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I despair! A while ago the forum was up in arms over moderation being too strict and draconian. Now it seems some are begging for a return to strict and draconian. I have followed and contributed to the Brexit thread and I read most of the threads daily. Compared to what the forum was it is a pleasant well behaved place. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Quite frankly, I'm surprised the forum retains any moderators for long, its a thankless task, which is always being criticised by others who are not prepared to have a go.

You may be exactly what I've been looking for. I have been worried about the security of my pride and joy because I work away quite often. She's bright and airy, has excellent 360 degree views of the neighbouring waterway. Malibu is designed for two in a traditional wooden boat style. I'm going to be out of the country during Oct & Nov so if you would like to care for my baby, please get in touch and we can discuss expenses but these would be minimal. Pic attached.

What ever one may think of Campbell as character, I make no judgement, he was one of those brave men who wanted to push the boundaries instead of just sitting in his cave musing on his belly button. He knew the risks and was prepared to accept them. A lady in this category to me is Ellen MacArthur.

I said he’s a wuss not a heathen. ? Anything he can chew. Particularly fond of my wife’s shoes, her brand new fit flops and the chair leg. ?

Does the character of the individual detract from the technological achievement of first building and then restoring Blue Bird?

Maybe it's a super inteligent dog that realises there are nice boats out there with superb, smooth, quiet japanese engines fitted with hospital silencers and maybe it's trying to tell you something? ?

Assuming a skin tank is not air-locked, the thermostat is open, and the circulating pump working well, the usual indication that a skin tank is not sufficiently large to keep the engine at thermostat temperature, is that there will be very little temperature gradient from top to bottom - it will be hot over its entire surface. That is to say that the water being returned to the engine has not cooled enough to be able to keep the engine temperature where it should be, which is what then causes the coolant temperature to continue to rise above what it should be. Many boats will survive this situation, because as the skin tank gets hotter than intended there is a bigger temperature difference to the canal water cooling it, and hence rather more heat can be dissipated. The real issue arises if the temperatures rise to the point it may boil, (at well over 100C, because of the pressurised system), and the skin tank still can't dump heat fast enough. However I'm running ahead of things here. If you actually have a good temperature gradient across the tank, even when running flat out, such that water returned to the engine is sufficiently cooled, then I think it is unlikely your skin tank is too small.

Surely this thread is discussing politics (albeit not party politics but the politics of the forum) and everyone is playing nicely. Surely rules are intended for guidance only. If the forum does not trust it's members to operate unmoderated, Athy's light hand is the appropriate response don't you think? Or do you actually enjoy banning people? Rog

I’m sorry you are getting no practical help from this forum. Fortunately there is another forum where people are more helpful and a member there (long since banned from this forum for not fitting in) is moored at Bulls Bridge with bolt cutter, hacksaw etc. He has “history” with mattresses, having had a bad case of it last year on the Rochdale. He has offered to try to help you and I will send you a PM with his name and phone number.

But there was sometimes competition on the top plank.

The wide beam is in it's rightful environment, it's floating on water. When I moored in Droitwich Spa last month I spoke with the lady on board as I passed on my way to my mooring, and the boat was indeed (obviously) craned in (I think I made some comment about how tight it must have been coming through the marina entrance off the canal). She has it there because it is the most convenient mooring for her and she likes the marina, I can't think of any better reason for putting a boat there. It's her boat to do as she wishes with it. It is no dafter than the boat on the South Oxford moored in a puddle in the middle of a field alongside the canal (assuming it's still there).

That is the point you are missing by an urban or country mile (I thought miles were all 1760 yards) When political debate was allowed things got out of hand and it seemed the only way forward was to ban it. Then (for those with short memories) the Brexit thread was allowed as it was a) such an important thing & b) had implications for boating and boaters. It was implied/hinted call it what you will that if it was possible to keep that thread polite and within bounds things might be relaxed a little. That thread has been polite and things are relaxed. I wouldn't want to return to the no holds bared mess of a couple of years ago. However the current situation IMO works. I find the forum has double standards on many things. "We must have rules that are enforced v rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men" attitude. Consider the difference between much of the forums attitude to rules on waterways e.g. displaying licences and we must have rules and have them enforced.. I still say if it ain't broke don't fix it particularly if it is going to take away enjoyment from some members who are behaving themselves. The odd political thread shouldn't be a problem to anybody as they don't have to read it.

I win. We are currently moored above Johnson's Hillock on the L&L, and only one boat has been past us for several days - and he was reversing to the services ...

You certainly don't want a coolie hat on top. Its an ideal shape to condense water vapour & tar so t runs down the inside of the cap and drips off outside the chimney.

