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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.

Possibly...or it recognises that it takes some folk more time for the foolishness of their posts to sink in. Mine is set to infinity and I also get an automatic email alert asking "Did you really mean to post that??"

Hi All, An update after me and the wife visited the Ashby on foot many times recently and checking out the linear moorings site at Sutton Cheney i must confess we are smitten so much so that although not suitable for my friend he now has a mooring on a (marina not for me) It does look very tranquil quiet and such beautiful countryside and have not heard a bad thing said except for the shallowness of the canal which is not a problem for us as our boat has a shallow draft and is just over 8 tons The cafe car park seems very safe and secure and locals report no trouble there ok there are some artistic different individuals in the mooring line up but all seemed very friendly to us when we chatted to them from the towpath side to cut this short we now have a mooring on the this site and can't wait to moor up and enjoy The Ashby

Agree with DMR. If we are leaving a wide lock and someone is coming the other way, we leave the gates as they were. Some people demand both gates open and will shout at you if you close one, some people demand one gate open and will shout at you if you don’t close one. You can’t win. From your point of view I would just be grateful that the lock was ready for you and you didn’t have to drain it etc. I think you are being rather hard to please.

It's called a pintle. The bit it fits into is called the gudgeon.

At the lock now,all is fine! Just 2 boats in front, going down. Geert

My OH usually finds me surrounded by piles of books I have removed from the shelves to "sort". "What are you doing?" "I'm sorting my books out..." "How many have you sorted?" "I'm still sorting this one." "Is that the same one you were sorting yesterday?" "Leave me alone! I'm busy!" I have this notion that if I rotate my collection periodically there will always be a forgotten gem appearing at eye level.

I well remember one of our 1st times on a swing mooring. Holyhead (Anglesey) bay. We had a static caravan on a campsite close to Holyhead. Boat on swing mooring which was accessed by the Yacht-Club 'water taxi'. SWBMO (God bless her) decided it would be nice to have a night gently rocked to sleep by the small Summer swell. I decided not to stay on board, rather go back and spend the night in the Caravan as the forecast was not good. Took the last water-taxi back to shore at 9:00pm. Middle of the night and the phone goes off - "COME AND GET ME, its 'orrible she cried" I (gently) explained that she was on the boat, and, had the tender 1/2 mile out at sea - the water taxi's did not start to run again until 9:00am there was absolutely nothing I could do (unless she wanted the lifeboat launching) Wind dropped by morning, took the 1st water-taxi and I had to wake her up to do my breakfast. Not on !!!

Management fees for a 12th share in managedcschemes vary between £400 to around £450 per year which is why we are self managed in our syndicate of 12 and we find the running of the boat is straightforward with a small team of around three or four people filling the roles of secretary, treasurer and someone organising repairs and maintenance. We all meet up oncd a year for a dinner and then a meeting to decid what needs doing in the coming year, where we base the boat etc. It all runs very well with very few issues. Howard

I could guess that I set it as such when i installed it With hindsight, it is 1) from your list, never mind the "b" Having said that, I could guess that a lot of people with a Tracer, or some other brand, may not know that they can set it as a fixed 12V or 24V, controller, rather than leaving it to sense for itself.

Beaten by a short head, well quite a long head acctually several lengths. I was just going to draw attention to that.

Awful weather here too, we had to resort to emergency ice creams every hour today as the temps nudged 39c

Some photos of Creighton's in the last post of this old thread.

That is one reason that my design has the engine/gearbox above the paddle wheel. No holes whatever in the hull.

The mm square vs square mm confusion can be easily got round by using a unit of area for conductor measurement, rather than a linear unit. I propose an imperial unit to keep the crustier forum members happy. The nanoAcre. 1nanoAcre = 4.0469mm2 or 1mm2 roughly equals 1/4 nanoAcre. Jen

I have done the entire length of the K&A many times, usually in late spring and mid Autumn when the flow on the Kennet can be quite challenging. I realise that you have discovered this by unfortunate experience but, in future, carefuly studying the waterways guide ahead of a days journey should equip you with advance knowlede of where the Kennet flows into and out of ther canal, so you can make sure of a secure mooring before reaching a lock when there is a potential side flow. You presumably have not yet attempted Reading, but there are a couple of places where particular attention is required:- County Lock as you enter Reading, although shallow, has a fierce weir next to it and you should moor on the designated landing before the bridge and not attempt to enter the lock until it is set with the gates open. Brewery Gut in town, which is one way and controlled by traffic lights, can be very exciting (or terrifying!!) going downstream when there is a good flow, and you may well need to exceed the 4mph limit in order to maintain steerage..

