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Sorry - I missed a few pages - I had to go to the gents. So are we saying that a volocky should fill a lock as if they were pulling a pint, or are we saying that a barman should not pull the handle until we make eye contact with them?

Sorry it is late:

People, enough talk of dirty beer. Gin is always the answer!!

I think this has descended to the level of simple trolling now. This is the Canal World discussion forum. Like most people here, I am a lover of canals and canal boating. From that perspective, of course 600 miles of much-loved canals do not appear insignificant, and of course the choice of a boat that's designed to cruise those canals rather than coastal waters does not seem odd. You must be very well aware of that, and I can't think of any reason why you'd be pretending otherwise except that you get some sort of pleasure out of sneering at people and/or trying to wind them up. Anyway, Do Not Feed is the usual advice, I think. So I'll leave it there.

Good idea in theory, rubbish in practice. How many people say "they should all use the bus" meaning that there would then be more space for their own car, and they wouldn't have to use the bus themselves? As for your Holborn to Gas Street journey, this misses the point, as does HS2. It's not the inter-city part that takes the time, it's the travel to and from the station (ie the city driving). If I want to get from Stockport to London, it takes me ten minutes to walk to the local station, five minutes on the local train, then wait for the Pendolino (say ten minutes), two hours on that train, then however long it takes to get to my London destination on foot, tube or taxi - let's say half an hour. Just shy of three hours, if all goes well. Using HS2 that would only be half an hour quicker* overall, with none of the inconvenience of changing travel modes eliminated. I'd get half an hour less reading time on the train. I wouldn't get half an hour extra in bed, and the entire exercise would still take a whole day. I simply do not see the benefit, or the point, of HS2 to the rail traveller..

Your suggestion appears to be something like "I want to boat on the Thames / K&A but I cannot afford the prices- THEY should reduce the prices so I can afford it" I am sure there are people who would love to live in a 'chocolate box cottage in he middle of a rural village', but unfortunately can only afford to live in a terraced house in the middle of a city. If you are so 'unhappy' paying your £750 per month and never finding space to moor up, why not move to an area with more 'reasonable' rates, and plenty of overnight moorings available.

The forum appears to agree you'd be playing your cards right.

Being single-handed on a big, heavy (30 tonne) boat, I'm often amazed at how many revs and obvious white water at the stern that some narrowboaters seem to use to get their boats where they want them to go - when using lower revs and moving the boat a tad slower would usually do the job just as well. If I push my boat too hard in confined spaces it'll build up too much momentum, so unless I'm on a big open river everything's got to be done gently. This gentler handing utilises wind and current (if available). I think some people on smaller boats tend not to learn about it because they'd rather just get the boat where they want it by thrashing the engine in forward or astern

i have just over plated my 1936 using both stick and mig , stick for mild to old steel hull, i used 7018 low hydrogen rods as 6013 tend to burn to hot and will laminte / fracture and you have to peen for you life to destress welds , i carried out a few test prior to starting the job to get best match rods in a fracture test 6013 were very brittle whilst 7018 were very ductile , the new base to new side mig welded to save time as my boat is 21.6 mtrs long which is a lot of welding and normal modern day mild is fine with mig , mig in wind over 4-5 miles an hour you will probably get porosity unless you use flux cored wire , concave welding is bad mayby vertical downhand , should be convex , plate size depends on your pockets iv used 10mm base 6mm walls which i believe is the standard used on modern boats now but you could use 8mm depending how bad your base has worn / overplating fully weld , there are diffrent way to weld base you can place plates on floor fully weld top then place boat on to plates put sides on weld then lift v out underside weld overhead , i didnt have that option so on stands fitted base plates welded sides , then v out base underside root run 2 run then capping run full penetration , rather that puddle weld as the boat is 80 years old even though was only a few places where it was 4mm thick , i cut holes in floor welded tubes through to new floor then plated over to sandwhich old floor this allowed me to support the new floor and keep level underside , iv also put 50mm x 12mm flat bar around base to side wall to act as ware plate and triple up on welded joint , if you use stick you can get decent invertor welding sets for £200-£250 200 amp can use 3.25 or 4mm rods np at all

The last one I did I fitted two sliding bolts on the hatch, one each side at the back. Then two sliding bolts on one of the doors, one at the top into the slide and the other into the floor. The other door had a Yale-type nightlatch which locked it to the fixed door. It was secure, easy to access with a key from outside or by turning the knob from the inside.

