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Or perhaps a case of a new boater who doesn't yet know what can and can't be done or what is worth doing and whats not - nor will they be the first person to need to remove a holding tank (if they do) so hardly reinventing the wheel. Off the top of my head I can think of two YouTube channels where people have posted their narrowboat refits/fit outs; Narrowboat Helen is a channel that shows and older boat being stripped out and refitted, and Narrowboat Zero Gravity is a new boat being fitted out for the first time. The chap from NB Helen is experienced and this is not his first NB project and the couple from NB ZG are new to the whole thing but put a lot of research and work into getting it right which they share on their channel. Both of these YouTube channels will give you a better idea what is going on under the floor and behind the walls. Plus they're just really interesting. Just remember that everybody had to start some where and nobody just instantly knows everything, you will learn what you need to learn as you go along, so please don't be put off by those who might belittle you for not having the knowledge that they took many decades to acquire. There search function in the top right hand side of the site header is very useful. It might be worth considering that a a boat that needs a lot of work done might be cheaper to buy but might work out more expensive in the long run by the time you get the work finished. I'm not sure but from reading your first post you might be muddling up grey water and black water. Black water is you toilet waste and grey water is your sink etc. Welcome to the forum and good luck with your new adventure.

I can only suggest people follow Tim's link to get an idea just how hard IWA has worked over the past 10 years on route and noise mitigation. There are several significant examples of route changes brought about by tireless and very professional, high calibre intervention and, in more than one instance, this has resulted in actual cost savings to HS2. IWA's volunteer planners have worked incredibly hard to present viable alternatives to alignments that would have blighted a waterway location or compromised a future restoration. To read their submissions is to see true professionalism at work and a dedication to ensuring that our waterways can be enjoyed in the future. I, for one, take my hat off to them and they have my unwavering admiration for all the unpaid hours that they have now devoted to finding viable, alternative routes for HS2 alignments. It has clearly ensured their credibility with HS2 engineers and they are now, justifiably, held in high esteem.

Clockwork will be the power of the future. Springs can be wound by either Workzone cordless drill from Aldi, or for excercise which folk need very badly with a huge key or a Stanley hand drill. Women can use the Stanley breast drill. Broken springs, pinions and governors ect replacement will be properly described with pictures in your Haynes workshop manual. Cordless drills will be recharged whilst driving along by what is known as ''The bump method'' the cars motion of jogging up and down over potholes and sleeping policemen and women. For fast boost charging of the drill battery one simply drives along bouncing in and out of all the drainholes grids along the kirb, by useing the bump method over the drain holes continuousely with the cordless drill attached in the keyhole you have, in effect as well as clockwork motor also electric to power the wheels. With this cutting edge form of ccccclockwork technology car propulsion with the simple aforesaid winding up aids will ensure that you will always arrive at your destination. A little 3 in 1 oil will need to be applied to the clockwork motion every two milliom miles. This form of lowbrid car will be called ''The Clockbatdrill car'' and will be very cheap. Tesla's and the likes, we s--t em. Bizzard, missmanaging indirector and inventor of the Clockbatdrill lowbrid car company.

I am a member of both the IWA and NABOI and your comments may ring true to both organisations, although the stock answer might be instead of being a non-member why not join them and help to spread the message.. In IWA we do try to promote what we do at local boating related events but it can sometimes be an uphill struggle getting the massage across. With particular regard to IWA, one thing we have to remember is that without their efforts in earlier times, and the continuing efforts of the Waterways Recovery Group, we may not have such had such valuable asset to play on! Why not look out for your local IWA meetings - we meet once a month for example - where you be able to meet up with like minded people and maybe learn something about what is going on. Howard

Are you alleginging it is one of those "Schrodinger boats"? A Schrodinger Boat is a boat that is always there when you look at it, but the instant you look away, it goes off cruising. Then when you look back again, you find it returned from it's cruise to the exact same place, facing the same way, the last possible instant before you looked back.

