring several metres in every direction. Towing them out in to the river is not easy and fitting them together needs thought, planning and kind weather.

Here we go

Last weekend we had rain – which after a winter moored under trees made the pontoons slippery and a bit of wind made them yaw a bit. (Look it up – but it can be a bit thought provoking when it happens!).

A touch of the old “Left hand down a bit!”

Basic essentials? They certainly are.

There is the officers box, from which racing is organised. You can’t put that in the wrong place. The officer of the day wouldn’t be able to see the racing.

Here goes the toilet block
The commodore is not smiling – he’s just wet and cold

The toilet block – Put that in the wrong place and the results could be catastrophic.

Nervous eyes watch the progress of the tea hut

The tea hut – perhaps the most essential pontoon of all. One of the most attractive features of the club is that on a Sunday afternoon when racing is under way the tea hut will open, serving tea, coffee, squash and most important of all – cake.  Little wonder unkind critics have called us the Norfolk Picnic Club.

Maybe this guy’s saying grace … on the other hand he could have just trapped his finger between the pontoons

I think it is good to see an organisation that has its priorities right, competitive sail racing, tea and cake.

See what I mean about cake!

What more could a happy sailor want?

FOR MORE PICTURES OF THIS HAPPENING CLICK HERE

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