A start.
On a Sunday morning it is interesting to stroll round by the fish wharves in Lowestoft and listen to the outdoor services and services on smacks, and note the intense earnestness animating the rough-looking seamen who are the speakers, and the respect with which they are listened to even by well-known rowdies.
We leave Oulton Broad in company with several barges, and it is a race between us to get to Cantley, on the Yare, in time for a regatta of the Yare Sailing Club. Our wherry is gradually left behind by all the barges, but they have to wait at Herringfleet Bridge on account of a train, and as we come up just as the bridge is opened we are again on even terms with them, and are third out of six as the procession files along the narrow Haddiscoe Cut. At Reedham we meet the contingent of trading wherries which have started from Yarmouth with the flood, and several yachts on their way to Cantley, so that as we pass the picturesque village of Reedham and turn to windward up the broad reaches of the Yare the scene is a very animated one. At Cantley it is difficult to find a mooring-place, and the northward bank is lined with yachts for half a mile.
After the regatta we can sail up a most interesting part of the river, by the pretty ferries of Buckenham, Coldham Hall, and Surlingham, exploring Rockland and Surlingham Broads in the dinghy, and so on up to Norwich, just below which city the riverside scenery is most beautiful.
The rapidly increasing popularity of the Broads has given a great impetus to the trade of boat-letting, and the agencies are too numerous to mention. It may be useful, however, to say that, just as Loynes has made Wroxham a well-known starting point, so Bullen, of Oulton Broad, has done the same by the latter water. He owns or has the command of a large number of yachts and barges, some of which are suitable for Holland. At Norwich Messrs. Hart & Son, of Thorpe, have a similar agency, and the fishing-tackle makers and secretaries of yacht and sailing clubs keep lists of yachts to let. An advertisement in the 'Eastern Daily Press' will elicit replies. Also, if any reader of this article chooses to write to me at Norwich, stating what kind of craft he wants, and enclosing a stamp, I will forward the letter to a suitable yacht agent. I will not, however, undertake to reply to any letter, because in one or two of my boys' books I promised to do so, and the consequence is I get a recurring crop of letters from boys in many parts of the world, which are excessively inconvenient to a busy man, although it would be unkind not to reply to them.
To sum up, the rivers of Norfolk and Suffolk, with Oulton, Wroxham, Barton, and Hickling Broads, are most excellent cruising grounds for small yachts and sailing boats; and as for racing, I really think that 'foreign' boats, if their owners would remember that light displacement and a gigantic spread of canvas are essentials, would have an excellent chance of lowering the pride of the local men. The power of quick turning is, of course, a sine quâ non.
