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Sorry to be harsh but this proposal is utterly selfish, I would have thought better from the OP. Lots of us would love to go cruising but we aren't. Non-essential travel has been ruled out by the government - this is quite clearly non-essential travel. This is a classic case of entitlement and 'the rules don't apply to me'. And you say you're an expert in disease control??? So let presume you already have the virus but don't know it - how do you propose to get yourself from Goole to Ripon without touching anything on the way or once you get there? Using the excuse that we've been told to stay at home and therefore you can move about like this because your boat is your home is appaling pedantry. You know damn well that's not what the advice means and you're using a technicality to try and dodge round the rules. The 14 day rule has been relaxed for a reason - it's to try and prevent all non-essential boat movements, but allow boaters to still access vital services. People are dying because of selfish attitudes like yours. I'm frankly disgusted.

LONG AND SHORT OF IT, FREE REPAIRS. After the worst of storm Ciara, many elderly, physically impaired, students or low income people, can't afford to replace their covers when they are storm damaged, leaving their boat less secure and colder. So for the rest of this week we are offering FREE small cover repairs, to anyone in this demographic who may be struggling, and have to decide between bills or safety/warmth. This shouldn't be happening, so we will try and get as many covers repaired this week as possible. All we ask is you call us to arrange and then bring the cover to us. Our company is at a size where we can just afford to give a little back, and that's what we intend to do. Please spread the word as we will financially and physically only be able to do this for about a week, while we are unable to get out onto the boats due to the conditions. After that the bad weather should start to decline and we can get back out on the road making new covers. Would also like to thank Midland fencing and aggregates who initially gave us the idea. If you like our page on facebook then more people will also see this post. SHARE, SHARE, SHARE LIKE, LIKE, LIKE. www.kinvercanopies.co.uk 01384 394469

The dominant group will always feel victimised by minorities doing things that don’t include them. Being pro gay isn’t anti straight. Just like being pro Black isn’t anti white. They feel left out. I call this a taste of their own medicine. A group of gays is seen as a slight to them in some way hence the need to say “why can’t you just do what the rest of us do” (aka conform and submit). We aren’t the rest of you. It is types like this who make us make a point of our differences. I recall once someone saying to me, as though I should take it as a compliment that “you’re not really super gay” as though being gay were a bad thing. I’d be happy never to mention who I sleep with or what I do behind closed doors ever again. I agree, I don’t think we are special. I have heterosexual friends and mix with them and never does who we sleep with come up in discussion (probably how many heterosexuals prefer it). But they understand and empathise with why I need to find others who are gay. Because guess what? Most people aren’t. I could misinterpret a situation with a man and end up in hospital or worse, dead. Attacks on gays are on the rise. I don’t attend Pride or get involved in the politics of the LGBT. But I don’t, continually, proclaim my lack of understanding of such things as though it contributes any value to the discussion which is being done in this very thread. Calls of “I don’t understand X, Y or Z” just highlights your ignorance. It is 2023. You have all the information at your finger tips. How about we drop the “I don’t understand why they congregate” façade and say what you really mean? Gays want to meet other gays and have sex, surprise surprise. Clutch your pearls elsewhere. It’s so bloody tiring. I hope OP does find other boat folk who are gay and gets a chance to connect with them. I know I’ve thought about it on my travels as a solo gay vagabond boater. Seeing a rainbow flag sticker in a boat window makes me relaxed because it signals to me they’re my sort. I know this may be novel to other people who dONt UnDeRstANd but it’s small gestures and signs like this that make me feel comfortable in a world that wants to shut me up, hide me away or, worse, blend in.

It is very sad that this chap lost his life and I think it shows up the forum in a bad light that the thread has degenerated into a discussion on his status and pension income . The guy has lost his life let's show some respect Haggis

If you are travelling down to Uxbridge, I would recommend that you forget about using marinas to refuel and instead make use of the excellent fuel boats. These are operated by real enthusiasts, the majority of them on that stretch trading under the umbrella of "Jules Fuels" after Julia Cooke who started the business but is herself I gather Semi-retired, (not that that stopped Jules from refuelling our two boats at Braunston recently!) Different boats ply different stretches, but whether you encounter Ryan, Nick, Andrew or anybody else you wll get first rate service, and a decent price. Keep them trading - they can often get to you in poor conditions, when you would not ant to be venturing out yourself. They deserve our support!

Poster A: I'm thinking about getting a narrowboat, and I was wondering- will it be ok if I do <X> thing? Poster B: What? You want to do <X>?? What a ridiculous idea! Ridiculous and stupid. You're such a newb that you dont even know how stupid and ridiculous you are. Bah. Poster C: Well we've been doing <X> for the last 5 years, and we saved a fortune on llama food- we wouldn't do it any other way. Poster B: Then you're as ridiculous and stupid as him, and its literally a miracle that you're even alive. Bah. Poster D: Now look here, I've been boating since 1825, and my old skipper made us do <X> twice every day- never did us any harm, I can tell you. Poster E: What nonsense. We've been boating since before they invented boats. We only thought about trying <X>, and the boat sank immediately. Poster F: I can guarantee if you dont do X twice a day, you will be kidnapped by aliens and probed in all sorts of places. It definitely happened to an old mate of mine on his way back from a New Years party. Poster B: Bah. Poster G: Look at the typical entitled newbie, coming here telling us he wants to do <X>. How bloody dare he. Poster H: OMG, he only wants to go and do <X>. Poster G: Look here sonny, I've been living on narrowboats since the Cretaceous period, and I never heard of anyone who did X without having major problems afterwards. But no, you know better dont you? Well you just go ahead. You do <X>. Go on. I dare you Poster I: <X> is for losers. You should try doing <Y> instead, it will be much cheaper and easier, and you wont end up on an alien mothership. Poster L : I think you'll find <X> is no longer permitted under the Official Regulatory Regulations Act, section 75 para 403 (Oct 2021 edition), since the precedent set by Squiff vs Terrapin in 1707, thus: Any boater who does <X> will be liable for a fine of twenty squillion pounds and horrible painful death by alien torture. Poster M : Well I'm not stopping doing <X>, sod what the rules say. Poster N: Well then you're no better than the rule breaking newbie, coming here posting your fancy posts, thinking you can flout the rules that we've all followed since the birth of the Universe. Poster A: Did you say Llamas? <End of thread>

And most profuse apologies to the person who retied the grey/red/black boat near Brinklow, presumably after it came adrift while I was away last week, leaving one of their own pins to cross-pin my bow line. It's a fairly new boat to me and I hadn't got round to buying another couple of pins to supplement the mooring hardware that it was sold with. No excuses, I knew it was iffy mooring on such a shit bit of towpath, and I shouldn't have on just two lines and two pins. It was stupid of me to chance it. If you're on here and read this, can I: Give you your pin back? Offer you a beer/whisky by way of apology? Little things like these are one of the things which make the boating community so special, in my humble opinion. Thanks again.

In case anyone is interested... Just over a week after leaving hospital with 7 days of antibiotics I am still not 100%, don't get me wrong I am not ill as such just tired and not quite right, at least I am able to do a the normal day to day stuff as long as I take my time, anyway I've been signed off for another week and hopefully that should see me right. I have been spectacularly unlucky considering how many people live, work and play around canals but it's certainly worth keeping in mind if you get a fever after contact with the water

As many of you know my 7 year old rescue GSD died unexpectedly early last month. Having tried unsuccessfully to get another rescue dog from various rehoming centres, always because they are unhappy that my garden backs onto a canal without a 6 foot plus high fence, we bought a 9 week old red fox Labrador pup. Welcome to the wonderful world of boating Sam, you have BIG pawprints to fill.