Prob the worst of the worst. I can see when your out, I can easily remove, etc.

Whatever you do with locks they must be easy to operate from the inside of the boat. In the event of a fire you have a very short period to escape probably less than 3minutes.!!

Can you not remove the travel power and cabin alternator and bin their drive pulley gubbins, and just use the engines alternator with its original drive pulley which is behind the travel power and cabin alternator add on pulley instead, which is mounted in the normal orthodox fashion. Perhaps the larger output cabin alternator could be exchanged with the engines smaller alternator to operate a split charge relay to charge both engine and cabin battery banks . Or do you really need all that generation. Frankly I wouldn't have all that stuff hanging off the end of my crankshaft.

A good source of ply near Derby would be Brooks Timber which have a base very close to the canal in Dunkirk Nottingham http://www.brookstimber.com/

Doing anythingbelow the radar is fine provided should it all goes wrong, you suck it up 'own' and deal with the consequences. This woman seemed to want to rent out under the radar and take the higher level of profit, but when it went badly wrong expected the rest of us to bail her out.

I agree. One of only two southern breweries worth supporting (the other is Messrs Fuller, Smith & Turner of Chiswick). My Yorkshire Grandad again. Beer is a lot like cars -- there's no bad 'uns, just some better than others.

The meanings of words had different meanings to them (& me ) If you choose to S**t under the hedgerow that' your choice They were trying to earn a living from working the cut & trying to instill in the youngsters not to put any form of "junk or other wise in the cut" seems a shame "Joe Public is not taught the same.

Hi kida. All depends on your pocket for a welder, for slight rusty steel them Arc is best, if you can clean it back dam good them Mig is best as doing Arc upsdie down is anohter art that is not easy to do, never mind Mig upside down.. Thickness of steel you will want to use at a guess 4mm then i would get a good the best rig you can for the duty cycle, the longer cycle the better. A 200amp will do but for thicker then a 250amp but then you go to 3 phase for power, 200amp is pushing single phase supply at full wack. The bigger the amp of the rig the better your chance for a longer duty cycle I would look to spend over £500 for a good one, more than that then better still. Parweld and Portamig are good gear http://www.weldequip.com/mig-welders.htm

That is an awkward question as posed, simply because NO “enforcement” - as in direct legal action - has ever taken into account the reason why a boat does not have a licence [or certificate]; CaRT simply rely upon the lack of the licence/certificate to justify a s.8. Tony Dunkley’s case was specific as to the failure to abide by T&C’s being the reason for revoking the pleasure boat certificate, but even so, the reason was peripheral to their lodged County Court Claim, which was withdrawn in any event, later on. It only surfaced because Tony successfully challenged the Part 8 process and filed a detailed Defence. If we leave aside s.8 Claims, and ask whether there has been any “enforcement” [as in legal action] for alleged breach of T&C’s “on its own”, i.e. outwith an accompanying s.8 Claim, then the answer is a clear NO. While unilaterally imposed T&C’s have no force in law [so no direct penalty is imposable], those that incorporate byelaw provisions ARE enforceable through Magistrates Courts, but not a single breach of those has ever been prosecuted by CaRT. So the question as phrased leads to a misleadingly slanted answer; unquestionably alleged breaches of T&C’s lies behind virtually ALL s.8 cases, notably commencing with Paul Davies. The more specific question you pose as to whether action has been taken against a boater with a home mooring for breach of T&C’s, is likewise answered by the Dunkley example, for all that a distinction is sought between his situation and those on canals [for reasons that escape me entirely]. To summarise: nobody, with or without a home mooring has ever been “done” directly, for a breach of T&C’s; boaters who have allegedly breached T&C’s, whether with or without a home mooring, have been “done” by way of refusal or revoking of the licence/certificate because of the alleged breach. It amounts to the same thing in the end, for all practical purposes – certainly so far as the boater is concerned.

