Have a staycation, the Government, media and travel industry said. great, we always have a staycation in the summer…
It was all a very good idea for the many people who normally chuck bucket loads of money into a foreign holiday. That money has been fuelling a boom in house renovations, camping, caravanning and boating in all its forms.
Apparently, tent sellers virtually ran out of gear by August. Caravans and motor homes were greatly sought after and the boat market has been, quote, ‘extremely buoyant…’
All of the above led to a greater demand for bottled gas – even for home BBQ’s. The result was almost catastrophic for an industry long set in its ‘sedentary’ ways with a relatively well known summer need.
The Covid-19 pandemic stuck a spanner in those works though: the use of BBQs went up, increasing the demand for bottled gas. Companies like Calor apparently laid off staff or furloughed them. Then as the country opened up they couldn’t keep up with demand. They didn’t have enough fillers in their depots or drivers to collect bottles.
The greatest shortage seemed to be with the 4.5 kg butane bottles and the 3.9 kg propane bottles. For us, at one point, it was dire.
We began to obtain stores for cold meals…
We had already been eating ashore far more than we ever had before. It is relatively expensive and more often than not, the quality is decidedly under par. Whimbrel’s evening food is renowned!
Moored off Methersgate Quay, I was phoning stockists with telephone numbers fed from Christobel at our laptop. That was in the first days of August, having just changed to our spare bottle.
The Woodbridge Tidemill Marina had none. In fact they hadn’t at the time had a delivery since September 2020!
One marina told Christobel that they offered to take their empties to Calor. Calor so no: it’s illegal!
I found three 4.5 kg butanes available from Calor … in Orsett. The lady on phone didn’t know where Woodbridge was and just about knew Suffolk! They weren’t going to deliver…
We had the promise of a bottle from a gardening centre on the outskirts of Ipswich … a later call said they had three bottles delivered from a large order, but no 4.5s… They even offered to let me exchange an empty with one of theirs that I was told felt ‘half full’… Kind of them!
Leaving the Deben we stopped at Harwich before going to Pin Mill and onward to Fox’s Marina in Ostrich Creek. We like it there.
The big Morrison Store in Harwich had none, so, I called Fox’s Chandlery. Yes, they had some propane. Yes they would under the circumstances exchange a butane for a propane. Thank you…
The cooker we fitted to Whimbrel a few years ago could run on either gas without nozzle changes. A correct regulator was obviously needed! We decided to make the change complete for we both had memories of a winter sail when it was too cold for our butane bottle to feed the cooker – no hot drink!
As we neared the end of August, we popped into Tollesbury Marina. Bingo. They’d had a delivery of gas the previous day and had butane and propane in the smaller sizes. They too exchanged a butane for a propane…
The rest is now history.
We arrived home at the end of September’s second week with our first propane 3.9 kg bottle in use and a spare comfortably snuggled close to it…
The Royal Yachting Association did not mention any gas shortage during the summer at all: there were no news updates down the ‘wires’…
All they seem to have been interested in was the Olympic jamborees out in Japan. As laudable it was to celebrate Team GB & NI success, the ‘common’ sailor either day-sailed between food stops or didn’t go sailing: the waters were exceedingly quiet.
We met countless boat owners in search of gas. One friend didn’t have this problem – the boat is fitted with a modern diesel cooker.
I would have thought the RYA were just the organisation who should have been making remonstrations to the gas industry on our collect behalf. I
wonder sometime why I continue to be a member…
I have written to them…
Happy autumn sailing.