Woke is a term used in an attempt to denigrate anyone who has any empathy or sympathy with those in less favourable circumstances than oneself. It had to be invented after the term "political correctness" became correctly understood to be an attempt to slander anyone who tried to speak or behave with concern for others, rather than behaving as if the only worth any person had was equivalent to their economic function, or the advantage that could be gained from using them as a thing, rather than a person.. Such mealy mouthed euphemisms are used by those who are so ashamed of their own attitudes that they need to find incomprehensible language to cloak them in, realising that should they actually voice these views, they would be correctly subject to universal condemnation. You normally find them used on the internet by those hiding, quite understandably, behind pseudonyms.

Would it help if I drove to you tomorrow A.M. FOC and tried to help? I will need to know if you have a jump lead or a pair of them aboard. Ring 01189874285 today if you want to accept.

Using a horn at every bridge or blind bend would be, pardon me for saying it, ridiculous. The noise would be endless , and if anyone expect me to hear somebody's horn over a Lister thundering away six feet from my ears they're just daft. You just bear in mind you may meet people at these places, though you rarely do, and are prepared to whack the thing into backwards. At a sensible speed you've got all the time in the world without making a great din about it. And sometimes (usually, in fact) the correct side of the canal is in the middle, so you're bound to be fairly close to a moored boat. If you've got a problem with passing boats, you're probably moored up too close to a bridge or a bend yourself (not you personally - generic you). And sometimes, if someone is moored up in the middle of a three mile line of boats (eg Golden Nook on the Shroppie), you lose the will to live at tickover and think that anyone who is daft enough to moor in that kind of place should expect people to pass at a normal cruising speed!

Given that most people who claim HB are actually in work, I suggest that the snide comments be better aimed at those who have created a society that allows somebody to work a full week and still not be able to pay their rent.

Welcome to the forum. I can say this without knowing you as everyone is welcome to the forum! If you are asking about a problem, the following thoughts may be useful: There are some very good technical experts on here who are usually happy to offer advice, but they do need sufficient information to work on. After you have typed in the basic details, sit back and ask yourself, "what have I assumed they know?". For example, if you are describing an engine problem, have you said what type of engine it is? Our experts not unreasonably get tired of saying please give us the whole picture not just the crisis element, over and over again to each newcomer. Pictures are usually helpful where possible. Ok, you've communicated the problem. You will get a variety of responses. Some will just be welcoming you. Some will offer simple suggestions of the obvious - they are keen to help because they feel for you, but they don't have the technical knowledge. Some will be experts and will offer precise advice. And, rarely, somebody will respond who is technically au fait but wrong. The other experts will usually help to identify these. And some will make fun of your problem, or the solutions offered, or anything really. This is likely if you accidently drop an amusing typo into your text. This is an attempt to lighten up the forum and not aimed at you personally. Don't take it to heart, just ignore it. You will probably take some action in response to the suggestions, which doesn't completely resolve the problem. Now is the important bit. The temptation is to relay lots of new information about the problem without answering the questions raised by your helpers. This hacks off the helpers who get tired of saying "tell us about the …" repeatedly to the same poster. Don't get offended, many newcomers do and then leave the forum. Just provide the information or explain why you can't. If you are working on getting the info, say so. Finally, you will solve the problem, possibly with the help provided on the forum, possibly with 3rd party help. Please come back to the forum and let us know how you did it. We do like to know the outcomes, and sometimes the forum learns from the result. The forum is not overly judgemental and will not jump on you if it was something silly you did. We have all committed that sin on our boats at one time or another. Happy boating!

Yesterday we handed over our beautiful boat to her new owners. A very sad day as I am not ready to accept that I am no longer a boater. Regretfully, busy jobs and increasingly frail, unwell and dependent parents meant that we were not going to be able to get away on the boat much (or for long periods as we have been), and we could not justify hanging on to such an expensive luxury if we weren't going to be able to make use of it. It is not an exaggeration to say that I have had the happiest times of my life on the boat and it has renewed my love and appreciation for the UK. I know the network is not perfect, and is in need of quite a bit of TLC, but I have enjoyed every single day of my boating life - have seen the most extraordinarily beautiful scenery and made some wonderful friends. Boating has enriched my soul like nothing else ever could and I am so grateful that I had the chance to experience it. Last month I celebrated the 10th anniversary of my bowel cancer diagnosis and I hope the next decade will see me back in my true home on the water. Hubby is giving the new owners a day of cruising/helming training today and if you see NB Aventine out and about with her new owners please make them feel welcome. I just wanted to say a big thank you to all on here for everything I have learnt about boats and boating.

There seems to be a growing number of people who contribute to this site who express the view that certain canals should be closed, and maybe are a waterways equivalent of Doctor Richard Beeching. All those people who campaigned for waterways restoration schemes are having their combined voices drowned out by those who say "why bother?" as well as "close down the expensive waterways and return them to the decaying world of the disused navigation." The latter option may suit ecologists whose primary concern is the preservation of the habitats of endangered creatures. The modern reality of keeping open navigations, where repair of the infrastructure is part of the problem. Costs for staff, materials, and maintenance have been part of these equations since the time of the navigations being built. however. It is now part of the challenge to find sufficient funds to keep. the network in order. The growing interest in getting more miles of waterway back into use has been a goal of many enthusiasts. Those that gave their time to restore waterways such as the Ashton and the Caldon were part of a generation that cared and there is now another generation of those that care giving their time to help restore the Lichfield and the Montgomery. So there a battalion of those that DO bother and hopefully will continue to do so!

Corruption is a serious allegation, and on the basis of what you have said here you don't appear to be able to substantiate it. On the first point, the parking of the van in apparent breach of lease conditions is not a matter for CRT, neither is the verbal assault by a CRT employee in his own time. The former you should take up with whoever manages the roads and parking round your apartment, and the latter is a police matter. On your second point you have no idea what action CRT may (or may not) be taking against the owner of the now sunken boat. It may have been abandoned, in which case CRT could be having difficulty tracing the owner. In any event they have procedures to follow, and if the owner does not reclaim it, CRT will eventually remove it from the water. An admin charge to refund the balance of your licence is normal, and no way fraudulent. CRT incur admin costs in refunding which they wouldn't have incurred if your licence had run its term, and it is reasonable for them to recover these. If you had bought a shorter duration licence in the first place, knowing you were going to sell the boat, you would have paid a higher unit cost anyway.

