mayalld

Oddly enough, I saw Captain Birdseye, and Mrs Birdseye out and about on the Macc today, and he said that there was recent speculation that I might have sold up. As Mac has mentioned, my wife died (7 years ago now), and that reduced my boating a bit and my posting. My boating from there on in was more focussed around going out at the same time as my daughter, Elizabeth, on her boat, but the end of her marriage in 2021 curtailed her boating too, whilst she got back on her feet. She has now sold her boat, and we are ALL getting back out on the canal on Mr Jinks in various combinations of me, daugher, her new husband, her children and stepchildren. The crew that frakhn saw would have been me on the tiller, and the teenage grandchildren working the lock whilst daughter had a nap below. Actually, probably just Nick (tall lad, 17 years old with long blond hair), because Tim who is 13 would have had some excuse for not helping! As I am back out there boating, and its lost none of its appeal, I will probably be back on the forum. Now, I've been out for a fortnight, so there is a plethora of things that I might want to comment on!!

Daughter's boat is fitted with an Eastham Maxol BG21 cooker. The hob burners are a strange construction of ring, crinkly ring and top plate. Anyway, one of them has delaminated into 3 component parts. Is there anywhere I might source a replacement part?

Daughter's BMC 1.5 suffered a leak on the final leg of the spill rail (final injector back to fuel filter), which has been given a temporary fix, but it won't pass a Boat Safety. Apparently, rather than trying to replace and crimp a new pipe, the best option is to buy a new spill rail. However, the only one that comes up on Google; https://rimmerbros.com/Item--i-ERR1259P--SelectedCurrency-1?gclid=CjwKCAjw_JuGBhBkEiwA1xmbRUPQo5c6xgcxBU9MrkhA_o9OU3tZxofCVIFu2b2ASTEuHEJ1t1QwkBoCsHEQAvD_BwE I suspect isn't compliant. Can anybody point me at a source of a spill rail that will comply? Thanks

I was there, and really not impressed. There was a lot of hand wringing about Coombs feeder, and no acknowledgment that they had known for years it didn't flow well, and that the culvert had probably collapsed. They are (18 months down the line) talking to EA about being able to draw the water that is going into the Goyt instead of Toddbrook into the canal from the Goyt. Sorry to be picky, but many people asked about this 12 months ago, and were dismissed. I don't believe the answer to my question that they have been trying to get this supply for as long as they claim. They are trying to make out that they are wonderful for all the works done. Works that have been neglected for years. And now, we have an emergency stoppage for a culvert problem in Macc. This is the same attitude to bodging repairs that we saw year after year in Bollington. This culvert had an emergency stoppage in November/December 2018. Clearly a proper repair was not done then. Between wasting all the water through the canal bed at Bollington, and failing to maintain reservoirs, the boaters up here have seen their boating curtailed EVERY YEAR since 2016 by emergency stoppages of some kind, whether Bollington threatening to breach or running out of water, or the farce of Marple locks closing within a day of opening. What can they offer us, more of the same for the next 3 years. No, it means that they have no water whether the blockage is sorted or not.

I'm afraid that I have to disagree. This was not an unavoidable accident, and the narrative of "they were all pushing each other in, and there was nothing untoward, lads will be lads" is quite simply wrong. They were all engaged in what was pretty stupid behaviour, and this resulted in a death. The guy who died was stupid. Those pushing their friends in were stupid, the skipper was stupid. He has placed himself in charge of a vehicle, and has not exercised proper attention to the responsibilities that this brings. My view is that this is gross negligence manslaughter.