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Lingy, I haven't been able to locate the other thread that Mac of Cygnet mentions, but I'm guessing your route for that trip would be as recommended by canalplan, i.e. 80.5 hours of boating via Huddersfield and Stoke and not involving rivers. Different to the GU but not necessarily much harder I would have thought? Longer tunnels, more locks but probably a lot less moored boats. Oh, and colder weather I expect. Anyway, as I said or at least implied in my earlier post in this topic there are different levels of experience needed according to what you want from a boat mover. Although as far as Great Haywood I would be on canals I haven't done before, I think I'd be competent to do that trip and I'll put myself forward for it if you (or some other owner of the boat) will be along too, subject to availability. When do you intend to go and at what sort of pace? I have about 4 weeks free starting this Monday 24th and within that could fit in with your timetable.

Good news everyone- the terrible two have returned !!! Edi at 3am to my boat and Django at my friends in Gnosall at 10.45am. A big thank you to you for your support, especially Catweasel Thanks Stan

Bought a pot in B&Q today and had a go. Mixed it into a paste and painted it on with a brush, eventually I started putting a bit more effort into cleaning the wood, working the powder into the grain with an old nail brush and scrubbing. Think it's made a difference. I'll give it another go tomorrow. When it's dry, I'll sand the wood, and give it a couple of coats of yacht varnish. Thank you @WotEver, and everyone, looks like Barkeeper has done the trick Knew someone on here were know some 'magic'.

I'm bookmarking this thread so I can quote it the next time someone complains about CRT having a monopoly.

Anyone who goes to sea in a conventional subtends to smell of diesel.

"Narrowboat depreciation due to diesel's future" Honestly, if depreciation bothers you don't EVER buy a boat. Owning a NB cost £5k a year before you even consider the capital value drifting down. If you can't afford to shell out £5k-£10K a year to run it, plus say 10% a year depreciation, then forget it. You'll screw yourself in knots worrying about the never-ending drain on your finances.

I suspected that. I find it interesting that if CRT deviate from the law in a way boaters don't like there are howls of anguish but not a murmur when it is something they are happy with.

I cannot agree that environmentalists turn the environment into socialist politics, its not that simple although the powers of the right, certainly Trump and others would love that myth to become a generally accepted 'fact' - it does their job for them. Certainly a lot of Extinction Rebellion people are young so tend to be leftish but the Ext. Rebellion bunch that I am involved with are nearly all female, mostly my age (sadly not young) and terrifying - the militant wing of the W.I. in fact - I am too cowardly to own up to leftish leanings as I reckon I would be in trouble. Anyway, socialism or capitalism, they both depend on the chimera never ending growth so neither is compatible with realistic environmental progress. There is a Greenpeace event in parliament tomorrow, the launch of a study into plastics in UK rivers, I am going, so is my wife, I very much doubt if anybody is interested in how we vote and I think most people appreciate that neither left or right are doing anything like enough.

Priceless. The boat is,for me,a complete antidote to the other no boating world.

OK it's a fair cop! In 1978 I borrowed £300 from the bank to buy a new motorbike and instead I spent it on ... A car!

What value do you put on ten years of life enjoying the boat whilst still alive?

Talking to some of the CRT volunteers recently, I have yet to find one who has not been verbally abused by cyclists. Whilst such cyclists are thankfully in the minority, it still would be nice to have cycles carry a visible registration plate so that those who believe that the minimum cycling speed is 20 mph can be dealt with and also those that think walkers and fishermen, and boater on the towpath, should get out of their way, be reprimanded (Instead of them following the actions as displayed the said TV advert). May be courtesy should grow on such offenders, but then it is very unlikely that it will in their "TOTALSELF" world!

Gosh - anybody would think you were trying to start fights.

Stop bothering about mere money and have a life. You have enough money so its not a problem for you. Enjoy your life rather than thinking every decision has to make sense financialy, thats a very sad view. We have met countless people over our 30 years liveaboard life that say they are going to do it, and die before they get chance just worrying about housing markets and crap like that. There are no pockets in shrouds. Five sad words in one phrase ( He died a wealthy man ) We have jumped and done more stuff in our lifetimes than just about anyone we have ever known, if either of us drop dead tomorrow it will not have been wishing we had tried stuff out, just get on with it

It is an issue, but only in the sense that the huge switch to diesel 20-30 years ago was because petrol engines emitted far more carbon per mile. Unfortunately, popular opinion doesn't differentiate between different forms of pollution, or whether the effects are local or global.

I'm absolutely not missing the point. Everybody has their own style of writing, and unlike in real life you don't have body language to help you interpret what someone is saying. You don't really know where Mike was coming from or why he was asking / saying what he did; and when I said this was a nose-spite-face moment was because you made an assumption and based on that assumption you decided to haul attitude with one of the few people who could give you all the answers you needed. And no we are not a pack we are a community and EVERYBODY is somebody, including you. You're one of my favourite people.