I wrote this elsewhere but as the same questions pop up regularly I thought it might be an idea to post it here. I don’t intend this to be an exhaustive in-depth ‘instruction manual’ which covers all aspects of marine battery charging, there are already many web sites and books which attempt to do that. Rather, this describes, in pretty broad brush strokes, my opinion of how to approach the matter while taking into account your boating style. It’s also not written with substitute examples (like buckets for batteries) but with real products that you may have on your boat.While I’ve tried to avoid being overly technical whilst describing what is a highly technical subject, there are nevertheless mentions of volts and AmpHours here. Despite that, I’ve intended it to be reasonably light reading for those with a little knowledge of the subject yet possibly containing some nuggets of useful information for those who know the subject quite well. It's also worth pointing out that there is no such thing as 100% charged; by the very nature of its chemistry a battery can never get there. You can always squeeze just a tiny bit more in. However I will refer to 'fully charged' as meaning "as charged as practical" !Please read the couple of safety points at the end of this post. It’s more than possible that I’ve overlooked something or made errors in which case I’m sure you’ll let me know . So, here we go.Battery charging is a topic that generates almost more discussion on any boating forum than anything else. This article tries to set out the basics for keeping your batteries healthy and happy, but can only be an introduction to such a complex business. Let us first understand the problem. When sitting in the cabin with no engine or generator running, you are consuming power from your batteries. TV, radio, lighting, pumps, phone chargers etc. all use power. Now, if you cruise for a number of hours the following day then it is possible, depending on how many hours that your engine is running, that your alternator will have replenished the lost charge by the time you moor up for the evening. Then you start the cycle again.In the summer a good solar installation can take care of some or even all of your charging needs (depending on the sunshine and the size of the solar panels). In the winter solar will not achieve this. In fact you will experience days or even weeks where the solar contributes virtually nothing at all. Wind generation is of even less value.If you require extra battery charging then the solution is therefore a mains battery charger. What type, how it is used, and how it should be configured is covered in the following sections.Before we get to that, let us first understand what a modern, microprocessor controlled battery charger does. All modern battery chargers have three basic stages. Marketing departments will sometimes advertise 4, 5, or even 6 stages of charging but that is purely so they can make their charger appear superior to the competition. For a straightforward recharge of discharged batteries there are only three stages. (Equalisation or Desulphation are not a charge stage, they are a maintenance stage). So, what are these three stages?1. Bulk Stage. This is when the batteries are at their lowest SoC (State of Charge) and will 'demand' the maximum output from the charger. All chargers are categorised by their maximum current rating (20A, 40A etc) and during the Bulk Stage the current will be at this maximum while the voltage slowly rises up to the preset maximum (typically 14.4 to 14.7V, depending on battery type and internal chemistry). This stage is sometimes called "Constant Current". Note that the size of the charger (its maximum current) should be chosen to suit your usage, the size of the battery bank and the battery type. How this is arrived at is outside the scope of this post.2. Absorption Stage. The batteries have now reached a higher SoC (typically around 80-85%) and are gradually demanding less and less from the charger. The voltage remains at the preset level (typically somewhere between 14.4v to 14.8V) whilst the current slowly reduces. This stage is sometimes called "Constant Voltage". This stage should continue until the batteries are very close to 100% charged.3. Float Stage. Depending on your charger's float voltage this can be considered to be similar to the Absorption Stage inasmuch as the voltage is constant, but the voltage is now reduced to around 13.6V (again, preset according to battery type and internal chemistry) in order to treat the battery gently and to slowly bring it to a fully charged state whilst simultaneously countering self-discharge. Some chargers, however, have a much lower float voltage of only around 13.25V. If yours is one of these then float should be considered as a maintenance stage because it will not charge the battery, only keep it at its current state of charge.Self-discharge is where a charged battery will slowly lose its charge if left unattended.How a battery charger should be used and configured depends largely upon your boating style, which is discussed below.There are three main scenarios for using the batteries which will be taken in turn.If you are off-grid with no access to shoreline If you never have an opportunity to plug your boat into a shoreline and solar/wind is insufficient then you are reliant on either the engine alternator or a TravelPower or separate generator to feed an on-board charger. Whichever of these two methods you use (engine or generator), you will be limited in how long you can run it. CRT licence conditions do not permit the running of engines or generators for charging purposes outside the hours of 8 am to 8 pm and in any event, it is highly inconsiderate to spoil the peace of an evening on the cut with engine noise. Besides, why add wear to the engine and use fuel any more than is essential?Note that thanks to something called Charge Efficiency (don't worry about it, just accept this), more energy needs to be replaced when charging than you took out when discharging (by a factor of around 10-20%). It is impossible to tell from a simple volt meter when the bank is fully charged. In brief, you will need to monitor either the specific gravity (relative density) or an ammeter to know when it is safe to stop charging. This is particularly pertinent to off-grid boaters who for reasons of noise and expense of fuel do not wish to charge for hours on end when unnecessary.If using the SmartGauge to monitor your batteries, be aware that it is not as accurate when charging as discharging and therefore continuing charging for some time after it shows 100% may be advisable. If using a monitor that contains an ammeter, you need to watch the current flow into the battery bank. It will start very high during the bulk phase, then tail off during absorption. When it has either stopped reducing over a period of an hour or reached 1 - 2% of the bank's capacity, then little will be achieved by continuing charging. So for a 400 Ah bank, for example, you should aim for a "tail current" of 4 - 8 amps if it is achievable.There is however a problem with most (if not all) battery chargers. When charging with a generator and 'mains' battery charger it is very important to note that many chargers switch to float voltage much too soon. This is because the designer was imagining them being used on a never-ending household mains supply, and switching to float early treats the batteries gently at the expense of charging time. An off-grid boater needs the opposite; he needs the batteries to charge as fast as possible so that he can switch off his generator as early as possible. Ideally, an off-grid boater doesn't want the charger to ever switch to float; simply continue at absorption voltage until the tail current indicates that the bank is fully charged. Note however that this requires the boater to be vigilant. Continuous charging at the Absorption voltage once the batteries are charged will irreparably damage your batteries.Some chargers permit the user to configure the settings to a large degree, and I would advocate, where possible, that an off-grid boater should set the float voltage to be the same as the absorption voltage - somewhere in the order of 14.4V depending on the make of battery. It is important to repeat the advice that if you do this you must be vigilant and stop charging once the batteries are close to 100% SoC.Although somewhat inconvenient and requiring experience, it is possible, once charging has finished, to use an accurate voltmeter to estimate the state of charge, but only once the surface charge has been eliminated. One way of doing this would be to turn the tunnel light on for around 10 minutes. This table shows the relationship between resting voltage and charge state of a typical 12V bank:12.65V - 100%12.45V - 75%12.24V - 50%12.06V - 25%11.89V - 0%The highly accurate way to check the state of charge of individual cells is to use a hydrometer or refractometer to measure the relative density of the electrolyte but many boaters will not wish to go to those lengths and those with sealed, AGM or gell batteries will not be able to do so anyway.You should aim to fully charge the batteries daily for maximum life. If that is impossible, then every few days, certainly every week, to avoid sulphation permanently reducing the bank's capacity.If you are off-grid with occasional access to shoreline If you are able to get into a marina occasionally and plug into a shoreline, then you can give the batteries a much more thorough charging. Leaving the charger on until it goes into float mode, turning it off for a while then back on, will result in the batteries being brought to a much better state. Ideally, leave the charger on overnight.If you have configured the Float Voltage to be high as described above for off-grid boaters then it is essential that you change it back to a suitable float voltage for your batteries when connected to shore power.If you have regular access to shoreline If you regularly moor in a marina or somewhere else where you can use a shoreline, then in addition to all of the foregoing you can routinely leave the bank on float charge. Most modern chargers will go back into absorption mode from time to time to ensure that the batteries are kept in good condition.During the summer, a decent solar panel array will achieve the same effect, keeping a float level of charge across the bank, as long as your power usage is less than that which the bank is producing, but the weak UK winter sun will not be adequate for this purpose.EqualisationYes, I know it's not a 'charge mode' but I thought I'd add a little about it here anyway. Some chargers will enable you to give an equalisation charge at a much higher voltage than usual, probably above 15V for a 12 volt system. This has the effect of ensuring that all the cells in the bank have been fully charged and that as much sulphation as possible has been removed from the plates. Some warnings about equalisation: 1. Sealed, AGM and gel batteries should not normally be subject to equalisation. If you are considering doing so, take expert advice first.2. Some items of equipment in the boat may not be able to handle the high voltage and should be disconnected. The safest way is to isolate the bank before proceeding.3. Hydrogen gas will be given off during the process. The bank should be well ventilated and must never be left unattended. During equalisation, check the temperature of the batteries from time to time, say every 15 minutes. They may well become warm to the touch but serious heating is a bad sign and the process should be stopped at once. It is not unknown for batteries to boil or even explode if a cell has failed.4. The cells will need topping up with distilled water after being equalised.A couple of general bits of safety advice should be added here:1) A permanently installed charger must never use crocodile clips to connect to the battery. 2) Temporary chargers should only be connected with the input (230V mains) power turned off, and only disconnected 3 minutes after turning off the charger input power to minimise the risk of explosion from hydrogen gas generated during charging.