Unbelievable! The point I was making albeit in a backhand sort of way is I have read all 12150 posts over the 486 pages and don't feel they have been beyond the pale. I don't miss the point but the current system is working without being offensive IMO. If you say political debate is allowed you have no easy control if on the other hand you ban it you prevent discussion such as Brexit which has been and is going along pleasantly.

You need a voltmeter and an amp meter or better still a bm2 or similar. Watch the charging ampage which starts high and gradually drops as the voltage rises. Forget the stoopid bit at the end which supposedly show a you percentage charge as it will always or near as damn always be incorrect. When voltage is 14.4 and amps going in down to about 2 amps ish for about an hour then yer charged. I sometimes switch off at 14.3 because it's all a trade off between fuel use age and engine wear and noise versus battery replacement cost. Forget the not so smart gauge. I am not an electrical expert just a bloke who's lived aboard eight boats for a long time and this way works.

Also those two hot air outlet ducts going down hill before exiting through the hull side is not good. Hot air wants to rise to escape, in that case the cooling fan is called on to also force hot air downwards to escape taking some of its cooling capacity away. Ideally those ducts need to rise up or at least be level.

Anyone volunteering for the role should automatically be discounted don't you think. Rog

I would expect it to be at engine temperature at the top, then getting steadily cooler towards the bottom. If it is properly baffled you may be able to feel the zig-zag flow of water as it gets cooler. If there is a rapid change in temperature from hot to cold part way down the tank, that would suggest there is insufficient coolant flow - indicative of an air lock, blockage or pump problem.

That's a shame. The DE man is very persuasive - after all he's a salesman... I've no objection to paying. However a system that only can be used if you have a laptop of a large smartphone on a contract ( i.e. web enabled) is hugely unreasonable. I reckon the phone system is deliberately kept unworkable because it costs money to run, but a website is much, much cheaper, so the former is under resourced. Smart eh?

The first questions are not 'off topic' but very relevant to give correct guidance for your installation. How are you going to maintain charging your leisure batteries ? Do you have an outboard or inboard engine ? (make and model if outboard) Are you planning on solar panels (if so what size) ? If you buy a 12v fridge then you don't need an inverter. Most 230v TVs these days actually have a 'brick' in their power line that reduces the supply to 12v, so a 12v supply is not a problem. Phone, tablet, etc charging can be done via a 'cigarette' lighter socket and relevant USB chargers. A fridge alone will use 30-50*Ah per day so you will need 1x 100Ah battery just to support the fridge, and will need to generate 40-60*Ah per day to replace that used * = depending on make & model. An Inverter uses power just to 'power itself' even when not powering any equipment, this can be anywhere between 0.5amps and 3 or 4 amps, so it is important to choose the 'right one'. Inverters are available in 'Pure Sine Wave' and 'Modified Sine Wave' most modern electrical/electronic equipment struggles with a MSW inverter. Some equipment (mainly that with 'motors') draws considerably more than their 'rated' wattage so bear that in mind - eg, a fridge rated at (say) 75 watts may actually draw up towards 1000w on start up, buy your inverter with that in mind. Basically buy a £100 inverter off ebay and (possibly) waste your money, or buy an £800 'marine' Quality brand and "get an inverter for life"

Use a very long screwdriver, or mooring pin. Keep your face, clothes, hair etc well away from rotating shafts. Push the mooring pin 'hard' into your ear, then 'dab' and hold the other end onto the various (non-spinning) drive train components, you will not only hear the noise, but will feel the 'vibrations' transmitted up into your ear-bones. Move it around until you get to the 'peak' of the vibration / noise levels and that's the problem area.

Re-reading it - why do you think it is a 'pressure alarm' rather than a 'temperature alarm' ? Generally the only likely 'pressure alarm' is for oil pressure, and that would normally be for LOW oil pressure, it would be rare to actually have an audible alarm, & most would simply have a dial-gauge showing Psi (or whatever foreign units they now use) Confused.

I didn't hear that one but as it was being restored in the NE which covers our local TV news for BBC I have seen her talking about it a lot. I am waiting to see the pictures of it at speed on the Loch in Bute. One local was mentioning talking to the man himself in the days before the fatal run and he was told there were 12 square inches of hull in contact with the water when at speed.

Not sure about alarms on a hot water tank, but there will be a pressure release valve (PRV) fitted to the top of the tank. It will have a red knurled knob on it. Twist it briefly and a bit of hot water should shoot out (not much though). This might solve the problem, as sometimes the PRV gets blocked with a bit of crud.

I presume you would require references, not everyone would be kind enough to allow complete strangers to 'mind their boat'.

