Orford Haven

[Poecheng]

We visited last year and he was good with us and gave us some very good, unhurried guidance on the best lines out etc. He also came and got us off the boat in a complete downpour. Enjoyed our visit

I see that I said the above in 2015. We have been back most years since and no reason to change my view. Not disputing the honestly held views of others but just saying how we have found PA over the time we have been visiting Orford.

 

[Ian Stennett]

Renamed the Miserable Mariner.
Davidej, he is indeed rude and grumpy to all, which is embarrassing when you see him in action with visiting Dutch etc.
I have experienced this personally and he better not come near me again or I will tell him to go away in my best anglo saxon.

Attwood accosted me yesterday while I was struggling to pull down my jib. Just to tell me I could not use HIS visitor moorings. When I replied that I had before he told me I certainky had not. A heated exchange began and I even produced the old receipt. No apology and no mooring. The man is a dangerous megalomanic, all this with a storm forecast !!!

 

[Bigplumbs]

Attwood accosted me yesterday while I was struggling to pull down my jib. Just to tell me I could not use HIS visitor moorings. When I replied that I had before he told me I certainky had not. A heated exchange began and I even produced the old receipt. No apology and no mooring. The man is a dangerous megalomanic, all this with a storm forecast !!!

I totally agree. He is horrible and needs removing from his Job. Lovely place spoiled by a horrible man

 

[Flames]

I'm not quite sure who this Attwood guy is but if he is the same person as we met on the 9th June then yes he is a very miserable and rude individual.
We picked up quite a large mooring buoy, 2 inch diameter rope for a couple of hours over lunch time and hadn't been there 10 mins when a man in boat crashed against the side of us and tied up to without being invited. He proceeded to lecture me on the fact that we were to big for His mooring buoys and we needed to clear off Smartish.
Having never visited Orford Haven before immediately he came across to as very self important and arrogant. I am willing to concede that at 20 tons we may well have been a little bit heavy for the buoy but as a representative of the authority there is a way of speaking and there is a way of not.
That person be he the Harbour Master/ Quay Ranger certainly did not enhance the appeal of a lovely area and yes I agree he needs to be retrained in visitor attitude and politeness.
PS . Mr Attwood if you read this, you need to clean the fenders on your boat so that you do not leave 3 metres of black marks on the hull of a boat you decide to crash against the side of!

 

[Frayed Knot]

No amount of retraining would improve this person - he is quite simply vile by nature. My wife and I had a remarkably similar encounter with him a year or two ago, but in a much smaller boat which could not possibly have caused a problem. I asked him, quite politely, if he was always so friendly, or whether that day was a special occasion. His reply was: “Only when I have to deal with people who behave like pratts.” When I invited him aboard to discuss the matter or to meet me on dry land he became somewhat sheepish & drove away.

Some years back, when he had the pub, some friends were waiting for the meal they’d ordered when two perfectly pleasant couples in their late sixties/early seventies came in. When he heard them talking about having just been on a trip on the Lady Florence he told them, very aggressively, that they would not be served & ordered them out, Barbara Windsor-style as, apparently, he didn’t get on with the Lady Florence owners. Not having paid for their order in advance, our friends walked out in disgust.

 

[Aquaboy]

Just take no notice of him what is he going to do ultimately........ I watched him throw a Dutch Cornish Crabber off the end of the Quay one evening, I felt Embarrassed. One of the guys that drives Lady Flo says he's the most unhelpful clown he has met.

 

[PetiteFleur]

We were in the the Ore last week, and had no problem - just called on the vhf and he told us to use the visitor buoy, but did ask what our tonnage was which I admitted I didn't know offhand but told him our length & beam. Is he on the launch Chantry? We paid and he was fine.

 

[Bigplumbs]

We were in the the Ore last week, and had no problem - just called on the vhf and he told us to use the visitor buoy, but did ask what our tonnage was which I admitted I didn't know offhand but told him our length & beam. Is he on the launch Chantry? We paid and he was fine.

I suspect you got the other bloke not PA

 

[LONG_KEELER]

These situations often turn out to be attractions in themselves .

Definitely on my list now for visiting Orford.

 

[oilybilge]

You wouldn't always mistake Philip for a ray of sunshine, but if you contact him before picking up a buoy it makes all the difference. Sounds like most of the people who had a bad experience with him didn't do this. If you do, he's usually helpful and friendly

BTW you're more likely to get him on his mobile than VHF.

