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Saturday 15th June, just gone through Harecastle southwards. While waiting at the north portal the first boater out at about 11 am said he had lost his Tilley Hat. well good news friend, we have retrieved it ! We know your boat said Romiley but can't remember anything else. If you can describe which type of Tilley hat and maybe size, we can start to get it back to you. The southern tunnel keeper wasn't very helpful really and was dealing with four boats to be fair. We are on NB Silkwood. cheers

Nah, it's fine. Just been round the Leicester ring, met loads of nice friendly people, most boaters waved cheerfully and even most fisherplonkers. No drunks, a few kids on roofs, so what? Might be a few more addled brains on the Llangollen next month, but it's all good fun. One's own attitude has a lot to do with it.

If this were true, surely they would all leak to empty if left full. Quite a few left emptyand with all gates shut will self-fill quite quickly. So unless you know which is which, on an individual lock basis, surely it is best to close everything?

Wonder if anyone has written and English to English translation book?

That is because the control/regulation in all those sources basically monitors voltage and when the voltage reaches the particular unit's pre-set it starts to "pulse" the output to maintain a safe average voltage. If another charging source has a higher pre-set voltage then the lower one will shut down but that is fine because to get to that voltage the batteries would have to be well charged. As soon as they discharge or a load goes on the battery voltage will fall and the "turned off" unit will starts to charge again. There is a valid concern when an alternator shuts down and puts on the charge warning lamp because that scares many boaters. This seems to be coming more common with the increase in large solar arrays.

Maybe they just dont want to? If their business model works for them and doesnt include what you want but they continue in business thats for them to decide. In our busy caff we never EVER did poached eggs, scrambled, fried, yes but never poached.

I initially thought about running another set of cables to the batteries but then I thought once they reach the batteries they're basically part of the same "terminal" so I might as well join the cables further up and save some money on cable length.

Just for interest, a repair I did a while back. Old riveted Dutch barge had been taking on water, turned out some rivets had let go and allowed a plate to spring. One of the worst welding jobs I've done, whatever the joint had been caulked with, it certainly wasn't weld friendly. Had to put in a sacrificial bead of weld, grind it out and then start again. The rivets are the interesting bit though, after reasonable preparation I basically welded the heads back on. Seems to have worked, he's not been back. The repairs weren't what I would have liked to have done, I'd have liked to have done the job as it ought to have been but financial constraints meant the fella wanted it done as cheaply as possible.

YWHS are indeed trying to raise enough to buy and repair and run Wheldale. 2 of us are going across to Wakefield next Wednesday to look at Hatfield. We have a strong team working together including all of the volunteers from the YWM. We have been quoted 17,000 to repair the stern gland which is leaking badly, and another 5,000 to replace/ plate up the aft-peak bulkhead which is pitted. There may well be problems on the hull when we get her in dry dock as she hasn't had anodes fitted since we took her to London in 2012. The pans are also leaky but not currently below the waterline. The jebus is a lot older than the tug.

It's all that rain, innit.

Welcome to the forum. Interesting first post.

I suspect it might involve laser scanning, then 3D printing a mirror image of the scan, or some such. In the mean time, I do have an Iron Snail tiller pin. Courtesy of a garden ornament, with a brass rod epoxied in! Jen

Funny you should mention that but they said that they were out of custard the day I took the piccy???

We came though Maureen's lock on one occasion behind a boat full of what looked like rugby players. One of the chaps was struggling to lift the bottom gate paddle so Maureen walked over and whipped it up with ease. She then turned to him in front of his mates and just said "Have you not had your Weetabix this morning?" and asked back to her front door. As you can imagine all his mates just fell about laughing.

Gone, which is appropriate if BSP is involved

One of each, please

Nobody is likely to either - I cannot see any boater having secured a nice towpath mooring bringing a case objecting to its provision, and boaters in general, while possibly grumbling over removal of the public facility, are too supine (or practical?) to take up cudgels in the public interest.