It was the IWA who brought about the change from HS2's original plans of crossing the Trent & Mersey near Fradley Junction in 3 places to just one place now. They, together with some professional architects, worked out an alternative route which crossed the canal just once instead of the originally planned 3 places and also saved HS2 £55m. Understandably HS2 agreed to it. Another thing the IWA have been working hard on is noise mitigation. HS2 currently are only agreeing to these measures where there are fixed dwellings but the IWA are arguing that boats are dwellings too ,whether they are continuous cruisers, people on holiday, or boaters moored in a more permanent mooring such as a marina or an online one. They are campaigning to have noise mitigation measures put in place wherever to line gets close to a canal/river. They are currently being 'listened to' but how successful they are we will have to wait and see. But whatever the outcome fair play to them for all their efforts. The IWA also do a lot of work reviewing planning applications throughout the country and raise objections to the ones which will have a detrimental affect on the canal environment. They have been quite successful with some of these over the years. Sometimes it may be modifications to plans and other times it's resulted in a complete abandonment of them.

Sorry but even your Clockbatdrill car has a carbon footprint to manufacture it. Here is a truly zero-carbon car, the only one designed and made so far in the history of mankind: . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I guess those with 'more experience' actually have little real experience of anchoring. There are very few rivers that flow with the speed and power of the Sea, yet we seem to manage to recover our anchor every time we use it (most days). There is no way I could afford to lose a £1000 anchor every day. You actually use the boat (under power) to recover the anchor, very little manual work involved.

Nice little video about a day in the life of a fuel boat.

Here's the head of the National Grid: "The most demand for electricity we’ve had in recent years in the UK was for 62GW in 2002. Since then, due to improved energy efficiency such as the installation of solar panels, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16 per cent. Even if the impossible happened and we all switched to EVs overnight, we think demand would only increase by around 10 per cent. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002 and this is well within the range of manageable load fluctuation." From https://www.nationalgrid.com/5-myths-about-electric-vehicles-busted I suspect he's in a position to know what he's talking about.

A 'friend', you say.....

I think most car companies never thought that EVs would gain any support because they didnt understand what could be done with electricity and batteries. They assumed they would be niche and never be able to compete. Its only now that Musk has learnt enough about power management to have a premium product. It will be years before the big auto makers have the experience to really compete. Look at Tesla's strategy. Their biggest deal was with Panasonic to make the batteries. Absolutely essential if you are to make lots of cars. Have any other Auto manufacturers done this yet? https://www.ft.com/content/bf0c37bc-27c8-11ea-9a4f-963f0ec7e134

I've never had any problems having jerry cans filled with red at marinas and have often seen driveway experts filling theirs. Conversely, many filling stations won't allow you to fill a container of that volume.

But you are planning to live inside a big metal box???? ? ...............Dave

Very useful indeed in some circumstances, especially rivers but rarely on canals. I bought an old 56lb weight from eBay (by collecting it, postage would have been silly) of the type used on old-fashioned scales. Similar to this one. With a length of rope attached it makes a good temporary anchor on a river that is flowing fairly gently, eg to stop for lunch when the banks are unsuitable for mooring, and it's a lot easier to deploy and recover than an anchor. Also when travelling downstream I carry it through to the stern, where it doesn't get in my way but can be thrown overboard easily and quickly; in a fast flowing river it may not hold but would slow and stabilise the boat while I either fixed the problem or else strolled to the front to deploy the main anchor. Also on occasions when there is only room to moor one end of the boat, eg to a very short bit of pontoon, I have sometimes used it to hold the other end of the boat in place overnight.

