Leaderboard

Earthworks constructed in the Georgian and Victorian periods pre-date the establishment of the discipline of geotechnical engineering and are effectively non-engineered structures. They were built with non-homogenous materials with little understanding of the properties of the material or the mechanisms by which they could fail. Standard practice was to construct slopes with sides battered at 1:1.5; an engineered solution would have given something in the order of 1:3 for the materials concerned. This can be seen in the difference in angle of modern motorway earthwork slopes compared to older canals and railways. In theory these assets have a negative safety factor; in practice you know they don't because they remain standing. The reality is that you are intrinsically operating around the limits of capability and to make matters worse the properties of soils change over time and not just seasonal either, it can be over decades or centuries. As a result they are flexible assets and they all exhibit some form of movement over a greater or lesser timespan. Inspection isn't easy and a general visual inspection may identify immediate exceptional issues but it isn't sufficient for overall management. That requires a qualified inspector. It is certainly possible to calculate the risk associated with individual assets and prioritise work accordingly. In my job a few years ago I was accountable for 14,000 earthwork assets and conducted an exercise to risk rank them, a process which identified 72 highest risk assets. Programmes of work were put in place for those assets and mitigation measures imposed for periods of extreme wet weather (with a budget the folks at CRT could probably only dream about). However the collective risk associated with the 13,928 assets that weren't highest risk by far outweighed the collective risk of the 72 highest risk assets. That meant I could in no way guarantee that if there was a failure it would be of a highest risk asset. The nature of these events is that they are highly subjective to localised conditions. CRT have the problem that their threshold for catastrophic failure is pretty low. Initial failure is likely to be a rotational slip where a segment of soil rotates and causes a shearing effect at the slope surface at the top of the rotation. If that causes a loss in the integrity of the puddled lining of the canal the leakage of water will liquefy the soil and cause it to flow, in turn this will make a bigger breach and then washout will follow. It looks a lot more spectacular than I suspect it is in reality. i am sure they could do more and will seek to do so as that's pretty much the life of an asset manager who has to work within resource and funding constraints to minimise risk. JP

No!! You throw them in the rubbish points and call yourself a " Composting " toilet expert.

12v TV 21.5" HDTV Plays DVD's USB Port £124.99 HD Portable Satellite Kit £59.99 Portable washing machine / twin Tub £69.99 250w on was, 116w on spin dry (We have one - great machine, low electric usage, minimal water usage) 12v Solar panel to keep starter batteries charged when lefty unattended £24.99 Black streak remover £2.99 Portable Toilet (a must for those poor soles with a pump-out system) £39.99 Toilet fluid (Green / Pink / Blue) £2.99 for 2 litres. Re-chargeable dehumidifiers (2-pack) £12.99 (3-4 months between charges).

Yes - I have the body 'in the style of a God' (unfortunately its Budda)

There's a bridge in Florida which lasted for 5 days.

While you're in there open the black fuse fox and twiddle the three continental fuses round, then when you have time replace them with a blade fuse holder & fuses. It sounds like the glow plug is coming on and dipping the voltage at the unit.

If the LA could discharge its statutory homelessness duty with a cardboard box, I'm sure they would. But they can't. They can, however, argue that the root cause of the liveaboards' homelessness is a CaRT maintenance issue. That's not turning CaRT into a housing authority; it's a housing authority holding CaRT responsible for homelessness due to canal disrepair

I would totally agree but there appears to be a faction who will not countenance insurance let alone some form of identification Perhaps it should be the other way round! Make the bikes and bikers traceable then they might choose to have insurance for situations like yours.

Well you can stop at this one. The Rock of Gibralter is a pub at Enslow.

T&M to Great Heywood, Staffs & Worcs to Autherley Junction the down the Shroppy to Hurleston locks and you are on the LLangollen. Not really out of your way, at least you miss the Cheshire locks - Heartbreak Hill. Sorry for the multi postings, I have an internet problem with breaks and reloads, I go to sleep and leave it alone.

He is locking up from the canal at Aynho weir lock onto the river section. Immediately after locking out the river hits the boat on the right hand side and can keep you pushed to the left where the wei/sluices are. However this is a very short run and has huge timbers to run along the hull side if needed, its no problem. The next lock is Nells bridge where you cannot get in to the lock if the river is high dues to the low bridge immediately in front of the lock. The most dangerous thing at this location is after a few days dreaming along on the canal you have to leave boat and cross a bloody fast road to do the lock and thereby get killed by a car.

I would say they are, but also aware of the confusion it could cause (but rarely, given context). Converting nm to NM/nmi involves multiplying by 1,852,000,000,000. Alternatively, one could move to upper case

They are campaigning on behalf of members who mostly don't want to 'travel', who wish to stay in one place without paying for a home mooring. They are not representing boaters they are representing people who want cheap and convenient accommodation on the waterways without following the rules and without cost. If that's not a threat to enforcement, bona fide continuous cruisers and leisure boaters I don't know what is.

Misrepresentation would be a good place to start. The T allegedly stands for 'Traveller' but their primary role seems to be in the support of non-moving boaters, so water points, bins and mooring rings, (and if you could add septic tank emptying points) every 100 foot or so along the canal that would be very convenient - thank you very much.

"a chaotic real world of non-homogeneity" What a wonderful description of an average day in my life!

