Richard T

Other options are Paul Barber at Sheet Stores basin on the Erewash, Kegworth Marine and Sileby Mill Boatyard on the river Soar. All have good reputations.

To fill Ratcliffe lock on the Soar you currently need both paddles - it only has gate ones- fully open and your boat shaft in the mitre of the bottom gates!! Or lean very hard on the top gates and get a wedge in the mitre. The bottom gates were meant to be renewed this winter but the floods stopped this happening, so we have to wait for the autumn for them to be done. Each lock on the Soar behaves differently sharing with GRP boats requires a lot of care!

Decent quality screwdrivers. I have a set of stubby metric spanners - they were an Aldi buy - they have proved to be very useful. Cable ties always come in handy for securing things. With a PRM gearbox I have made a wooden dipstick as its very difficult to read oil levels on the one in the box. Easy to make and keep with the 18mm spanner. I've attached the manual for a PRM150 in case there isn't one on the boat. Gearbox manual.pdf

Bumped any thoughts @David Schweizer or @dave moore?

Stainless steel tanks regularly fail at welds. They can flex when being filled. Does your tank bang and bong when being filled? If it does need to be replaced its not cheap. Ours was replaced this time last year. It entailed cutting out the cockpit floor, cutting up the old tank in situ, replacing with a polypropolene one. Moving filler location and breather, connect to existing water system, replace cockpit floor and repainting. The tank was £660, and vat took the bill to just under £2000. The replacement tank came from Goodwin tanks at Crewe.

Who might have painted the very battered water can, hand bowl and cabin block in these pictures? They are part of the display in the exhibition on canal boating in Loughborough. They are all on loan from the Leicestershire Museums service but no attribution is given. To my eye the hand bowl looks relatively modern but i could be wrong. The exhibition organisors would like to know who might have done the painting. Sorry about the quality of the photos but they are in display cabinets which makes taking photos difficult. Thanks Richard

Leicestershire County Records office have a collection of drawings by William Jessop for the construction of the Leicester Navigation. These include details of locks and bridges. I have a copy of the bridge details but not the locks. The locks are broad but the principles will be the same. The catalogue details are below.

That looks like Kimberley. I hired Lindsey in 1976 with a group of scouts.

Not easy to do =if it doesn't work be prepared for a big bill. Welds failed on our ss tank - I didn't get much change out of £2k for having it replaced with a rigid plastic one. To get the ss one out the sole plate of the cockpit had to be cut out, the tank cut up in situ, new tank(£660 +vat) fitted along with new filler and connections. Sole plate refitted and all repainted. Remember the tax man adds 20% to costs.

Our first hire was in October 1974 when we hired Larch from Willow Wren Kearns at Middlwich. This was and maybe still is a 50ft wooden topped boat sleeping 8. We were a group of 7 and took it to llangollen and back. It was powered by a 3cylinder Lister. Cabin heating was by a catalytic gas heater. Willow Wren at Middlewich subsequently became Middlewich Narrowboats which was run by Chris Cliffe and his wife for many years. Chris is still around living in Sandbach we met him about 3 years ago at Glascote moving a boat south, he was still wearing a Middlewich Narrowboats boiler suit! They had a fleet of wooden topped boats with steel bridge guards on the front. Overtime they acquired some all steel boats. From memory there were three 70ft 12berth boats - Oak, Beech and Sycamore - I have seen the latter fairly recently at Weedon. There was then several 50ft either 6 or 8berth boats, these included Larch, Pine, Cherry, Ash. There was also a camping boat Rowan. I have some photos of these boats which will need scanning. Others are on my Photobucket page which they now want a ransom to allow me to access them. The yard at Middlwich was distinctive with its canopy. Some of the wooden tops are visible in this photo. As I've said in another post hire boats from the 60's and 70's are poorly represented in the current fleet of boats. If a suitable one had come on the market a few years ago I would have bought it and restored to its hire configuration but I'm a bit too old to do that now.!! I've now found some photos of the wooden tops. The photo of Pine was taken after it had been sold and was moored on the Dee branch at Chester. Ash was on the K&A.

Tempting - if it had been a Willow Wren wooden top I would have had a look at it. What should have happened is that it should have been restored to as near the condition it was in when UCC had it as a hire boat. There is a definite gap in the boating history - early hire boats are rarely kept in their original layout and finish.

I went to the opening of an exhibition put together by the local studies team at Loughborough library this morning. Its called Where the Boatmen Dwell. It's quite interesting with photos and commentary. There some artefacts on loan from the Foxton Inclined plane museum and some from Leicestershire Museums. They include a very old and battered Buckby can and a hand bowl, No attribution as to the painters were given to these. I will go back and try and get some photos to post so that the forum experts can try and give one. If in town its worth spending half an hour looking at the exhibition.

This is the entrance to the Mira river in Cape Breton island. It is navigable for small boats for about 40km.

Yes it is Loughborough Town lock taken a few years ago.

Which navigable river does this swingbridge cross. The bridge has now been replaced as it became unsafe with a high level one. My other post might help you out