At last some sense

Obviously you tape them up separately so that they're not touching each other. In fact you could simply disconnect one of them, you don't have to have two wires floating around.

Yes, the good stuff is expensive but worth it. There are two main types available, one being made of very hard veneers which may be more suitable for your intended use and the other being made from gaboon which is a softer hardwood! more often used in boat building being more flexible, it marks easily until coated with a resin or similar. For panelling a steel door a quality birch ply would be ample and half of the cost.

So that is every boat then. I don't see why there should be bolts protruding to that extent the correct length bolt could be used.

Why is it an odd choice? In 2010 we sold our yacht which had the capability of going anywhere in the world and, in 2011, bought our narrow boat. I have sailed offshore since about 1977 or so, most recently sailing our yacht to Malta and back between 2006 and 2009. Since buying Fevre Dream, (45ft narrow boat), and doing the delivery trip from Barton Turns Marina, at the other end of the Trent and Mersey, to Stretford, on The Bridgewater, the furthest we have been is Moore in one direction, and Dover Lock in the other. I am happy that the boat is moored a ten minute drive from home, such that I can spend a few nights a week on it, in a leafy tree lined location, with ducks, geese, fish, joggers, cyclists, walkers, and so on. So, as you say, it is our choice, and definitely not an odd choice.

You could be on dodgy legal ground there. You have to have express consent - even from your Mrs...

I think a capstan is just a type of windlass as it is sometimes called a capstan windlass. Capstans have a vertical axis.

HS2 is daft. We should be building what we are going to need in the future. This will include extending the tube network so that the Picadilly line ends in Cardiff which will be a suburb of London, NW9467. The Northern Powerhouse will be The North London Powerhouse and will be converted to banks. The M225 London Outer Orbital will be a coastal road around England.

No. For the first 30 years or so of my boating life we just got on with it. Boaters tended to know what they were doing and thus weren't insecure and underconfidently needing to be "IN CHARGE!". Recently (last 20 years) that has changed, HOWEVER we still come across plenty of boaters (ourselves included) who see no point in seeking or giving "permission" for the next action in the normal sequence of events to start. So yes I do these days attempt to seek "permission" because I know of the wailing, screaming and sobbing that might occur if I don't. But lots of people still look blankly at me as I'm jumping up and down like Donkey in Shrek begging to be given permission to move on to the next step in the process. Sometimes I give up and just get on with it, otherwise we'd be there all day.

The demand is the easy bit of the equation. The solution is the difficult bit. Alongside a revolution in information technology there has been a doubling of rail usage over 20 years accompanied with increased road usage. Working from home and demand for travel are clearly not mutually exclusive. Forecasts for the next 20 years and beyond predict that trend will continue. Doing nothing is not an option; the question is 'what?'. Commuting needs are the subject of discrete localised projects - from Crossrail and Thameslink, through reopening or conversion of freight lines to new stations, longer trains and electrification. Such schemes are manifold and will continue. HS2 is about catering for increased long distance demand and the increased need for the movement of containerised goods principally from Felixstowe and Southampton. The Great Central may well have been beneficial in dealing with the latter but it would only be a partial solution as a core route from which many new dedicated freight spurs would be required. Judging by the difficulty surrounding building a new passenger line, building new freight lines is probably somewhere politicians won't go. I think we lose sight of how long ago the Beeching report was published. In hindsight there were some mistakes but in the wider context it closed a significant proportion of the network for very little impact on rail passenger numbers. The key feature of high speed rail in the UK compared to mainland Europe is that it is (on HS1) and will be (HS2 and HS3 if that ever happens) built on complete dedicated routes with new terminal stations in cities. This enables additional capacity on existing routes where it is most needed and that is a key feature in enabling enhanced capacity for commuter traffic. Bear in the West Coast Main Line was upgraded in the 2000s at a cost of £8.5bn (excluding lost revenue through disruption) at 2008 prices and did little more than cope with suppressed demand. There are two freight paths per hour in each direction from Wembley to Rugby through the day and they are full. The journey is also extended in time by the need to loop freight trains to allow passenger trains to pass. That literally adds cost to the price of goods. There will remain significant challenges for rail capacity even after HS2 and the risk of increasing levels of long distance commuting is a threat to freight expansion. However there is a much bigger gap in theoretical capacity versus demand for long distance commuting than conventional express trains and it is easier to combine commuter trains and freight trains in terms of timetabling. That's the challenge that faces politicians according to the evidence they have. The one point I would agree with strongly is that the biggest failing is that the UK is way too late in dealing with the challnge. JP