That ducks a liar he’s being playing away from home

Another person who is idealised in modern times. If you look at all he did was one of many doing much the same. Brunel's significant genius was probably in self promotion, he was an awful mechanical engineer, had serial failures yet was a very good civil engineer. Nowadays he's almost the face of Victorian engineering

The bog standard ones had air holes in.

Our grey box with the fuses in is inside the cabin, we had the fuses replaced when our eber wouldn't fire up. Apparently this is a common fault.

It took many months to eradicate the fluffy bunnies from this website.

Hopefully CRT will improve the design and when it's finished it will be the Heavyweight branch.

At that age, how it has been maintained is more important that who built it. Good care and good appearance, will beat neglected but top brand name.

People have lived on boats for yonks. When I moved aboard 28 years ago I was told of the few very easy to understand very easy to comply with rules concerning boat movements. The same rules still apply and are still easy to comply with, you move around LOTS or you pay for a mooring. You can live on your boat quite easily. The beauty of boats is that they move.

Not surprisingly farmers are not offering free fields to homeless badgers: they do a lot of damage and breed .............. like rabbits.................... In years gone by farmers and gamekeepers would have kept them under control by shooting, but that is not encouraged these days. Nowadays they may have to add cattle culling and other costly strategies in to their P&L forecasts.

As one who had £300 worth of damage inflicted on my car by a cyclist who collided with the side of my car whilst it was stationary in a traffic and then jumped a set of lights to escape I think ALL cyclists should carry a registrstion number and 3rd party insurance.

Yeah, there were only two left turns, one when we got to Kinsale and one when we got to Cape ........(wotever it was where you turn left to get into the med .....up the coast from Lagos).

I have no mail whatsoever now. Everyone deals with me thro email or telefone including bank doctor and dentist. All insurance incuding boat and dog etc etc is done wholy thro email. Our car is still registered to our mailing address but we will hopefuly be car less in a week or so. So in a nutshell we simlpy never get any mail anymore and havnt done for some considerable time.

But you are only lifting 'the depth of water' of chain at any one time and 10mm chain is about 2kg per metre. Once you can recover the anchor, motor back up over it hand balling the chain in as you go, when you are over the anchor, a little blast of power will flip the anchor over and you can pull it in. If, for any reason you cannot recover it, either buoy it off and get the local scuba club to recover it for you or, 'right-off' the cost (a small cost for potentially saving the loss of a £1000's boat and possibly your life). If you really cannot handle it and want to recover it, then there is a simple method that does not require much in the way of lifting - widely used on 'small seagoing fishing boats'. Its a method called 'using an Alderney ring' and the boat does all of the work.

Is that not a valid unit when doing macrame?

Good point. You’re right. I shall revert to grandad’s axe in future. Trigger did not invent the concept, just made it more widely known

Not quite. It refers to the navigation of boats... etc. That implies movement.

I sincerely hope you are being silly! Of course it won't stop accidents happening, it doesn't prevent just as it doesn't in cars. Do you suggest we do away with car insurance? Why do we have have insurance on cars? To repair damage and make life more bearable for those injured or who lose a bread winner. Exactly what cycle insurance would be for.

So the sacrifice of the occasional death and/or maiming so cyclists don't have to fork out the price of a few cups of coffee is the greater good? Can't agree with you on that I am afraid.

Nope. And until they do then freeloading isn’t the answer. Lots of folk can’t afford to buy a house but by your argument they should just move into an empty property and live in it for free for as long as they wish. There should be a name for that... oh wait, there is. Besides, the only reason there are all these people who ‘want to live on a boat’ is because they see it as cheap accommodation. Is it CaRT’s remit to sort out the UK’s affordable housing shortage? I don’t believe so, no.

I am not sure about the tax side of it, but a quick google shows me I can get £2,000,000 third party insurance for the princely sum of £11.20 per annum. Surely that is affordable and removes the risk of the cyclist injuring somebody and then not being able to pay for damage/compensation etc.

Diesel scrappage scheme most ill thought out scheme ever.Trade in your worthless diesel, that is old runs like a good one still giving 62mpg, bodywork not bad and passes mot .But I can have up to £7000 off a brand new one.

Alan's advice is spot on. Your risk is certainly lower because you will only be on the river for a small number of days but the impact of something going wrong is still the same ie if you loose your engine, you could loose your boat. If the river is low and slow then it might not be too bad but if not....... You can reduce the length by attaching a 'chum' (ie a heavy weight - say 10Kg) about 5 metres from your anchor which means the chain from the anchor to the chum is tending towards being horizontal so the pull on the anchor is at the best angle but is that a good idea? You say you have 18m. Is that all chain? If so just get a sufficient piece of rope to splice on. I would go for 50m of rope to be on the safe side. Remember you only need the anchor if the engine fails and you have lost control. If that happens, by the time you have sussed out what is happening, and got someone up the front - who knows what they are doing, the current may have turned the boat and you are moving downstream. Setting an anchor when moving is not a good idea and may not be successful. This is where having a length of rope is useful as you can pay it out slowly at the speed the boat is moving ie the anchor is then hardly moving in relation the bottom. You can then reduce the speed you pay it out so it digs in gently. If you just throw 20m of anchor and chain overboard in a 10m deep river and are moving at 4knts, you aint got a hope. Of course the anchor design will have a big say if it will set properly. Having a long piece of rope makes it easier to set. Anchoring is a skill that you need to learn if you are in a boat that anchors frequently. NBs never need anchoring except in emergencies so people dont practice. It is not just a question of tossing the anchor and chain overboard which is why skimping on anchor and chain/rope is not a good idea.