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Went up the newly 'open' two miles of the Pocklington Canal this morning. Andy, a chap on a boat in Melbourne Basin, had sold me a Head of Navigation plaque - I'm not a plaque person, but having got it I thought I should go, despite him informing me that the pub in Bielby had closed. Two locks, a swing bridge and lots of reeds. Walbut lock and the swing bridge have no landing stages. Best moor under the bridge when going up the lock (not like I did - see pic) - there's a bench to tie to. The swing bridge is difficult singlehanded, but possible (obviously). Rather bleak at the end, and no easy access to the village, as the Bielby Arm is not yet navigable (last pic), so I didn't stay (no pub). Two hours each way for the two miles.

I sell kindling....

Arrived at Stoke Bruerne top lock this afternoon, going up. These are our local locks, and we do them many times a year. We know that with a single boat going up, the calmest way is to open the ground paddle on the same side as the boat, and the gate paddle on the opposite side. That keeps the boat into the side of the lock. There was a volunteer lock keeper at the lock. As soon as the gate was shut, he lifted the paddle. He didn’t ask if we wanted help, and he didn’t check with me at the helm if I was ready. My crew went to the other side of the lock and lifted the gate paddle. He ordered him to close the paddle, pointing at the little sign which warns of turbulence. My crew said we knew what we were doing, and this would be fine. The volunteer became somewhat apoplectic, and eventually called my crew a stupid a***hole. My crew asked him to step away from the lock and leave us to it. He said he was in charge and it was his responsibility to make sure we used the locks properly, as he worked there. My crew pointed out that as it was our boat, it was our responsibility to work the lock, and he didn’t work there, he volunteered there. Eventually he did step away, but only to tell gongoozlers everything we were doing wrong. And he couldn’t resist repeatedly coming back to pick holes in each action. Apparently the paddles were even wound down incorrectly. He’s going to report us to CRT for using the lock incorrectly. An email of complaint has been sent to CRT, pointing out that he didn’t follow volunteer procedure, and that he was a really bad representative of the Trust. This was by far the worst example of a volunteer lock keeper we’ve ever encountered. He was in great contrast to the very nice volunteer who was helping a novice down the locks, that we’d met just an hour earlier.

I don't know if this is a mini tractor or a ride on mower but what it's pulling seems like barrels of fun

Not much time in the car these days. Rarely walk through a wood - never been my cup of tea, to be honest. Dont have a daily commute any more, and none of the routes I take are through woods, never mind pine woods. No kids, never mind grandkids. If I had any, and asked them to collect enough to fill a green net bag, i'd feel obliged to give them more than 3 quid for their efforts Like I say..... I'm happy to hand over my 3 quid. You're happy to collect it yourself. Neither of us is wrong.

I'm glad you can laugh. Have you ever tried the Napton to Braunston stretch on a sunny weekend following a fat bote? When you're 20th in the queue behind it, it is not funny. A one hour trip can take three hours. Zenataoman is quite right. If he isn't why has this thread gone on so long? Many peeps see this as a serious problem. You laugh it off. We can't.

In the case of a tractor it's the turny bit at the back - the engine diverts power to the turny bit at the back which then powers the implements attached to it. But you get smaller ones too.

With appropriate guarding I hope, wouldn't want rustys important bits caught up, I imagine it would smart a tad. Any way this is a dead end, voles will be the answer

Frog in your throat? ?

Deere me, its a lawn mower.

So you too could earn £240 an hour. Sell them for £3 a bag! ? With the massive added bonus that your stove smells of BACON...!!!! YAY!!!!

Cooking oil works really well as a fire lighter. Catches easily, burns for a long time, but no explodey tendencies. Wipe the frying pan round after cooking with a paper towel and put in the stove ready for lighting. Saves the sink drain getting blocked with mini fatbergs and keeps the cholesterol levels in the canal fish down! Jen

The sooner CRT start putting some width restrictions in the better....and im not joking about this. This fat boat thing is getting out of hand rapidly.

Me neither ssssshhh!

Have you actually read the thread? All these objections answered multiple times. It takes a while, in between the posts about voles. No one is forcing you to go boating this way. It makes no change to the canals, other than restoring the tow paths to their proper condition as tow paths, rather than muddy tracks. I am merely offering it as something to be tried. How about a pleasant days cruising in complete silence without the hammer of a diesel engine and the whirl of a propeller in your ear? Being able to hear the bird song around you. Self driving tractors a distinct possibility, or walking behind one and guiding it as you go, as you would a 'orse. Does that sound like it could be fun? It does to me. Jen

It sounds good to me. I am not sure how the Phantom of The Opera comes into it though.

Excellent. Too big, too powerful, too fast for this application, but good fun and shows that all the technology exists.

Of course, if you meet a boat coming the other way being towed by another mower, who ever drops their tow rope to let the other pass over it gets their tow rope shredded!

You could use it to mow the tow path whilst towing the boats, now If you could add an hedge trimmer CRT would no longer need Fountains. ?