ebt is my least favourite variety of Sikaflex, probably because it it's very sticky when it comes out of the tube, sticking to the traditional wet finger, but sets harder than 221 or the (more expensive) 291i.

Bloody hell, a PC that draws more that a kW???!! Yes. Get a house...

Those stairs are now closed. there is a revamped bit about 20 yards nearer the town of wolverton - walk through there and it comes to the canal. if coming from the canal, moor by the new flats and walk over the big black bridge. Go over this, straight out to the main road, turn left and the station is 50? 100? Yards on the left, not far anyway.

No. My whole point, which you have ignored, was to try to avoid being sidetracked and to get a straightforward answer. Obviously, this is not what some people want as obfuscation is a lot more fun...

To return to the long-lost OP, I have now receiv2d a reply to my complaint: Cranfleet Lock Thank you for your email of the 16 July concerning your passage through Cranfleet Lock. Can I firstly apologise for the poor service you experienced. I quite agree with you, it is not a matter of opinion as to whether you need the skippers say-so before opening the paddles, it is essential and critical to the safe operation of the lock. We will speak to the volunteers concerned and address any training requirements to ensure they are acting safely. I am glad that your other experiences of our volunteers are good and so I hope this is a one off issue that we can quickly address. Thank you for bringing this to my attention and my apologies again that you had to. Regards Sean McGinley Waterway Manager

Strange attitude. It's not a case of bigger boats keeping the channel clear ( a myth imho ), if boats get smaller the need to maintain the canal properly diminishes, this has already been shown to be true. You might well have what you consider to be a deep draughted boat but loaded working boats drew a great deal more and over their full length when loaded. If the canals were still maintained to their original standard you would have water under your base plate rather than just mud and boating would be a great deal more pleasurable. Indeed it will take a lot of money to return the canals to that condition but that is only because of past neglect and once they are restored it will cost no more to keep them in that condition than it does to keep them as they are now. This would be to the benefit of all boaters not just wide beam and/or deep draughted boat owners. Also, if deep narrow boats are the only ones ''maintaining the depth'' they are effectively converting a broad canal to a narrow one which could be construed as damage, therefore their owners should have to pay for reinstating the wide channel. Keith Keith

As far as I am aware animals used in rodeos do so more than once, as a result they are quite likely to be enjoying themselves as they have experienced this before and know what is coming and that they don't get hurt/injured.

Your attitude to safety simply means that having you anywhere near my boat in a lock is an unacceptable risk.