I mark mine by tying a narrowboat to them with thick ropes. It really helps to draw attention to the small bits of metal if you have a colourful boat, with obvious decoration on it, left near the path in the wet bit ...

Say what you like about CRT, but name one other large, national organisation you could expect to phone up and have a customer service experience like the one I had yesterday: "Hello, Canal & River Trust, how can I help?" "Is there any chance you could get hold of somebody at your Etruria yard? I think I might have left a set of keys in the shower at the service block before we left this morning." "Hmm... hold on and I'll see if I can get hold of the Area Supervisor, Alan Whitehouse, for you" [Brr brr… brr brr…] "Hello, Alan Whitehouse speaking." "Oh hi, I was just explaining that [bla bla bla]…" "I'm just at Etruria now actually... Hang on... I'm just walking round... in the shower? Yes I've got them. Where are you now?" "Barlaston, but we've only stopped for lunch really, we were hoping to head towards Stone." "That's okay, we can bridge hop. Just give me your number and I'll phone and check where you are when somebody's able to set off." Half an hour later Alan quite cheerfully hands the keys to me by my boat at Barlaston after all, explaining that he was planning to do a job down that way on Friday anyway and decided he might as well just do it then instead. Top marks I'd say. And they were already in my good books for offering to dispose of all my contaminated bilge water from Monday for me (see my earlier post) if I just left the containers out by the skip.

Yes I read it - non-story the Daily Mail of the canal world. I'm also fed up with the CRT baiters in this forum. We're soon going to have a fight for the survival of the canal system and all some people want to do is pick holes whilst the whole edifice (the canals,not those running them) collapses. There you go, battle line drawn.

I totally agree, Balloon. I rarely recommend the forum to newbies anymore., I'm am sad to say. I joined in 2006. I hate hearing myself say to people not to take it personally when (not if) one or two grumpy people on CWDF come across as arrogant, dismissive or unkind. It's a handful of people, but of course they're the most vocal, and it makes the whole forum seem unapproachable. I don't understand why anyone would want to give advice to a newbie by cutting them down cruelly. That's not advising, sometimes it seems like bullying, or "you're not in my club" belittling. Utterly unhelpful, and makes all boaters seem like arseh*les. I think that If the forum had been like that when I first researched boat-buying, and i frequently came here to ask questions about everything from technical problems to boating etiquette, I would have gained the impression that a lot of canal boaters must be unpleasant people, must hate outsiders, and act superior. I could easily have decided not to want to be part of all that pomposity, not to buy a boat, and not to become part of the canal boating community. Fortunately, 15 years ago this forum felt much more welcoming and was much more representative of the open, friendly attitude of most people on the canals. And i soon met many of the old skool forum contributors in real life on my travels and at banters, and have remained firm friends ever since. In fact, i actively wanted to meet the new friends I had made online at CWDF. I wonder how many newbies don't get to experience that, because of dismissive or patronising responses to their first posts making them think: "what a bunch of tw*t's," turn around and never come back. When the forum became more politicised and so comparatively less boaty a few years ago, there was a lot of online unpleasantness and bullying publicly and in private across here. We lost a lot of previous members (especially women) who added some balance, and several of those who remained on the books, just stopped posting. (I didn't post on the forum for a long, long time. It's still a fairly rare thing for me these days). Those people will never come back. They've moved to Facebook, in all sorts of groups, fracturing the rather special CWDF mixing-pot community that once it was. And CWDF has a negative and unapproachable reputation among some Facebook groups, which is a shame. We made our bed, now we lay in it. But I do think it does this place good when someone relatively new holds a mirror up to our faults, and reminds us that we can do better for the next generation of boaters, as well as for our existing canal friends and colleagues. (Nice one, Balloon) 👏 Let's think before we speak unkindly on someone's post, especially to newbies going out on a limb to try and educate themselves. It is possible to give honest advice while still being supportive; to at least sign-post specifically to where they can find out what they need to know if it seems like a naive question; and to resist the urge to act like a keyboard warrior or, to put it plainly: to not be a scornful nobhead. 🤔

“…looking for boaters to share money saving tips” “Don’t buy a boat”

To be honest if someone can't afford a mooring and are staying in one place then they shouldn't be on a boat. We all have to comply with the very few very relaxed easy rules, I have managed full time for over 30 years. I can't afford a bugatti vayron so I don't have one. Having children has been happening since day one but today is sometimes used as some sort of specialist excuse to flout the rules. No I am not having a go but as Matty says at present we are faced with too many new liveaboards flouting too many rules rather than playing the game and staying under the radar, this in the fullness of time will ruin many peoples way of life as further rules will be weeded in. ?

Just to make you aware that starting in October there will be a joint IWA & CRT offside vegetation cutting programme (all volunteers) on the T&M between Fradley Junction and Great Haywood, then down the S&W as far as Gailey. There will be another operation starting in Coventry and heading north to Hawkesbury, then to Fazeley then on the B&F to Curdworth. Obviously neither will require a stoppage (although there is one at the Great Haywood end of the S&W in January for weir maintenance), nor will there be any formal navigation restrictions in place. However if any of you are moored in those sections and hear the cutting being carried out approaching your boat, it would help a great deal if you would move forward or back briefly if asked to do so. Many of the spots with encroaching vegetation are opposite popular moorings so it’s in everyone’s interest if we can pay particular attention to dealing with those. As you all know, the encroaching vegetation on many parts of the system has been neglected and is probably the worst it’s been for years. Unfortunately in order to help catch up we need to make enough progress to complete the whole of those sections if possible, before we have to stop in early March when the wildlife begins nesting. We will be working Monday to Friday. We will therefore have to just concentrate on the significant places such as on bends, sightlines, opposite popular moorings, bridge and lock approaches, narrow sections etc, and on the straighter sections we will have to leave sporadic tree encroachments on the basis that if two boats meet, one will have to hold back briefly, and on some sections just create passing places. I also ask for you patience if you come across us and we are unable to move out of your way straight away. We are usually pretty good at doing this, but occasionally it may take a few minutes for us to tuck in out of your way. Afterwards you will no doubt see some places and wonder why we haven’t addressed them, but I’m afraid that in the circumstances this will be the best we can hope for, at least in the short term anyway. And it will certainly be much better than it is at the moment!

