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In East Anglia the Norfolk Broads form a
separated and isolated network of lakes and rivers, connected to
the sea at Yarmouth and Lowestoft by the rivers Yare and
Waveney. Small coasters can penetrate 30 miles inland to
Norwich, but the remaining seventy miles of navigable waters are
the preserve of thousands of pleasure cruisers and the last two
Norfolk 'wherries' in commission.
Wherries were the indigenous trading craft of
the Broads, all built to a similar pattern, but in a variety of
sizes. Usually clinker built, with overlapping planks 'clenched'
together to make them water tight, they were shallow-draft
broad-beam barges, driven by a single loose footed gaff
mainsail, so darkly tanned as to be almost black. The unstayed
mast was hinged above deck level in a tabernacle mast box so
that it could be lowered back onto the hatches to pass under low
bridges. It was winched up again using a pulley block on the
forestay but to make it easier the bottom of the mast was fitted
with a massive counter weight which swung down through a trough
in the foredeck until it slotted into the base of the mast box.
A few were eventually motorised, but the
majority remained under sail until commercial wherry traffic
finished in the 1950's. Today just two remain, the Albion
operated for over fifty years by the far-sighted Norfolk Wherry
trust, and the Maud, finally sailing after a long private
restoration. In addition there are still a few pleasure wherries
sailing the Broads, boats built in the traditional way with the
traditional rig, but fitted out as elegant pleasure cruisers.
These too are a traditional pleasure to see. |
| The fenland waterways form a network of
rivers and artificial water channels that drain vast areas of
low lying eastern England into the Wash and the North Sea. They
run from Cambridge and Bedford in the south to Lincoln in the
north, with the River Nene providing a westerly link to the
inland narrow boat system at Northampton. The Lincolnshire
waterways of the Witham tended to favour a style of barge like
the Yorkshire Keel (q.v.) but the more southerly areas developed
the idea of trains of smaller lighters, working together as a
gang. They could be towed by either horses or tugs and were
steered from the first boat of the chain by a massive pole
projecting from the bows of the second one.
This 'bowsprit was therefore something like a
tiller, with the whole of the second boat acting as a huge
rudder, whilst the remaining boats in the gang trailed along
behind. It sounds like hard work and rather clumsy, but it
worked well in narrow channels, through a variety of lock sizes
and around sharp junction corners. Gangs of wooden fenland
lighters were in traffic until 1945, whilst longer gangs of
steel lighters working behind motor tugs were still employed in
the sugar beet trade in the 1960s. |
Norfolk
Wherries. 