Fortunately Alpha Batteries are somewhat more helpful: http://www.alpha-batteries.co.uk/12v-110ah-leoch-powabloc-tubular-gel-battery/ http://www.alpha-batteries.co.uk/media/catalog/product/g/t/gtp12-110_final.pdf

The comma is such an important punctuation mark, and I thought it obvious that by using one it was detaching the wrongness from the clarity. So; It is clear that you will stick to your view. I hold the view that your view is wrong, and I know that you will react if I say "you are wrong" rather than "I disagree with you" We are talking about safe operation of a lock. It ought to be obvious that safe operation is absolutely dependent on everybody who is participating understanding how the job is to be done. As soon as you have somebody who wants to do it differently, you have a danger. Clearly, the only group that actually matters is the group that is participating in an activity. The core of that group is the crew of the boat, and anybody who wants to be added to the group must play by the same rules. As you say, there are many ways to skin a lock that are equally valid. A disorganised mixture is not one of them. To take an example, we ascend a lock riding the front gate, you do not. If we arrive at a lock to ascend in this way, Bev will slow right down so as to nudge the stonework whilst I close the tail gates. Then I will go to the top gates, await a signal, draw half a paddle, check that the boat settles, await signal, draw the rest of the paddle, and repeat for the other paddle. You might well say that it is equally valid to ascend without moving forward, and wind a paddle. That is dangerous, because the steerer isn't expecting a paddle drawn AT THAT MOMENT.

FYI, I've been out pretty much every weekend and more since the end of March, mainly in the Marlow to Wallingford area, you are talking complete and utter rubbish. I get moored in Henley whenever I turn up, there are always spaces on the SRB moorings, I will concede that Marlow can sometimes be full, as can Goring & Wallingford, but if you know the river, and you clearly don't! there are alternatives. I've no idea where all these 'dumped' boats are that you refer to, unless you mean the boats on the council moorings which pay £55 a week for the pleasure, a good price IMO! And, yes, lets take Sonning, there are always plenty of spaces both above and below the lock on the TVM monitored moorings, it is you who cannot be getting out much. You seem to be trying to make a case to support your OP and it quite clearly doesn't stand up.

I've got a deep draughted boat thanks....and whilst I take your point that using a bigger boat might have kept the channel clear it's a fact that until recently no widebeam traffic used what may have once been a wide waterway. Unless theres a large injection of cash the return of these waterways to enable wide traffic to navigate safely just won't happen. As well as dredging there needs to be significant clearance of trees and other growth. The best that can expected is that enough deep narrowboats keep travelling to at least keep the depth. Unless of course widebeam owners decide that they will fund the works needed......

The T and M as the GU and such as the K and A are all too small for widebeams though I admit taking mine once on the bit you just mentioned What always makes me giggle is on this forum narrowboaters simply have no idea just how superior a boat in every way a widebeam is. Used on properly gauged parts of the system such as the Trent below Nottingham and the A and C etc widebeams are great. Funny thing is people who have never even been on one seem to think they can pass comment onto how they handle etc

We have 4 x 250w panels, & 8 x T150's + starter and BT batteries. (the T150's are 12 not 24) We are power hungry though, washer, fridge, freezer, lg screen tv and all the other electronic gagets that most folks have, although we don't use a hair dryer. I've limited myself to only having 4 electrical kitchen appliances...bread maker (in case we get froze in & I like homemade bread), slow cooker (which in hinesight I hardly ever use...we use the wood/coal stove as a slow cooker in the winter months), my food processer (I do a fair amount of cooking/baking), and of course my coffee machine Heating is via the wood/coal stove and on occassion we turn on the central heating, but this is not a daily occurance just when it gets close to being proper cold not that it shoud make any difference other then roof space, but we are a 10.10 WB & yes we still need to run the engine daily in the winter months, but the solar saves a heck of a diesel in the summer months Hope this helps