Interesting reading all the speculation, Unfortunately the article in the Bridgwater and Taunton Mercury is very misleading and the "unnamed man" is a disgruntled boat owner who has caused nothing but trouble for himself through his own behaviour, Also not an original bw docks boat owner... Thought he could buy a boat on the B&T and freeload from the situation, 1. The reality of the situation is. CRT gave up 28 marina's the same year as the bw docks, Somerset County Council were the only council to insist on all the boats having to leave (not crt's choice) 2. CRT worked with the boaters as yes some lived there had job's and families so lifting out and causing upheaval leaving there home was something crt recognised and helped by allowing the boats to move out onto the 14 miles of waterway, 3. As some on here have stated you can't meet Cc requirements moving over 20 miles a year as it obviously isn't that long a waterway, there were also no suitable identified mooring locations for the particular size of boats in question. 4. the docks future at that point was uncertain, potential leveling up funds for refurbishment but no timescale or guarantee so crt gave the boaters an agreement to bide by and it was reviewed every 6 months. 5. The time came where the town’s fund was secured and a date set for refurbishment was place to be the summer of 2025. 6. Once crt had this information they (last year) spoke with the boaters and indicated if the boats didn't have home moorings by January of this year they would have to be removed from the b&t. 7. Three locations were identified for moorings (pretty much where the boats had found homes over the past two years and local businesses approached with offers to lease and manage the locations, 8 (here's your new paper misinformation) all the original boat owners who left the docks have identified locations there is some finalising to be done with 4 but heading in the right direction. One original boat sadly the owner passed away and the family are removing the boat to be sold. Two of the original boats but not original owners are being removed, And a third that just showed up on the system thinking they could be clever and play the system these 3 boats received eviction notices, Two of the three have done nothing but try to play the system claiming squatting rights cause fights and upsetting the local areas,ect, the 3rd was recently sold and the new owner is lifting it for a refit. So 10 people loosing there homes/boats? Not true. There has been nothing but support for the boaters from crt and the local bridgwater town council, yes some difficult pills to swallow at times loosing the facilities at the docks for example (the county council again insisting they had to be closed) and life adjustments to make but everyone is still local to there families and job's. The Bridgwater mercury didn't fact check before publication.

Pencil, ink and watercolour

After 30 years as a Police officer he would have a decent pension, so more then likely doing it voluntary just to get out the house and keep active and not for the money as HMRC quickly take it off you when you make extra. I don’t know why people are going on about PAYE or Employee, does it make any difference to the senseless murder of a decant man?

I had a composting toilet fitted in January 2019 and at the time, promised to let the forum know, after the first year, how I had got on with it. There is a fair bit to say so I will copy Sir Nibble and post it in sections. (No I won't - it won't let me!) Views on toilets are very mixed and several bits of this will not meet with complete agreement. All I can say is that I did not go the composting route entirely by choice, it was a decision partly driven by circumstances. This is an honest description of my experience in the last twelve months. I have absolutely no axe to grind here and have no connection with Nature’s Head nor with any toilet supplier. Background I have a 70’ Orion tug, built in 2003 and which I have owned since 2013. My wife and I are retired, we don’t live aboard but spend about 7 months of each year on the boat. Our time aboard is split into roughly 6 week spells. When I bought the boat it had a macerating pump-out toilet and as there was space, I added a 365 Cube porta-potti for emergencies. This arrangement was OK for five years though I never really trusted the pump-out, for one thing, the ‘full’ indicator never worked properly. Late last year I had a lot of work done on the boat to re-position the engine. As a result I had to get rid of the pump-out toilet, as the holding tank was removed to accommodate the repositioned drive-shaft. I could have replaced it with a cassette but decided to experiment with composting instead. We bought a new Nature’s Head composting toilet at Crick, Debdale installed it for me as part of the engine move and other work which they did on the boat. The company from which I bought the toilet is no longer in business and I am not sure if Nature’s Head have a UK distributor at present. You can certainly view the toilet on the net and may have to if you want to completely follow what I have to say. Installation and use Installation was exactly as per the manufacturers instructions except that the ‘screw down brackets’ which fix the unit to the floor were not used by Debdale and I have not fitted them since. The old porta-potti was not fixed to the floor and I have found no reason to fix the Nature’s Head, in fact it’s simpler to use if not fixed. A small 12v computer fan extracts air from the toilet and pumps it out through a skin fitting. The fan runs 24/7 when we are on the boat and not at all when we are not. I had planned to use one of the old pump-out exits for this but Debdale preferred to cut a new hole and skin fitting instead. The manufacture says some substrate should be used and we selected coconut coir. This comes dehydrated in blocks (20cm x 10cm x 5cm) which I buy in bulk from Amazon. I also purchased a number of 30 litre clear polythene boxes from Wilko. These had lids and I cut a large hole in two of the lids, hot-gluing nylon fly screen over the holes. The boxes were intended to hold first the reconstituted coir and ultimately, the ‘product’ while it finished composting. The boat has an enormous (1700 litre) front deck locker which is of limited use (you can’t easily reach the bottom of it from the deck). It may have been constructed partly for a bow thruster which was never fitted (but who knows, Richard at Orion had some eccentric design ideas). Anyway, my original plan was that I could use part of this locker to stack some of the Wilko boxes - those with fly screen lids - while the ‘compost’ matured. The Nature’s Head has a horizontal stirring bar about half way up the solid waste container. The manufacturer’s guidance is to start by filling to this level with coir. I prepared the coir by placing two of the blocks in a Wilco box and adding 7 litres of very hot water, putting a (solid) lid on and leaving it for 24 hours. The next day the coir had expanded to about 10 litres and become crumbly, it was slightly moist but not wet. It takes about 70% of the prepared coir to fill the toilet to the recommended level, I left the remaining coir in the Wilko box which was stored in the engine room. In use the Nature’s Head requires a little practise, it is very important to keep liquid and solid “deposits” completely separate. So you need to be careful where you are seated on the toilet but it doesn’t take long to get the hang of it. Urine goes into a removable bottle which can be easily changed, we had 3 spare bottles and needed to change one every day. Obviously they are straightforward to empty in an Elsan or even in a public toilet, as there is no mess involved. The nitty gritty We find that with only two users we need to empty the solids box every three weeks. Not because the container is full (in fact the level does not change much) but the material becomes denser and the stirrer gets difficult to move. Here we depart from the manufacturer’s instructions. We decided to do this because the stuff does not smell unpleasant and does not look like a box of turds. The appearance is rather like garden leaf mould and the smell is similar. So we proceed as follows:- Move the toilet out into the centre of the bathroom Remove the liquid container Have an empty Wilco box ready Trowel out the material using two garden trowels and put it in the Wilco box (*1) Put new choir in the solids container plus a sprinkling over the solids in the Wilco box Put the liquids container back, close and replace the toilet Cover the Wilco box with a fly screen lid and put it in the engine room (*2) The whole operation takes 10 minutes. *1 Emptying after 3 weeks results in about 15 litres of waste so you can just fit 6 weeks worth into a single Wilco box. *2 The original plan was to put the box in the front locker but as there was no smell, we experimented with storing it in the engine room to see if the heat would speed composting. As we go home roughly every six weeks and only produce a single Wilco box of waste in that time, we just take it home with us and add it to our existing garden composting arrangements. This was a major departure from our original plan but I think we could have managed with the locker. The difficulty for anyone without ‘hands on’ experience is believing that the quantity of product is so small and that my claims about smell are true. I know, I was surprised myself. Also, of course the system might be unworkable for live-aboard’s with limited locker space - in that respect we have an advantage. But neither of us would go back to the old toilet arrangements and would recommend composting to anyone with the necessary space and an unfussy attitude to getting familiar with their waste.