If the fuel boats draw more than 3 foot they'll get stuck / roll over it, more than 3 foot 3 they have no chance, but given then dont normally have a wooden bottom and can load to bow down a fair bit it brings the back up a little. as above yea was towy below lock 5 now gone with alot of effort. shame as It was a section i really wanted to do

NOX is produced by burning air at high temperatures. Air is 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. This is because modern diesels are turbocharged, thus pumping in more air to be burnt on every combustion cycle.

To err is human; it takes a computer.....

Morning Gents OP here. Sorry I haven’t been on this thread for a bit, I've had a lot going on! I can see all the fantastic ideas and suggestions - thank you to ALL of you. Ill try and respond to the genny options later, ive also been looking at the Honda eu20 ‘suitcase’ generator. in regards to the ballast issue, there have been some significant improvements. I had a stack of steel plates placed under the galley before kitchen was installed. This has dropped the Uxter plate to less than half inch above water. We still have a few bits to go in the galley as well as granite worktops so hoping this will complete the final trim. Boat builders asked me to finalise fit out and they will come back to do a final trim. Ill get get a picture tonight.

They may respond by pointing out that the available width permits passage of craft up to and including the maximum craft dimensions. ?

OK. The problem is that governments have made no effort whatsoever to reduce growth. Their focus is on mitigation of the damage caused by said growth, ignoring the root cause, the nub of the problem.

Not quite sure what all that has to do with the breach on the Montgomery. Do I want CRT to urgently repair a breach on a section of canal that only people in trailer boats are able to use because it's not connected to the rest of the system? Not really, sounds like an 'as and when' job to me.

I always take a link out of one if the side chains when i fit a bow fender and substitute it with a tie wrap , that way should the worse happen the tie wrap will break and the fender will roll over the bow , rather than the boat hanging .... I have done this to in excess of 30 boats and have so far had 2 reports back of it saving someones pride and joy. Rick

Do they all read the same on a given load or are they like your smartgauges

It most likely is the "Birmingham" , I think he had the Camborne 1955/6 time.

We just took a photo of the boat then coloured it with different colours onscreen ...

No name, no CRT number, no visible licence - could it be that CRT have devised kind of bear trap for those trying to sneak under the radar?

Ah, but Brian, the folk who moan and criticise hire boaters never had to learn. They knew everything the minute they stepped aboard and never ever made a mistake. I sometimes think that folk who go narrowboating (I won't call them boaters) are a crowd of complainers. If it is not hire boats or shared boats it is folk going past their badly moored boat too fast. I wonder if complainers are more prevalent among folk who use the internet . I sincerely hope so as what we see on the internet is not encouraging. haggis

...although it doesn't really manage to say anything about what CRT actually do. You wouldn't glean from that advert that CRT are actually responsible for maintaining infrastructure, managing navigation, running museums, etc. They could just be a sort of 'tourist board for the waterways' for all the ad spells out. (I'm not saying this a bad thing, necessarily, but I suspect a lot of people could see the advert and yet walk along the towpath the next day thinking 'the council should come and trim these verges' or 'I wish Bristish Waterways would do something about the graffiti on those lock gates'.)

Most of that seems pretty consistent with what I said, just broken down into specific targets. (Not the bits about volunteers and donations, but the bits about visitor numbers, awareness etc.). And given the extent to which CRT are falling short, especially on the targets directly related to their ability to self-fund ('Friends', donations), I do wonder if they've got one eye on a future where they have to say to the Government, "We gave it our best shot, it wasn't enough, BUT here's a compelling case for you continuing to plug that financial gap" - with the ability to demonstrate public support/benefit a large part of that. Personally I don't know why the Government finds it so hard to reconcile itself to the idea of just stumping up £50 million a year (or whatever it is) on an ongoing basis. It's a drop in the ocean in terms of Government spending, and surely offers at least as much benefit as comparable spending on other public spaces like parks and recreation grounds.

All I can say is if you haven't had loads of embarrassing moments like this, then you are not boating enough. ?

And the stern of MARCELLUS was at Braunston in June along with its new owner (acquired in February ?) - unless it is for sale again

And a similar view today: http://binged.it/1S1gJe5 This?

All the canals are of the same depth. Half way up a duck