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About thirty years ago I met a family who were pioneers in this subject of self driving boats. I was walking along the towpath somewhere South of Knowle towards Hatton, when I heard a boat coming up behind me. The engine was set at a fair chatter and it soon caught up with me. I turned to see it was a hire boat from Birmingham, it was bowling along quite merrily, especially considering there was nobody at the back minding the waving about stick. I remember regretting that mobile phones with cameras hadn't been invented yet, surely there was a subject flailing around in the water somewhere, where could he be? I soon saw him, he wasn't drowning, he wasn't even wet. I could see him through the window as he slid past me sideways at over 4 mph happily munching his lunch. He certainly appeared to have mastered his knife and fork even if he needed more tuition in the bleedin' obvious when it came to navigation. Let's be clear though, no way was he endangering his life, he also had his wife and three young children sitting around him at the table. There were two generations here bound for the Pearly Gates. They hadn't gone far past me when fate stepped aboard and deposited the next lesson in canal boat management. "Unattended Boats Become Bored and Will Go Berry Picking". Almost on cue "Brummagem Ballistic" gently kissed the off side, and then brutally tried to climb a tree. Contra to this the back end displayed a fondness for the lumpy stone coping and demonstrating Tony Blair's First Law of Activity "If you're decided on action make sure it's spectacular in its effect on everybody". The back end jumped out of the water as the propeller's ears chewed on lumps of mineral towpath side. A loud bang from the under the water thrashing bit was followed by a deafening silence from t'engine. However an equally impressive display of female expression emanated from the cabin. It sounded as if Maria Callas herself had just deposited a saucepan of boiling gravy over her lap. By the time I caught up with them the Mister had surfaced from below and quite understandably wore an expression of total puzzlement as he slid down the thirty degree angled deck. Seeing me he shrugged his shoulders and asked me if I saw that? I held my hands out palm up, shrugged my shoulders and tutted. I commented that maybe his arms were too short for steering while eating his lunch inside. He thought about it, but defended his decision with "It was for only 5 minutes while I ate lunch, after all where could it go?" "Up a tree?" I observed. While food stained and crying children were being hauled onto the towpath by their Mother who was sporting a very fashionable ensemble of jumper, jeans, spaghetti and orange juice, it became obvious she had no desire to acknowledge me or even less the persistent whining of her husband. He was begging everyone in earshot to agree with him that the last few minutes were anything other than unexplainable. I continued my walk, and about half an hour later when I returned, they were no longer diagonally across the cut, the freshly scrubbed kiddies were hanging up to dry, she was ferociously reading a book and he was staring down at the running engine that was producing plenty of graunching from its drive train and oodles of nothing from under the counter. I whistled jauntily as I didn't stop.

A 3 am wake up call from our forward mounted carbon monoxide alarm this morning. Caused by the burning embers of last nights firewood. Be careful out there people. Install alarms if you haven't already, and check those batteries for those that have. Here endeth the lesson Time for bed.

I did a sample layout diagram a while back which may help: Some things worth mentioning are - There must be NO valve between backboiler top outlet and header tank vent pipe (v. important!!!). - The top of the gravity fed radiators should be as high as poss compared to the backboiler top outlet. - The heat output of the gravity fed rads should largely match the heat output of the backboiler, say at least 70% to 80% - If a pump is needed the cheap 100°C rated 'solarproject' type pumps are reported to work well. - The gravity fed rads can be near or next to the stove which allows more choice over where the heat is output to. - The incline on the pipes to the gravity fed rads is more about making that part of the system 'self bleeding' of trapped air. All that said backboilers are more worthwhile for off grids boats largely occupied 24/7 in winter, for partly occupied boats that some quick heat at the other end once or twice a day, there's also blown air diesel and propane heaters like Eberspacher and Propex.

This reminds me of my mother's visit to New Zealand House in London. You could go out on the flat roof where there was a viewing point with a fence or balustrade. She asked the concierge, "do people jump off here often?' 'No, Madam', he replied, 'only once'.

Try flexi hose either side of the pump connections as suggested by Rusty, but use enough to form a 360 loop. This will reduce vibrations going into the pipework. After I fitted a new pump earlier this year, mine's like this but screwed down to the well-supported deck above the bilge (not a bulkhead as yours is) using rubber washers. It's now quite unobtrusive, but any quieter than mine now is would be counter-productive as the first sign of a leak is often the pump repeatedly flashing up, so it's good to be able to hear it enough for that purpose.

I think finding ducks hiding under your table is a sure sign the wildlife has decided if you can't beat driverless boats then join them.