About half past six this evening, my dog started barking madly, and my wife thought she had heard someone shouting loudly. I went into the garden and saw that a man was in the canal, directly under the bridge. I ran through the house and over the bridge and arrived under the bridge just as my neighbour from across the canal got there. We pulled the man from the canal, who was obviously suffering from shock. It turmed out he was a cyclist and had collided with the bridge and bounced into the canal. We checked him put and he had cut his head and nose, my first aid training from years ago came in handy! He was worrying about his bike, so I returned home to get the boat hook and successfully retrieved his bike from the canal. He then took a turn for the worse and slumped to the ground, occasionally drifting into unconsciousness. We called an ambulance, got blankets to make him as comfortable as possible. Tried to get details from him, he gave his name and date of birth but when asked were he lived he said "Bedworth" but couldnt remeber the rest of his address. When the ambulance arrived they checked him out and took him off to hospital. Just goes to show how easy it is to have an accident. If he had knocked himself out he would have drowned and in the evening very few people walk that stretch of canal.

A quick rundown of events, yesterday afternoon when it became obvious that we were going over we went through the moorings releasing boats and putting them on long lines, only one sank due to being chained down! We had to cut loads of lines because people insist on using crap polyprop rope which the then knot so that it cant be undone, they also have centerlines on why? the river broke its bank opposite me it was also over the locks at Rotherham so we had a very substantial current running past us. At about 2 ish in the morning we hit the top and were floating well over the bank, I had a scaffolding pole tied to the rear stantion on the boat and a step ladder at the bow, both these stopped the boat going onto the bank, at 5 ish I went out as the water was receding Carolyne a neighbour came out as well [we did this in 2007 as well] and started pushing boat of the bank back into the canal, it was freezing and to be honest foolhardy as the bank was full of debris! At about half 6 we had all the boats sorted out and retired to have a shower as we were filthy and stank [sewage station up river from us] now its a glorious day washing machine is on mug of tea and breakfast gone, and all is well in my world.

Hi Jason, I'm afraid that I missed the shenanigans when the forum was (rightly and wrongly) telling you that you must be mad. Rightly because your project was a hopeless case, and wrongly because given your circumstances it was absolutely the right thing to do to pursue the hopeless case. The reason that I missed it, is the reason that I am exempt from your restrictions on what people can say, namely that I had recently lost my Wife to Cancer after 17 years together, and wasn't following the forum as avidly as usual. Time doesn't heal. Time cannot make your life what it was before. Time can and does slowly carry away the worst of the grief, and enable you to go on with your life and to build a new life within the new reality. The point to make is that whether the hand that we are dealt in life is good or bad, it is what we have. It is the new reality, and we can only try to make the best of it. When Bev died in August 2017, this wasn't our first trip on this particular roller coaster. We'd been there before in 2010 when her son was killed in Afghanistan, and in 2000 when her first husband took his own life. Bev and I had the pleasure of owning a boat for 15 years, and making many happy memories, but the happiest memory is the last one where she overcame kidney problems for long enough to join us on one final trip to Ellesmere Port before the Cancer took hold and she had to leave part way through for what proved to be a final spell in hospital. I'm not in the same situation as you, as I have a job, I'm not ill, and whilst I don't have children of my own, I do have a stepdaughter, son-in-law and two grandsons. I count my blessings there. I also make sure that I get out of the house. Friendship won't find you. You must find it. Go looking for things that you can do out of the house. I also have every intention of continuing to boat. Bev and I enjoyed it together. It sounds like you an Paola did too for the limited time you shared it. If that is still a dream for you, then go for it. If it is a dream that isn't constrained by the timescales of a terminal prognosis, do try to do it sensibly :-) Anyway, I know that I'm not the first to offer, but if you fancy a trip out for a widowers' cruise, I'm not a million miles for SoT and I would certainly try to make you welcome for a mix of sad tales and forced merriment. Dave

I’ve been floating (pun not intended!) around this forum for years now. a post from @MtB stating “Despite the brutal nature of some of the posts in this thread everyone here has the basic intention to help. Take it on the chin and come back with questions. No matter how basic, banal or advanced your questions are you will gt good and constructive answers. Mostly lol!” prompted me to start this thread. I’ve received an invaluable amount of very knowledgeable information from this forum, both from passive reading and active posting. There are some incredibly knowledgeable members. I’ve also seen some incredibly frustrating newbies posting limited information and expecting endless help, as well as being rude. however, I do wonder why we’re accepting that for anyone new on this forum one must accept an element of unkindness to access any sort of help. We’ve all been new to this once. And I’m pretty sure if anyone actually came up to anyone on this forum and asked a question or for some advice, in real life, posters would be far more patient. So why is it acceptable to destroy posters on here with unkindness and intolerance? I say this because I’ve had the good fortune to meet in real life a number of posters from this forum, and several of these have been left enormously upset by the postings of some. I think some members forget these are real, fallible, flawed humans just like the rest of us. I’m interested to hear opinions on this. I completely understand some posters’ frustration at being taken advantage of for their substantial professional or amateur expertise. Perhaps there’s a way to work towards an increased kindness, which might in its own way perpetuate the success of this community for more than a mere handful of “acceptable” posters?

Point of Order.... Don't be too hard on these expensive local corner shops. They will be buying their stock at virtually the same price as the likes of Tesco et al flog it direct to the general public, and your perceived overprice will be their gross profit margin. If you begrudge them scratching a living by adding 10p to the price of their beans or 70p to a packet of bacon, then go directly to a Tesco superstore and buy it there. Yes I know that is inconvenient or impossible much of the time, and therein lies the value of overpriced corner shops. Rant over

Following an incensed outburst of mine last night which has rightly been removed by the moderators, I thought I'd post my reply in the hope that this might prompt a calmer discussion about what I feel is becoming an increasing problem on CWDF. This used to be a friendly place for boaters new and old to ask questions and get answers, and a mine of knowledge about the history of the canals and the boats on them. It's moving towards somewhere much less friendly, where anything that challenges the entrenched views of some results in a shower of criticism which often rapidly descends into schadenfreude and personal abuse -- playing the man, not the ball. And I'm not going to mince words here, it's also clear that most of this comes from a few people who are effectively poisoning the atmosphere on the forum. I'm not so concerned about myself -- I'm a big boy, I can normally take robust argument and even insults without throwing a hissy fit, though recent events explain why I finally blew my top this time. I can deal with this trend by blocking people I find obnoxious, and of course they can do the same to me if they want to. My worry is about the loss to CWDF of both experienced posters and new members due to the way that discussions and in particular personal comments on posts seem to be going. Am I the only one who thinks this is a problem? If not, it would be a shame to see CWDF go the way some other forums have done and die slowly while becoming an angry echo chamber ? Dear Athy I do apologise for this, I was just incensed at some of the personal comments on the thread and boiled over after a couple of beers. There seem to be more and more cases recently of people using personal abuse rather than reasoned discussion to try and "win" what they see as an argument (on many subjects) where they're in the right, and where anyone daring to disagree is obviously morally corrupt and therefore ripe for abuse -- and having spent some time looking back over various threads where this has happened, it's obvious that this mostly comes from a small number of people, I'm sure you know who they are as well as I do (because I've blocked many of them). I can't help feeling that this has not only driven some knowledgeable and experienced posters away from CWDF but is putting off new people joining when their first post is shot down on flames for one reason or another -- and there's even sometimes crowing on the lines of "hah, we taught them a lesson, we've had the last word", which I suspect sadly means they've given up in disgust and gone elsewhere. Which is a shame because there's still a huge amount of knowledge and experience which helpful people on the forum are happy to impart, and people leaving reduce this pool (if they're experienced) or lose access to it (if they're new). CWDF didn't use to be like this when I joined back in 2012, it was friendlier and less combative and abusive. Things seemed to take a turn for the worse before/during/after the Brexit referendum, and have done so again since Covid-19 hit -- maybe the first is a symptom of increased "us and them" division in the country, maybe the second is because some people have more time on their hands to angrily hammer away at a keyboard and tell other people how wrong they are. It would be a shame if this continues, because it could be the start of a long slippery slope with CWDF ending up as a small number of angry people shouting into an otherwise empty echo chamber, who think they've "won" because nobody answers back. I've seen this happen with other Internet forums and discussion groups over the years, and I really hope it doesn't happen to CWDF. Best wishes Ian