It's true, @Mike the Boilerman is a wealth of information that has been directly beneficial to me personally, so I agree completely that OP judged his wording too harshly - that's what I mean by assuming good faith. I feel like you could have read his words in two ways, one with a sarcastic tone and one without, and that's part of the problem when communicating by text. I'm suggesting that when someone (especially if they are new to the forum) reads something that could be interpreted one way or another, err on the side of friendly and helpful, because usually that's the case when someone takes the time out of their day to provide free advice. That's why assuming good faith is a key principle of Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith I don't think he was trying to be unkind, but even if he was, it makes the discussion a lot more pleasant and productive if we assume that he wasn't rather than resort to it ourselves. Let's be excellent to each other, even when we feel like we weren't beed excellent to.

Let me just play Devil's advocate again for a second. There are quite a number of genuine, honest, law abiding citizens who have neither a drivers license or a passport, nor is there any law in Great Britain that says that if you are a British citizen you must have a photo ID of any sort. (no, there's not, I looked it up before I started) So you find the boat of your dreams, you are VERY keen to buy it, there is a plethora of original documentation including invoices all bearing the name of the boat owner, but the owner tells you he has neither drivers license or passport. Now if he had stolen the boat (and the paperwork along with it) he would have all that same paperwork and would tell you he had no drivers license or passport. As Alan has stated in post 18 a lot of people on the cut aren't that keen on paper work, don't bother with it if the can help it and/or do a lot of the work themselves. If you have a rummage around on here you will find loads of examples of people who have stated they will only pay in cash or who don't bother keeping invoices or couldn't find then if the did. I'm not being contrary for the sake of it, I'm just saying that just because that's what you want doesn't mean that's what you are going to get. There is nothing wrong with being vigilant and I'm not suggesting you through caution to the wind.

Doesn;t bug you as much as when BBC presenters say something is "2 times less" I bet! In fact they tend to do it with the bigger numbers e.g. "LED bulbs use 10 times less electricity than incandescent". No, they use one tenth of the electricity.... Rant over.

Diesel engines will run on a variety of vegetable and mineral oils. Indeed Rudolph Diesel's first engines ran on peanut oil, and many people today brew their own based on recycled cooking oils. Hence diesel engines will be around for a while yet, but not necessarily running on DERV or gas oil as they do today.

@tree monkey has the duck. He wont take a narrowboat down the slalom course though. He may be crazy, but not that crazy!

Yes. All five of us!!! ?

Closing the canals was necessary to create a hard border between Lancashire and Yorkshire for Brexit.

You'll get to Sheffield no problem, I don't know who is suddenly changing the lock dimensions, but I can assure you that you can get a 61'6" boat too and back on the Sheffield canal. The trip boat there is 61'6" x 15' and yearly he goes out to dry dock for blackening. As I say I don't know who has suddenly started changing the official guides, but they maybe need to get out of the office and get on the ground and see that the locks have not suddenly shrank. What guide are you looking at? Have a look here at "Dimensions of our waterways" https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/notices They have got the visitor stay wrong for Sheffield as it is 48hrs NOT 9 Days.

Tim Taylors Landlord and Ram Tam are quite simply sublime. Only a peasant would not understand this

Carbon with diesel isnt the issue its NOX and you get it from Bio fuel as well, some diesels arnt suitable for it either It can but you need 3.7kw of it to do it, and you have to know what you are doing

Oh yes, of course you can, but who in their right mind pays for licence and mooring for more boat than they need? Oh and @mrsmelly....... we are currently digging into the back of cupboards on a boat that we have owned for 15 years and finding all sorts of stuff. When things settle down I think I feel another auction coming on...... Oh and if anyone wants to donate anything they can get it to Python (or me) at Braunston

£9k in 1983 and £28k in 2019 have pretty much the same value. Cash costs less to maintain than a boat though. JP

The green one is a clothes line prop. We have 3 of these and we use them to hang out clothes to dry in the boat. Because they expand and can be locked you can put them right on top of the windows either side to hang the clothes on.

Is Reg a shiny boat? ?

I agree with much of this, my comment about dobbin was a flippant one, and certainly it would take a lot to install 10 thousand charging points but there are people on this forum with solar boats, steam boats, rowing boats, punts and sailing boats. If someone wants to cruise 12 hours a day year round then current solar tech isn't up to it., being frugal with power and either taking a winter mooring or minimum distance CCing when the sun isn't putting much at all in, is possible with current tech. As for the network of charging stations, I wouldn't expect CRT to provide the infrastructure or electric for free but marinas are in an ideal position to offer this facility as a charged service, half day mooring plus electric.

I'm pretty sure that will never be an issue in my lifetime, and I am in my forties. If you want to boat buy a boat. If you want cheap living pay off the mortgage and stay put. I would also add that most of the non-retired on here would kill to be in your current position. If I was you I would just do it!

Ooh, that's an interesting take on doing reviews! Could you buy lots of other things and tell us you haven't used them?

Well that answered my question! Carrie~Lou won't be stretched - at least not in the near future and certainly not by us. Subject to survey she will be under new ownership very soon with a lovely couple who have hired boats loads of time but want their own boat. I hope they will have as many happy times in her as we have had. Now we just have to get boatyards, surveyors and planets aligned for both them and us to progress with our boat buying plans Exciting times