Of course! There's a hierachy in those too. Mine is a Minor 1 in poor condition I know my place Richard

Yes, we were at Bramble cuttings last night! This is turning into an interesting trip! We stopped just after the stop lock at dutton but when we discovered that the tunnel top pub is closed, we were untying kelpie to move forward nearer the tunnel when a "gentleman" who obviously thought he had to keep the yokels right gave us a lecture to the effect that we shouldn't tie up so far back and should move close to the tunnel. We thanked him ?. He proceeded to work the stop lock very slowly despite the fact that another boat had arrived and it was getting near tunnel time. When we were more than half way through the tunnel a headlight appeared coming into the tunnel. He reversed back a bit and despite us both telling him that there was a boat a bit behind us and that he still had 20 minutes to wait, he went straight into the tunnel. As iain said, he possibly thinks tunnel times are for others and not for him. Have phoned the red lion and they are doing food tonight. Thanks for the suggestion folks Haggis

We have blue skies today in Gateford

I know! what made it worse was , because everywhere else on the 4 counties and Llangollen was 10-14 quid i hadnt actually asked the price until i went in to pay in the morning, had i know there were 3 other marinas close by I could have stopped at! Rick

As the title of this thread suggests, 'Confusion over Licences! Guilty Your Honour!

Very droll Mike? In my case, I guess it’s just that with the knowledge that there was a period of poor quality control in the calibration of SG’s, I’d like to increase my confidence that mine is OK. I suppose the obvious step for me is to beg, borrow or steal a certified voltmeter - if the results confirm mine is accurate, then no need to go any further. Incidentally, thanks to knowledge gleaned here, I think I have an effective monitoring setup and a basic understanding on each gauge’s strengths and limitations. So BM1 for charging tail current and also overall charge or drain on the domestic batteries. MT5 for setting up the Tracer MPPT solar controller and general amusement. SG for approx SOC when no charging is occurring.

No problem - another thing to remember is that a Gold Licence is non-refundable. Pay for the year, and then decide in (say) June to 'give-up' and you don't get any refund. Your home navigation may issue a pro rata refund for full months unused, should you choose to upgrade to a gold licence However, if, you are paying by Direct Debit please contact Canal & River Trust Customer Services Centre, for confirmation of the refund procedure. A Gold Licence is non refundable.

The commercial systems will drop in price, like every other new technology. There may be a business opportunity is taking second-user cells from EVs and turning them into guaranteed, turnkey, boat battery systems for sale. MP.

Basically, the SG is only of any use to tell you when you need to start re-charging your batteries. As is often pointed out here, it is of no help at all in determining when they are fully charged, regardless of whether it is correctly calibrated or not. And to know when to start charging does not require any degree of accuracy. So overall, a correctly calibrated SG is about the same amount of use as a wrongly calibrated one.

Grovel time. Matter of opinion. Mike, you are a respected member of the management appreciated by many if not all contributors on the forum. (That will get a reaction of some sort I reckon) I saw a picture of a chap who had a 'six pack' tattooed on his prominent tummy. It was a top view with the ringpulls visible. Quite funny I thought.

Yes there is a secret way to adjust the voltage reading. Since SG only measures voltage, once that is measured correctly the SG will be accurate. Why not indeed! Perhaps because the BMV doesn’t calculate SoC directly, it merely derives it from AH out and a presumption about battery capacity which is usually wrong.

Its a tough one. Many towns charge for car parking and sometimes shops suffer as people go to towns were parking is free, it certainly happens in this area. Sometimes though people are prepared to pay for the convenience of parking. I dont mind paying for mooring if I am in certain locations that aid me. If a particular mooring is full and a charge is made then it would seem the charge is justified? If I moor in a town or hot spot I will pay as when moving about I tend to moor out in the sticks including on rivers where often no charge is made. I sometimes rock up at a marina for around ten or 13 squids a night as hook up soaks the batteries and there is often stuff to do. Horses for courses innitt.

A few years ago I was waiting to go down at Maureen's lock (Wardle lock) in Middlewich. It was quite busy with a few boats waiting to go up. A "working" boat turned up and the crew put the boat straight into the Middlewich Branch under the bridge, just below the lock. As one of them came up all smiling and swinging his windlass, complete with waistcoat and neckerchief, Maureen told him in no uncertain terms to get to the back of the queue and don't ever try and pull that "working boat" stunt again. Crew went back sheepishly to the boat and it backed out to wait its turn. Lovely to watch!

Yes thanks for clarifying. Explains all the confusion! I'm not sure many people realise the boat fitting side is actually the same business. I didn't.