Just back from Iver and the problem is sort of sorted for now. There was enough fuel in the tank but the OP had been told the Mikuni take off was T'd from the engine feed but unless there was a T hidden somewhere and the upper fuel take off was blanked off this is not the case. The Mikuni take off is about 4" above the engine take off. Showed OP how to setup and use his multimeter. Engine battery rested voltage about 11.7, starting voltage 2.3 volts - no wonder it would not start. Took OP through the bleeding process for future reference and then changed the engine battery for a new one. Engine started first time and easily. New engine battery at about 12.57 volts before starting (rested I assume). but when started and revved the alternator output was only about 6 amps. I fear the alternator (A127) is faulty and the Sterling advanced regulator was flashing all its LEDs. I advised the OP to check what the flashing LEDs mean and suggested that he get the alternator off and Tested because the ways things are set up I could not load it to try to push the output up. Also showed how to pull the lever out to allow revving out of gear and advised on optimum revs for charging. I could find no evidence of charge splitting but that does not mean it is not present. Not possible to check with meters because of the mains battery charger and low alternator output. The OP said the boat had been a livabor5d in a marine so I suspect the domestic bank is only charged by the mains charger. I feel a 13V float on the Xantrek is rather low and suspect its absorption charge voltage may be lower than optimum nowadays. Found the Mikuni fuse laying on top of the batteries had a bad connection on one blade so cleaned the blade and squashed its female half and refitted. Mikuni now running as it should but did notice gurgling from its header tank so advised to top up and suggest a leak (i think a leak was supposed to have been fixed but that water went some where. Demoed hydrometer used and readings on domestic bank (two cells both about 2/3 charged and clear) and advised on doing a full hydrometer check - left hydrometer with the OP. Advised on power audit, the unsuitability of ammeter and voltmeter for assessing battery state of charge. Advised the engine will need several hours run once a week to keep engine bank fully charged and explained sulphation. Suggested that apart from getting the alternator tested some form of charge splitting is needed for CCing away from the mains and suggested a VSR would do the job as long as the charging system is suitably rewired. This woudl also allow the mains charger to charge the engine battery and solar if/when its fitted. I did not tell the OP for fear of memory overload but The alternator main lead wiring suggests a moving iron ammeter and it looks too thin for my liking.I fear that when CCing this may give problems apart from the fact the Sterling controller should convert the alternator to battery sensing and thus hide any voltdrop. The boat should now remain liveable until after the holidays.

I was the engineer on call for this issue, call received at 6.30pm, talked the customer through the process of relocating the rudder into its cup so they could continue navigating sooner if able to solve easily, about 10 mins later they informed me that they were unable to relocate the rudder, I advised them to moor up for the evening and we could go out to them first thing, they preferred a call out straight away as they had forgot to fill up with water and earlier that day one of them had fallen overboard and needed a shower, I made my way to them, on the way I purchases 3 bottles of mineral water, box of cherry bakewells, 2 cheesecakes and a packet of custard creams so they could at least have a cup of tea while the issue was being resolved, it took 10 mins to relocate, and I navigated the autherley narrows for them as the experience had knocked their confidence, they seemed very happy with the outcome, I arrived home at 9.30pm

The issue I have with the re-branding as I'm seeing it is this..................... I am prepared to accept, as a "non marketing" person that where signs are aimed at the general public, whether informational or actively "selling" CRT that the expense may be worthwhile and bring returns in terms of greater public awareness. What I simply can't see any justification for is replacing large numbers of signs that can only be of interest to boaters, such as those for mooring restrictions, sanitary stations, water points, rubbish facilities and the like. Perfectly good signs with the old logo are already being taken down and replaced by identically worded ones in blue with the new logo. Boaters on CRT waters are already well aware of CRT, so in my view nothing is being achieved with boaters other than "that looks like a waste of money". Please tell me how replacing (say) a 2 day mooring restriction sign in (say) Stoke Bruerne with one that just happens to be blue, and have a new logo on is achieving anything with the public at large. I really can't see it, and it seems to me a huge swathe of boaters feel exactly the same. I think this is a major cock up at a time they are looking for donations to help with major failures of the infrastructure. I certainly wouldm't donate money whilst they are (in my view at least) wasting it in large amounts.

It’s worth pointing out that not even 60 years ago—in my parents’ lifetime, in my lesbian aunts’ lifetime, maybe even in some of your lifetimes—heterosexuals put laws in place that would make me illegal. I could be punished, beaten and imprisoned. That isn’t ancient history. This still happens in some parts of the world. The reverberation of this regressive practice is still felt by people like me. It was your heterosexual police force who would entrap us like we were wild savages, they would raid our gathering spots, unable to leave us alone, veritably foaming at the mouth to oppress and subjugate. They would pretend to be like us so they could hurt us. Alan Turing helped Britain to win the Second World War and his reward from the heterosexual majority was castration. Truly and utterly shameful. It was this society where even popular homosexuals feared being themselves. Kenneth Williams, who the British public adored for his role in the Carry On films and Just a Minute, could never feel truly comfortable with himself because of the society he was born in, despite the deep public adoration for him and his talent. I posit his profound self-loathing was created by a society that hated who he really was and loved his created persona on stage and film. When we are told to just integrate, I dare say why don’t you lot make a society that is welcoming and caring for people like me so that this so-called integration is possible? Why is it incumbent upon me to do that? You create laws to criminalise me, you castrate me, you threaten and hurt me. What are you doing to help me integrate? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Regarding the original post and accident. Myself, sister and her husband were at the scene of the accident on Wednesday. We were the three people who jumped in and pulled the man out from beneath the boat. I did not witness him actually fall in as we were in the stop lock at the time. Many passers by and the staff at the marina were there and offered assistance. The paramedics were fantastic too. His wife was lovely and coped incredible well considering the ordeal. I hope very much the gentleman is recovering well in hospital. Please all, take care out there and safe boating. Can I recomend downloading an app called "what three words" which helps give your exact location to emergency services and also looking at some youtube videos on resuscitation and basic first aid. You never know when you might need it.

When I were a lad there were regular fights on the beach between the mods and rockers (both sides beat up the hippies). Not long before that there were signs in windows saying "No dogs, irish, blacks". When I was a teenager there was a trend in Leeds of pouring petrol on tramps and setting them alight, and Paki-bashing was a bit of good fun. When I worked Civil Service in Liverpool in the eighties the office lads had a great laugh throwing bananas at the black footballers. I'm not actually sure it's got a lot worse I think it's the opposite. What used to be normal, unremarked behaviour has been marginalised because most people behave well, so the plonkers stand out more. And, of course, there are more people on boats than there were, and the same proportion of pains in the backside just means there are more of them, too.