Bucket full of water, bottle full of water, invert bottle in the bucket, blow air from engine into bottle. When finished, cover bottle opening take out and hold the right way up. Now bottle will be only part full of water. Weigh , top up, weigh again, difference is 1cc per gram of water added. Added - You could just put the piston at BDC then pour in diesel or oil down the injector or glow plug hole using a measuring jug until full, but you would have to get it all out, or hydraulic lock would destroy the engine when you put the glow plug or injector back in and started it up.

A bit of a result today, boat yard carrying out all items as part of the sale!

2000 sounds way off the mark. Thats a months rent. Try 10000

And their own brand Gin (Oliver Cromwell) is excellent.

Or you could have a really clever tap - iTap. No?

It's funny you should say that because that's how I've thought of it too - my work and hobbies are very practical and hands on so I'm up close to almost everything I do, if I have less experienced people with me I often tell them for safety you either have to be close enough to do something or far enough away to get out of the road. So I too have that slightly disconnected feeling if I'm too far away from what I should be doing. ?Hmmm.

Cheap fire lighters. Keep thin sticks soaking in a jam jar half full of old white spirit, diesel or paraffin. One lit will set your kindling alight a treat.

Doesn't it get caught round the prop when you're cruising?

That's gonna Hertz.

Well, there's always a first for everything

It is your dream boat you are buying, not the marina. Make sure you have an independent survey. If the boat needs work, have it done elsewhere if possible. If something looks or smells wrong, walk away and look for another dream boat.

First of all was that 12.6 volts while the engine was still running, almost a soon as you turned it off or after about an hour during which time the water pump or fridge had run a bit? If the latter then it should more or less indicate a little over half charged batteries. If one of the first two absolutely nothing can be deduced from the reading. In fact if you alternator is working as it should and the engine revving fast enough (you do charge at about 1200 to 1500 rpm, don't you) we can see the batteries were far from well charged. The alternator's regulator had not yet started working indicating a high charging current and that in turn indicates well discharged or faulty batteries. You probably need well in excess of 12 hours running to get well discharged batteries any where near fully charged. Unless you monitor the solar output and the alternator output (Amps) you will have no idea how well charged the batteries are at any one time. In my experience some cheaper solar controllers seem to drop to float voltage long before the batteries are anything like fully charged. Also from the weather forecast it seems that you may have had a lot of cloud and rain yesterday. Without more data it is hard to know what is going on but based on a lot of experience, especially with posters with low post counts, the likelihood is that you have never fully charged you batteries and have over discharged them regularly. The over discharge will have dramatically reduced their cyclic life while being left permanently well discharged has probably lead to major sulphation that ha snow reduced the battery capacity to a fraction of their stated capacity. People new to living aboard regularly destroy batteries within a very few weeks until they grasp how long they take to recharge and how to look after the. I would suggest two things. 1. Get some battery monitoring equipment. You seem to have a voltmeter so add an accurate ammeter to it. Then lean how to interpret both. 2. Read, mark and learn the content of Wotever's Battery Charging Primer that you will find pinned to the Maintenance section of this forum. Do not go buying new batteries until you get your charging regime sorted or you will destroy them.

Physical size is important. Length, width and height. For the boat safety scheme they need to be restrained from moving around and depending on how this is done on your boat, buying the wrong size may require some alterations. Better.to measure and check before buying. It may be the extra capacity in the 135Ahr batts are gained by more efficient use internal construction, or just in the height, but how do you know without measuring the originals? Jen

When I get home from the pub after bellringing the last thing I want to do is go out looking in pine woods to gather pine cones to light the stove. More than happy to pay about the six quid a bag costs locally for a decent bag of kindling like that. I can earn six quid in about 90 seconds.

Not good to hear, Sickle deserves to be looked at in its present uniform. Knowing Mike the Boilerman and his bote , he could be 6 feet in front and 18 inches lower than you in the morning....

I laugh each time I see a fatarse pretending to be a narrowboat.

When you break down in the pouring rain you'll wish you had a trad. When your engine goes bang because of a leak that hasn't been spotted for weeks you'll wish you had a trad. When your wet clothes are drying around the engine you'll wish you had a trad. When your working on the engine in a cruiser stern and you end up cracking a rib trying to get the last bolt undone you'll wish you had a trad

As with all extra low voltage installs the cable size is driven by voltage drop, not the current capacity of the cable. You might expect the MPPT to sort it out, but if it is seeing a significantly different voltage to that at the panel it will be offset from the MPP, and mistracking. Or, if there is voltage loss between the controller and the battery the battery will get less charge than it could/should. Or both in some set ups. So to choose a cable you need to know how long it is as well as the expected curent. There are then several on line volt drop calculators, or someone here will advise. N

Whilst looking we always preferred Semi-Trads - more social than Trads but look more traditional than cruisers - happy midway. There seem to be far more Trads for sale than others, not sure if this means anything other than there are more Trads about?