Hi, Fairey Liquid ruins the paint surface and removes the shine, car shampoo is designed for the job and some contain wax and is you have any trace of micro-blistering a pressure washer will 'blow off' the top of the blisters and leave the undercoat exposed. The best way is a large sponge and a bucket of warm water with a suitable car shampoo.... And take care using a pressure washer near the rear view camera on a car....................... Hope that helps. L

A desirable attribute of a moderator is that they have an ability to see both sides of an argument and don’t believe that only one view can be tolerated - their own.

Yes you can use a car type battery charger connected to shore power for an equalise. However you need to use the correct type of charger - a “dumb” one, ie an unregulated one. With that sort of charger, the voltage can rise quite high once the current demand diminishes (batteries approaching fully charged). If you use a “smart” charger it will regulate the voltage and then go to float, ie reduce the voltage significantly once it thinks the batteries are charged. As to the smartgauge, it isn’t particularly good at determining when the batteries are fully charged. It will be reasonably close but if it overreads by say 5% that means you might be routinely stopping charging when the SoC is 95% and that will lead to the accumulation of sulphation. Amongst the problems is the fact that “fully charged” isn’t defined and neither can absolutely “fully charged” be realisticall achieved. During charging, the state of charge increases at an ever decreasing rate - ie it takes longer and longer to add those last little bits of charge. To put it technically, 100% SoC is only asymptotically approached, never actually achieved. This means that one has to compromise and consider “fully charged” to actually be something slightly less than 100%. But where the compromise is set is up to you and there isn’t much consensus. Generally it is determined by measuring the charge current, which gradually tails off as the batteries approach fully charged. The “tail current” is expressed as a percentage of the batteries’ capacity. Some people say 4%, some 2% but really, if you want to properly fully charge your batteries it should be more like 1% or less. So 1% of you 220AH batteries would be 2.2A. But be warned, going from say 4% to say 1% will take several or even many hours. Unfortunately lead acid batteries take a very long time to fully charge and if you don’t do so regularly, they lose capacity due to sulphation.

Whoa! At no point have I made any suggestion whatsoever about banning anybody, have I? I am simply suggesting that moderation policy should reflect forum rules, and if those rules are no longer considered appropriate it would be better to drop them, than to state one thing and do something totally different. As an aside, whether members who have received a ban for whatever reason should be allowed to come back on by the simple expedient of creating a new user name is a quite different matter. In my view if it is to be allowed/condoned, some honesty that it is clearly happening would be better than pretending that there is no evidence that it is.

No problem - it won't leak until it gets down to 0.0mm. Your only problem MAY be that some insurance companies are refusing to insure at less than 4mm, so you may need to call around. If it has only lost about 0.5mm in 50 years, why would you think that it is going to sink in less than another 200+years. ?

A the risk of being flamed - corrugated cardboard on the back?????? Most small fridges (and some larger ones) have exposed cooling coils on the back. Are you sure that the cardboard is not extra transit packing..... I've recently bought a 'posh' Liebherr F/F the same size as yours and its oils are on the back as is my very, very aged Batts unit. Do check (and let le know by PM if you're too embarrassed). Feel free to ridicule me if I'm wrong.

After 5 hours in the water, i've got it off, covered in cuts and scratches now as well, all i need to do now is remove it from the water to prevent anyone else getting fouled up - a passing boater said 'just leave it, let it be someone else's problem', err, no, im getting it out - up a nearly meter high bank, one way or another!

You are starting from a predjudiced position that racism and sexism are wrong and should not be allowed. However being sexist and or racist are not illegal. You are therefore trying to align this forum with your own personal views. You cannot expect a large forum like this to have every member aligned with your personal views. Are you so arrogant that you think your views, and only your views, are correct? Personally I am not racist nor sexist within my own definitions. But that doesn’t that, for example, I think that men and women are exactly equal in all respects. Or that races don’t have general distinguishing aspects. That would be silly! But puritanical, extremist anti-sexism and anti-racist views are just as bad as sexist and racist views. For example I should be able to say that I think the Israeli State is totally out of order for what they do to the Palestinians, without being accused of being an anti-Semite. I also expect to be able to apply humour to situations involving racism and sexism (just as I would with homophobia) because such things are all about the sentiment behind the words, not the words themselves. I don’t want a puritanical, humourless forum ( nor world). Extremist views out on either limb are dangerous and ultimately untenable. I suspect that neither of us particularly like racist or sexist views but they are out there. The best way to reduce them is to keep them in the open and expose them for what they are and explain whey they are a bad thing (in our opinions). The best way is not to surround yourself with a little clique-bubble of like minded virtue-signalling clones. If you want to do that, I can recommend the scourge of the century which is Facebook closed groups,

Lots, but one one asked about them, just why would you carry garden shears.

