Yacht gets wedged under UK railway bridge

Frogmogman

Well-known member
Joined
26 Aug 2012
Messages
2,122
Visit site
Not sure but 9' 6" rings a bell, beyond that you're into Special Types/Abnormal Loads.

I think width restrictions are only signed if it's less than standard maximum width of 8' 3" or whatever.
Yep. That’s the figure I’m aware of. 9’6” or 290cm.
 

AntarcticPilot

Well-known member
Joined
4 May 2007
Messages
10,555
Location
Cambridge, UK
www.cooperandyau.co.uk
I live near Ely, where there is a very low bridge under the railway line. About once a month there's a report of some idiot trying to take too high a vehicle through. The bridge is VERY clearly marked, with prominent signs, yellow and black stripes and in any case it's obviously low, and is very well known!

All the local van hire companies have an explicit insurance exception for damage caused by taking a van too high for the bridge through there.

You can't legislate against stupid!
 

Stemar

Well-known member
Joined
12 Sep 2001
Messages
23,742
Location
Home - Southampton, Boat - Gosport
Visit site
You can't legislate against stupid!
Ain't that the truth


As for the boat, I'd love to be able to afford one, but if I could, I'd have something more like this

maxresdefault.jpg


I think I'm allergic to the steam iron shape
 

Neeves

Well-known member
Joined
20 Nov 2011
Messages
13,133
Location
Sydney, Australia.
Visit site
Our Bridge was obviously built with considerable forethought and has never had the problems you illustrate - except that they never anticipated how much the traffic would grow, almost a century later. So they built a tunnel (actually 2 tunnels), to ease the pressure on The Bridge but forgot about the forethought. It is quite common for one tunnel to be blocked by some idiot in a truck ignoring the warning signs and they close the city traffic down in attempts to recover the over high truck. I think the most recent was a low loader with a device like a JCB on the back.

I say Our Bridge was built with forethought but it is too low for the latest rash of cruise liners - which may actually indicate it was built with forethought and they decided to ensure that over 7,000 day trippers would need to find someplace else to visit, like Venice :)

Jonathan
 

Snowgoose-1

Well-known member
Joined
2 Jun 2015
Messages
1,080
Visit site
There was a newly delivered boat near me that was having a fair bit of grp work carried out. Turned out it hit a tree whilst being delivered at night.
 

johnalison

Well-known member
Joined
14 Feb 2007
Messages
40,849
Location
Essex
Visit site
I hired a boat on the broads for a week back in the 60s. It wasn't a big one - 4 berth, maybe 25ft, but we had to get a pilot to go under that bridge. I can't believe the same doesn't apply now.
We used to hire Ring of Light motor boats from Herbert Woods. They were 36' and we didn't need a pilot for the bridge. I think that the rule was that only motor boats from HW could pass the bridge without a pilot, but other sailing boats were free to do so, as I often did later.
 
Joined
26 Dec 2001
Messages
66,651
Location
Saou
Visit site
I can remember a family holiday on the broads very early 60s and we definitely went under the Potter Heigham bridge in a largish motor cruiser without a pilot. No Idea where my farther hired it from or why he did because he had no affinity with boats whatsoever.
 

rogerthebodger

Well-known member
Joined
3 Nov 2001
Messages
13,579
Visit site
Last year we had a LPG tanker got lost in out town and went under a low rail /road bridge and damaged the PRV on the top of the tanker. The LPG started to leak and then exploded killing several people who were looking at what was going on. The truck driver was trying to get people to move to no avail.

When we moved our boat from cape town to Johannesburg one of the bridges was lower than normal and we hit the underside of the badge scraping one of the steel hatches but didn't get struck. Good job I had removed the sliding hatch otherwise it would have been knocked off the boat
 

The Q

Well-known member
Joined
5 Jan 2022
Messages
1,919
Visit site
I hired a boat on the broads for a week back in the 60s. It wasn't a big one - 4 berth, maybe 25ft, but we had to get a pilot to go under that bridge. I can't believe the same doesn't apply now.
Most boat yards still do require a pilot for both Heigham bridge and the Bridge at Wroxham. There are always a number of tourists who end up losing their deposits having ignored that and attempted the bridges without a pilot.
The older boats from HW, were narrower, allowing more use of the limited height.
modern boats it's the width of the roof that that causes the problems, hitting the corners on the arches.
The original Herbert woods " Queen of Light"
1714933472940.png

Today's Herbert Woods "Queen of light"
1714933536939.png
 
Top