GOOD NEWS The painter has responded. He explained his situation and gave us a list of options and one of those options was a full refund and picking up the boat on Saturday. We have chosen to pick up the boat. I believe I stated many times in this post that on a personal level, I like this man. I do not think that his actions toward us while diabolical on the whole were intended as such. In my response to him I noted that my opinion of him personally has not been affected by this professional fiasco. It has caused me quite a few sleepless nights to have to push things to the extreme that we did in order to get a result. I would have loved it if he could have picked the job up and got it done finally but from his email this was not a likely prospect. I am very well versed in consumer and contract law. I was fully aware of the consequences should things go wrong. We purchased a home in 2015 and had multiple contractors in for the refurbishment and my standard practice for having any work performed that will cost over £1000 is to log on to companies house, see when the last accounts were filed and what those accounts have to say about the business. I also ask for insurance details. Part of my reason for choosing this particular person to paint our boat was that I was reasonably certain that he was not in financial hardship and his insurance details checked out. As this is part of my job and I have access to the information, not looking into these things beforehand leaves me more vulnerable than needs be. Judging from the other side of his canal business I was very certain that it would not end up with me losing £1900 if things went wrong. And as stated, I do not think this man is in any way dodgy. I think he bit off more than he could chew and didnt walk away when he could have because he truly wanted to turn it around. He is simply not able and simply loathe to tell us that. On a more personal level, that boat is not simply wood and metal clanged together so we can la tee da down the canal. My partner commutes Oxford to London every working day and we see each other for perhaps an hour a day. When we are on the boat, we leave work and the world behind and focus on one another. We went every weekend in the winter and it has made a significant difference to the quality of our lives together. Investing in the boat is investing in us. She needed a new paint job..... and she will finally get one.... a little later than planned. Crossing my fingers for Saturday. Keep us in your thoughts and if you are anywhere on the stratford/oxford canals and see a crazy looking boat, by all means wave...... Thank you all again so much for your advice. As I mentioned before, this is an invaluable resource for people that love boating..... but know very little about some aspects of it. Alison

I came to the UK 20 years ago May 29th from a country where customer service is very different. It took a while not to bring my foreign mentality into a situation when I found myself having problems. It is not the case that customer service is so bad here and great there, the difference is in the fact that you seem to encounter many more small businesses who are run on a much smaller scale than corporations. There has to be a different level of give and take when dealing with small firms. The "Customer is Always Right" mentality could drive a small business into the ground if the business owner simply rolled over every time a complaint is made. The thing about this entire situation that gets straight up my nose is the fact that we are frantic trying to find out what is going on and have reached out to this man many many times before it has come to this level of problem and he can not even be bothered to reply to us in any way. It makes us think of things as so much worse than they probably are. We have even given him a couple of chances to wash his hands clean of the entire situation and even that is ignored. I simply do not understand it. Truth be told, Id still sit down and have a pint with this man, I just would not entrust him to undertake work on my boat. He has been in business over 25 years and I have not heard a negative word about him which makes me think there is something else going on and you know, we would have worked with him to the bitter end if dealt with fairly and honestly. And unfortunately, I can not empathize with a situaiton I know nothing about. But, at this stage, its hard to be very understanding at all especially when we have brought up the fact many times that the lack of communication is our chief complaint. I am glad we are going to take her back on Saturday but boy I am dreading what condition i may find her in. Fingers crossed.

Is a zinc phosphate primer waterproof or would that need coating with something more durable? It is very easy to apply!!

Hi again, After a short delay, we're now at the boat-buying stage so we've researched and decided on our insurance. We've gone with Craftinsure on several grounds: * the policy fits our requirements in terms of the amount of personal effects and third party cover - 5 million makes sense nowadays * being able to read the sample policy on the website prior to purchase is a reassurance - unlike e.g. GJW where we couldn't find any small print to read before purchasing * it was quick and straightforward to get a quote, and then to purchase the policy online - unlike e.g. SAGA who posted out a quote, it wasn't available instantly online, and then to purchase you had to post back forms * some contributors above had used it for some time, and spoke well of their experience * and it was extremely competitive, especially as we went for the higher excess because we are not really interested in insuring (or claiming) for small amounts I hope our experience may help others to think through what would work best for them. We're not wanting anyone to blindly follow us. I would add, we have no connection with anyone in the insurance industry. We're just new boat owners. Hope that helps, and thanks to all the posters for your help.