It’s because despite changing attitudes, there is still a not-small contingent of british people who are homophobic, and a smaller contingent who are quite happy to voice that and demonstrate it by physical attack. Why not have a heterosexual pride thingy?, part of the answer is that people don’t get verbally abused, beaten up, killed, thrown out of the family home etc because they are heterosexual, but all those things still happen because people are homosexual even in 2022. And that is just in the UK. In other parts of the world, these people can be unemployable, imprisoned or executed by the State. The gay pride thing is about normalising being gay, that it is nothing to be ashamed about, and is a normal subset of humanity, always was and always will be. The aim being to make it less socially acceptable to be ostentatiously homophobic.

Good luck with that then. I once gave a mate a hand to do the same (40 years ago) the mental scars are still evident. First he had it pumped out at a yard. Then we filled it up with water and a cocktail of chemicals that "Bloke in Pub" told him in an all knowing way would definitely dislodge any "ooh nasty" that was lingering. Returning to the yard we had it pumped out again. Convinced it must now be clean and empty, we now proceeded to a mate's mooring as he'd offered to buy it for his boat. On arrival the outlet pipe was opened and the buyer suggested we shove a dipstick down it as he wanted to confirm he was indeed buying it empty. We didn't get that far as the evil stench that visibly emerged from the opened pipe not only clashed badly with the yellow paintwork, but confirmed something potent still lingered inside. All three of us suffered physical wounds as well as blunt force trauma as we each battered the other two in an attempt to exit the bog at the same time. We retired to the pub where medicine was administered to calm our heaving stomachs. "Bloke" was there, so we updated him on the lack of efficacy we had encountered having embraced his suggestion as to which chemicals to shove in it. He accepted a drink in return for advising we needed to agitate it to slosh the cleaner around inside. With a knowing look we all said "Ah, that makes sense" And had another pint each. An hour later we had refilled it with water and emptied in what was left of " Blokes' " chemicals and everything else we found in the cleaning cupboard on board. Personally I was putting my money on the lavender Radox. Now we'd chucked 20 gallons in and shoved a tea towel down the spout it occurred to us that nearly 2cwt of liquid goo wasn't going to be easy to slosh about with gay abandon. It was at this point that one of us pointed out that due to the shape of the tank it wasn't going to exit the boat doors let alone allow itself to be contorted around bulkheads etc without being tipped up on end. Clearly it would have to be emptied again, properly this time, but sans agitation. Fed up with wasting money on pump outs our friend was determined this was to be the last attempt. "I wonder if pumping air into it would stir it all up enough?" He pondered. It was decided to give that a try until it transpired that the only electric pump on board was a bilge pump which was superb at pumping water, but hopeless at pumping air. Luckily it was at this point that one of us misremembered an experiment at school and became totally confused about the frothy results of mixing the kind of ingredients everybody has in their kitchen. "I'll be back in a minute ...." He confidently departed in the direction of the corner "Spar Shop". On return he proceeded to empty a 5lb box of Baking Powder down the toilet, closely followed by a gallon of Pickling Vinegar. "Well, that ought to d ......" was as far as he got. I won't go into all of the sordid details of what transpired or how long it took to clean everything off the ceiling and out of the bilges, and the engine or off the fenders. But suffice it to say we never found the tea towel. Like I said Good Luck!!!!

Heavily raining. Started engine, fitted tiller extension, ran up to untie front end, ran back to let go back rope, pushed back end out before stepping onto counter. So far ok. About to select astern to reverse out from mooring when I spotted cat smiling at me from towpath. Swore, leapt ashore, scooped up cat, ran to the front end as back had drifted too far for further heroic straddling. Climbed onto gunnel and edged my way back with struggling cat. Employed one free hand to alternatively fumble for hand rail, and then wipe the blood out of my eyes inflicted by cat enthusiastically wind milling his razor sharp scythes at me. Due to restricted eye sight and concentrating on restricting the squirming cat who was displaying not only a deep hatred for me but also a remarkable similarity to a dozen eels, I reached the engine 'ole where the hand rail finishes. Imagine my blind (literally) panic when I realised I was holding on to nothing. I reached out frantically to clutch onto a handhold and with short lived glee encountered boat pole. Couple walking by on towpath applauded my skills at tightrope'ish, cat juggling and enquired if there would be an encore? Laughing heartily through gritted teeth I achieved the counter while alternatively waving cat and then boat pole above my head, thus equilibrium was maintained. I peeled the cat off me like Velcro and unceremoniously projected him towards his bed opposite the stove ......... in which was casually watching me, our own cat. Upon arrival of the doppelgänger levels of activity and noise were accelerated to levels mere imagination would never have anticipated. After about 2 minutes of identical cats screaming at each other and bouncing of hanging plates I stopped in a bridge hole and ordered one of them to go ashore toot sweet and without ceremony. I never knew which one it was that slinked off without a backward glance, but the one that remained glowered at me all the way to Hemel Hempstead.

After many weeks of research and taking advice plus countless looking on Apolloduck today I went to Sawley Marina to go for a demonstration cruise with Dave and Trudy the lovely owners of Once upon a time 65x12 Widebeam. I first saw her ( the boat) on a random visit to Sawley a few weeks ago and although I had no appointment to view Dave was happy for me to step aboard and take a look .... both he and the boat impressed me to the point where I could not stop going back on line looking at her. I then went back to Sawley with my daughter to show her the boat and again even though it was a random visit Dave invited us aboard and gave us a tour and answered countless questions I asked of him. I did look at other Widebeam boats one in particular moored at Mirfield and despite it being better equipped and only 57feet so allowing a lot more cruising the owner was without doubt one of the hardest people Iv ever tried doing business with. He seemed reluctant to cooperate with any requests and seemed unsure on many points Iv raised to the point I believed he was definitely hiding something from me.... anyway his attitude and rudeness sealed the fate of that purchase ever happening. So a call to Sawley and a little bit of bartering and today’s cruise was arranged. Now the experiment the moment I stepped aboard was without doubt fantastic Dave and Trudy had the boat built and it was very clear their connection with her was very strong indeed. We drank tea and chatted before Dave showed me the cellar as his wife calls it and he wanted me to feel the engine so as to see it was stone cold be for he turned the key and she sprang into life before settling into a nice burble. A demonstration taking down of the pram cover followed and we were on our way. Turning left out of sawyonto the Sawley Cutting Dave steered whilst giving advice in a clear understandable manner and once we reached the Trent he stood to one side and handed control of his boat to me. Iv been told many times these fat boats swim like a brick but if that’s the case then this was a damn good brick. I soon found myself at one with the boat she steered clean and responsive and at no point was I fazed by her. We did a few locks and went under a few low bridges on to Shardlow where Dave demonstrated a relaxed trouble free turn around for out trip back to Sawley.To say I had a smile on my face was an understatement and a few cups of tea and a lot of questions later I handed over my deposit. So in a few weeks time at 63 I’m about to start a new chapter in my life and like all great stories it begins with Once upon a Time. I would like to thank Dave and Trudy for their honesty and openness today plus I need to thank Peyerboat and Tony D who over many weeks have advised guided and listened to my many wows on issue I was experiencing trying to find the right boat for me. So once she’s mine I’ll be changing her name to Misty & Me ( That’s my Labrador ) together we are entering a new phase in our lives amongst you guys.