I carry garden shears saves walking through nettles when moored up

Yes, I've takenjoyed very dog I've owned out for walks during the worst of the fireworks. Some were initially scared, but all ended up unbiased by them. Just a pity it is not proving so easy to change Zeus' reactivity to other dogs ?

Just like back good in the good old days of the Stasi!

The last paragraph is excellent advice, although some breeds (GSD's in particular) need you to have two voices, a happy high pitched one for bad behaviour and a scary, loud shouty one for bad behaviour. Regarding the bit in bold. All pups, usually for a couple of weeks somewhere between 16 and 20 weeks old, suddenly go through an irrational phase of being scared of things they used to be comfortable with. Unless their owner (pack leader) is able to successfully convince them that there is nothing to be scared of, (typically thunder, fireworks etc) then they will remain scared of whatever it is for the rest of their lives. As already suggested, the OP needs to normalise the engine running in the dogs mind, and to ignore (certainly not reward, by trying to sooth the dogs feelings) the unwanted scared behaviour. It should only take a few days for the dog to accept the engine noise if handled properly.

Had the same thing with my Tommy, a Patterdale Terrier who I had since he was an 8 week old pup. He started off boating with no problem at all, and spending time in the cabin to begin with as he joined me in January 2016 and it was flipping cold! Something must have changed in his attitude though as one day out of the blue he decided he didn't like the noise from the engine room whilst sitting in the back cabin. By this point he was a few months old and the start of summer so he came out to join me on his bed I'd placed on the slide. He is more than happy now and spends his time relaxing on the bed watching the world go by. It's also nice to have company whilst boating and there's always an appropriately placed ear to scratch Another problem he had was when I'd pull in to carry out a delivery and would leave the tiller to shift coal or pump diesel or whatever. He'd scream and shout until I'd return, the same applied but unfortunately worse when I'd take coal or drums of diesel off in the wheelbarrow. I made the mistake of turning around to him and saying "shush" etc but soon realised he was getting what he wants. I then tried ignoring him, if you can mamage to put up with yapping and barking for a short time, the dog gets bored with no reaction and shuts up. Tommy certainly did and when I go off delivering I can sometimes be delayed half an hour or so whilst chatting to customers and when I return Tommy is sat as good as gold waiting for me. Ignore any bad or unwanted behaviour and reward any good or positive behaviour. It definitely works. Don't forget that our canine friends are excellent at picking up our own moods so if you are nervous and hesitant then the dog will be too.

If you train a Lab as a gun dog, you still wouldn’t allow it too near a gun as a pup. You would slowly introduce it to the noise from a distance. As mentioned above, worth starting the engine with the pup away from the boat, and walking up to climb on board.

Just wondering if its the noise or the vibration. I figure that an old engine will be noisier, but probably not much more vibration through the boat. Labradors, by breed trait, should be fairly immune to loud noises although of course every dog is different.

Have you tried the dog on a boat with a modern, quiet Japanese diesel?

Does your dog react in the same way if you just run your engine while moored, or is it the combination of your (different) behaviour, the motion, and the engine noise/vibration when setting off? Try just running the engine while carrying on with your usual routine on the boat as a starting point.

Yes, agree with all of the above. Also, dogs look to their pack leader for instructions. If your all 'coochy coo, there there' when he's looking nervous, will only serve as reinforcement that he should be scared. Show him that you are the fearless pack leader, this way he doesn't feel as if he has to step up to 'protect' the pack, and getting overwhelmed. Have you found out what drives him? Treats or tennis balls? Expect knowing labs it'll be food. Perhaps divert his focus from being scared, to 'working' (sit, down, stay etc.) for a treat? Also, after each time you stop it'll be a walk, or a game time. He needs to associate the engine starting up with a good time.

Just like us, from time to time dogs need a visit to the shrink. If you're within a 40-mile radius of Rugby behaviourvet@googlemail.com (Clare) will be able to help you. If you're further afield she will be able to put you in touch with someone through her professional body who can. If you want to find out more about the whole subject have a look on her website. http://www.behaviourvet.co.uk/Home.html BTW she comes highly recommended.

This is not correct! Lock 11 towpath side wall has been bulging in for several years. More than one user reported problems with 7ft wide boats at 11 to CRT in 2017, the reports were acknowledged, so they were aware of it. This was before the fiasco at Lock 15 closed the canal . So CRT had all last winter to monitor lock 11 and correct the problem(which may well have got worse during the winter). At the very brief opening of the flight in May I was laughed at when I pointed out to an official that 11 was going to be a problem, 24 hours later,it was. CRT have spent 2.5million at Marple in the last 12 months, 300k of that went on a useless stainless steel fence on the aqueduct, plenty more on towpath improvements etc. Yet the canal remains unusable for boats. Really good performance that isn't it?