 

[snowbird30ds]

I've only been into orford a few times and never had a problem with him, but I have always called before picking up a mooring, surely that is what you do.

 

[Ian Stennett]

If he's the fellow I came across last summer I concur with the opinion of his being one of the rudest people I've ever met.
My crew just stared at each other in disbelief when he told me (barked at me) they he, and only he would decide which bouy a visitor might use despite my adhering carefully to the instruction he himself had previously given us, and then took us about a mile downstream virtually out of sight of the village, we suspected as punishment.
And charged heavily for it too.

Orford's off my list now.

Attwood was horrible to me too. He chased me up river while I was trying to get my sails down in gusty conditions, to tell me I could not use His moorings, I have a scaled down Themes barge 33 foot about 10 tonnes. He said I was too heavy an could not use a mooring. I even showed him a receipt from a previous stay but he just called me a lier. ( I have the receipt as proof )

Does anyone know how you can go ashore by dingy from the anchorage without being in his territory ?

 

[Frayed Knot]

I don’t think it should be necessary to contact a HM before picking up a private (not visitors’) mooring for a few minutes to sort out a tangle, as we were, or even for a lunch-stop if prepared to leave immediately if the owner returns. When we had a swinging mooring we never had a problem with fellow boaters doing so & on the odd occasions when we did have to ask someone to leave it was always a pleasant, friendly interaction - usually involving a chat about that person’s holiday.
Whatever the perceived rights or wrongs of the situation there can never be an excuse for the sort of abuse this man habitually metes out; he is an absolute disgrace.

 

[Dee Bee]

I was planning on going to Orford week after next and this has put me right off.

 

[Bigplumbs]

I was planning on going to Orford week after next and this has put me right off.

Just go and if you encounter him tell him to go boil his head..... If is a coward in my view

 

[Ceirwan]

I had a night on a mooring in Orford last week, I called ahead of time (it took several attempts before I got an answer) and while I can't say the chap was the life & soul of the party, he was amicable enough, even getting me onto an up tide mooring so I had less of a row.

He did make his launch fast to my chain plates but it was flat calm so no bother.

 

[Slowboat35]

You shouldn't need to call repeatedly. If you don't get an answer after a call or two then you do what seems reasonable - and it isn't reasonable to subsequently get a bollocking for doing that. Some of us are short or single-handed and can't spend half an hour waiting for some busy "harbour-master" (at Orford?) or otherwise crotchety prima-donna to bother to answer the call.

 

[Ceirwan]

You shouldn't need to call repeatedly. If you don't get an answer after a call or two then you do what seems reasonable - and it isn't reasonable to subsequently get a bollocking for doing that. Some of us are short or single-handed and can't spend half an hour waiting for some busy "harbour-master" (at Orford?) or otherwise crotchety prima-donna to bother to answer the call.

Well I was single handed as well, fortunately not in the most literal sense and I still had one hand for the tiller & one for the phone. (Plus an autohelm)
Tbh if you can find a way to make a cuppa single handed you can make a phone call.

 

[Slowboat35]

Tbh if you can find a way to make a cuppa single handed you can make a phone call.

Nonetheless, as I already said...you can't make him answer it - can you?
Additionally there is no requirement to carry a mobile phone on a boat (or anywhere else) so it can't ever be cited as a necessity.

 

[Ceirwan]

Nonetheless, as I already said...you can't make him answer it - can you?
Additionally there is no requirement to carry a mobile phone on a boat (or anywhere else) so it can't ever be cited as a necessity.

I said I had to call a few times, presumably the first times he was busy, answering the phone isn't his only duty.

All I did was give my experience with the chap on here, as others have, good & bad.
You're right, you aren't required to carry a mobile phone, but then again neither are you required to carry flares, lifejackets & a number of other things that good seamanship still dictates you should carry.

Its 2021, no reason to not have a phone with you, you can even leave it switched off if you feel that strongly about it.
Also its not a necessity for them to give you a berth, they have no obligation to do so, and in general especially in the busy months, I feel its courteous to call ahead, even if its just 30 minutes notice. I'm glad I did so with Southwold because the place was full which saved me the hassle of turning up & there being no room at the inn.