I’ve lived on boats since the late 50s until 18 months ago and worked them commercially for most of that time. So its been 24 hrs/day 365 days/year summer/winter day/night for some 60 years. Di slipped on a lock side and went in once a couple of years after we started - I dragged her out and stood her on the back to look after the boat while I worked the lock (well we had to keep on a-going you know). One of our sons also fell in when he was 4 or 5. The boat was moored and he tripped over one of the lines. He was furiously doggy-paddling towards the middle of the cut as he’d been warned of the danger of a propellor. Survival instinct cut in immediately, and his brain didn’t bother to tell him it was OK as the engine wasn’t running. My own only time was about 8 years ago and a bit like Meanderingviking in post 12. I stepped off the moored boat and promptly slipped on the wet concrete coping, fell back between the boat and bank in deep water and I found myself under the boat and disorientated. We’ve neither of us ever worn life jackets other than in locks on continental rivers where the lock keeper won’t work you through if deck crew don’t have them on. I’ve always felt lifejackets inhibit my movement, but the OP simply has to make his own choice based upon the degree of risk he finds acceptable in his life. People do drown - just not those of us who are commenting here.

My boat becomes self driving when I come out of the Three Horse Shoes pub. It does it far better on its own than me.

Oh no, you didn't!

If the bulkhead is acting as a soundboard then basically remove it from the soundboard or stiffen it up with thick n heavy ply seperated by rubber, so you basically have a large heavy base for the pump to sit on seperated from the bulkhead with rubber.

I don't think you really believe Eco fans work, do you.

Weighing gas bottles can be weighed very cheaply with a DIY arrangement. A balance beam ''used to be called a yard'' I think and can be rigged up on a homemade stand close to the bottle in the locker. The beam can be of any old length of steel or even timber. With the lifting hook in place at the bottle end and the counter weight tray a dangle at the opposite end.Find the point somewhere in the centre of the beam of perfect balance, known as the fulcrum. Once perfect balance of the beam has been found you can begin weighing things. Counter balance weights will need to be found to weigh your bottles and things. A friendly grocer, greengrocer or bank manager might oblige. Failing that just visit the supermarket and buy stuff of varying weights, like lots of 2lb bags of sugar plus 1lb bags of sugar, even a turkey or shoulders of lamb, then many other items of lighter weights like 1/4lb's packets of tea. Virtually all packages foodstuffs have their weight displayed on em somewhere. For fine accurate weighing some very lightweight items need to be bought too, like bags of peanuts, crisps, pork scratchings, ect ect, the choice is endless. Take this cargo of weights back to the ship and start weighing. Hoist up the beam up by its fulcrum, attach the hook to the gas bottle then keep loading the goodies onto the counter balance tray, begin with heavy items first like a 25lb Turkey, shoulders of lamb or bags of sugar. After a while the bottle will start to shift a bit, meaning that the beam is beginning to take the weight. At this point items of lesser weight are dumped onto the tray until the bottle begins to rise up. At this point it will probably levitate right up, fine and gentle removal and adding of light weights like the pork scratchings and bags of crisps. At some point a few hours later you should get the bottle and weights in perfect balance. Make a note of the weight of all the balance weights that created the balance. Take em off, lowering the bottle back down. Connect it up and run whatever gas appliance you want, a Morco boiler init in this thread. When completed and you've used however much gas you thought you might have, repeat the weighing proceedure all over again, noting the difference in weights of the weights used. The bottle should be lighter now, by how much depends on how much gas used, perhaps by a bag of peanuts or a few bags of crisps or a 1/4lb of tea. Anyway now the jobs done you can have a big eating and drinking orgy with all the weights. You can weigh all sorts of things with this homemade tackle, including yourself. To gain more head room for the tackle the beam can be hung by its fulcrum from anthing above it, a canal over bridge for example or even Westminster bridge on the Thames to weigh bigger objects like yourself.

Seems wasteful. I just put them on the kids and push them of the jetty and make a note of which floats.

A I said, fiendishly awkward. Step 1: Find your digital luggage scale. Step2: Realise you don't have one and go and buy one in Argos Step 3: Lift your gas bottle out of the gas locker and put it on the scale Step4: Realise the hose is too short so try to do it INSIDE the gas locker Step 5: Note the gas bottle weight and start the water heater Step 6: Run out of gas so go and buy a refill Step 7: See Step 5 Step 8: After 55 minutes of the test you run out of water Step 9: Cruise half an hour to the water point. Discover it is frozen so pour a kettle of boiler water over it. Step 10: Realise you don't have any water.... Give up and try another day

Just get a life you lot.

If it is, it's the same idiots saying it! If you fall off a motorbike it has more chance of making you an ex-biker than a real one and it's potentially the same for boaters, particularly as you don't swim. You should be prepared for it to happen to you, for example by wearing appropriate safety kit, and then do everything you can to make sure it doesn't. Incidentally, I've been in once and so has my wife - both when walking along the gunnels.

A couple of high tides and he will be moored ON his own land.

I had to smile at the comment about removing early payment discount as late payment is now not a problem. DER !!!

The link posted by BigCol is linked to his email address, so unreadable by anyone else. I got the impression that they weren't aiming to alter the global income from boaters, more asking suggestions how to alter the license fees payable by different types of boater.