2022 Beccles Meet
Events > 2022 Events
The 2022 Beccles Meet was held over the weekend of 18/19th June. 10 Boats were scheduled to attend the meeting with 7 crossing from the Northern Broads on various days and times leading up to the event. The week preceding the Beccles event was very warm and sunny with 30C temperatures on Friday resulting in some of us, who had already enjoyed a few pre-meet up days afloat, took cover at Beccles a day early to find some welcome shade and a cool "watering hole". Friday therefore saw 4 Safari's (Audere, Free Spirit, Minnow and Moonshine) docked and in pole position for Saturdays event.
For the first time in nearly 10 years of Safari events, despite the very warm temperatures and sunny weather leading up to the event, Saturday started cloudy and overcast with drizzle, leading to more persistent rain showers during the whole day. This restricted opportunities for our usual outdoor catch up conversations to periods in between showers. The close proximity to Beccles town and poor weather provided an excellent excuse for shopping and browsing the local shops.
By around 13:00hrs, 9 of the 10 boats had arrived and moored up. The weekend experienced some particularly high spring tides and at one point the water was within 2" of overflowing the quay heading. Our 10th and final attendees, Harvest Moon from Geldestone, joined us much later in the afternoon having been prevented from getting under Beccles bridge (just around the corner to the yacht station), for some considerable time until the exceptional high tide receded.
In addition to the 10 boats attending we were also joined by Tony and Brenda who own a Safari in the Bristol/Avon area. They both spent an enjoyable and pleasant afternoon meeting other owners and checking out various fit outs, customisations and information on local boatyards and suppliers in anticipation of moving their Safari back to the Broads for a while.
Instead of dining al fresco as usual, Saturday evening was seen off on board our boats with options from a local Chinese takeway, Fish & Chips or galley fare due to the rain. Overnight on Saturday we were treated to a further dose of heavy thunder, lightning and more heavy rain.
Sunday was more in keeping with our event days starting off another week of very warm sunny weather. By 10:30 am most boats had left the yacht station with a roughly 50:50 split between those staying out and those returning home.
Heading up river from Beccles, most boats/crews decided on an inpromptu stop at Somerleyton as an overnight stopover leading to some hurried rafting up waiting for the "weekenders" to depart. At the same time, a mile or two further up river found the Herringfleet moorings totally empty! Sunday evening saw a spectacular orange sky sunset in stark contrast to the previous evening.