Often used on the Broads, it just a dense weight, often a bucket of concrete with a metal loop embedded to tie a mooring line to

I've a feeling that theft of electricity from street lights etc. happens in many ways in many places around the world. Same goes on with oil pipelines; I think they had some terrible accident years ago in Nigeria where someone was diverting oil but it caught fire? This is not a new concept; I'm sure I read that in ancient Rome, they had a giant aqueduct carrying water into the city from the nearby hills to supply baths etc., but people along its route were diverting water from it into their houses and creating problems. Meanwhile re. my parent's supply of coke (no, NOT that sort of coke!), I have a notion that although Beckton gas works was big, there were others in London and elsewhere, so which our coal merchant got their supplies from I wouldn't know. No doubt there was a logistics problem around the supply and demand; I guess certain industries would have used coke as well as households. No doubt London, like every city/town needed the gas etc., and I guess the works got built in Beckton because land was cheap enough and it was a handy place for bringing in the raw coal through the London docks.

But they wont because they think the IWA is all old fuddy duddies who want to ban CCing and don't achieve anything because they dont dig up the lawns in Oxford

This is true, but you know boaters, quickly become experts in regulating the available air to best effect. Petcoke is a great fuel, like anthracite on steroids but much cheaper, easier to light, and more controllable.

Just don't look and it can be anything you want

I am not suprised you are standing down after the recent spatt of moaning from some quarters who fail to understand you do this role for nowt and its a thankless task. Anyway thanks for all you have done in the role. I feel I must add that it was not this particular thread you received the Flack on but members on a different thread.

Pictures attached. 60ft Peter Nicholls, 1989 build. Spent the day cleaning as it’s not been used for a year or two. Started my ‘to do’ list including but not limited to; - New stove - Alde boiler service - Bathroom refit - Rear cabin refit - a million smaller jobs Back tomorrow to continue the clean!

Let's stop the pontificating and wipe the fairy dust from our eyes. There's no way any of this will happen effectively for generations. Nor will petrol/diesel engines disappear in the lifetime of our youngest reader. Nearly everything we consume relies on ships and trucks to get to us. Every essential organisation like NHS & Military will always rely on emergency generators just in case ...... Can you imagine a tank leaving the battlefield in order to hunt out a charging point? No oil company will continue producing product just for them. They'd require a much larger customer group. You can stop any of the Greta Thunderbird brigade dead in their tracks by asking how the likes of her will attend the International Protest Meetings without planes, ships and cars to get there. Let alone get to work on a daily basis if it's more than 8 miles from home. Emergency Services like Police/Fire/Medics ? Even if we stopped shipping in food and grew our own, how would we harvest and process it? It's just blame shaming without a single workable solution. Past evidence tells us: - Governments come up with nonsense merely to look good, they don't know how to achieve it any more than we do. On the International stage and in the voters' eyes they look good. However they want industry to be magnanimous and solve it. Then when it fails it wasn't governments that failed. We also know the students/young anti society, new thinkers of this brave new world, soon change by the time they are in their thirties and have changed a few nappies during sleepless nights. Reality is great leveller. The undeniable truth is you don't suddenly change the lives of those who've struggled endlessly to get where they are in the rat race immediately. All you can hope for is to program the young minds growing up to accept the loss of something they've never known. Look at all the Hoo-Haa when .... Idi Amin expelled all UK passport holders from Uganda, and they had to come here. Motor Bikers were forced to wear crash helmets. Seat belts became compulsory. Mots for road vehicles. All children should carry an inhaler in case they were allergic to nuts or something. You all need to buy a new car, because we're stopping Lead Petrol. Drink driving is unacceptable. You all need to buy Diesel cars because they're better for the environment. You shouldn't buy Diesel cars because they're not better for the environment. Regardless of how much sense any of those meant, they were bitter pills at the time and probably still are to many today. If you want proof that success was achieved through convincing the young then offer to give a lift into town to teenagers. Before they have a chance to do up their belts start to drive off while thrusting a bag of peanuts under their noses with a joyful "Help yourselves". They'll be so traumatised they'll need therapy. So although it could appear Miss Thunderbird and her ilk are to be the way forward, the big difference is they feel absolved of any responsibility to be part of the problem. Strangely that leaves them comfortable merely complaining, pointing blame with not a single suggestion or idea of a workable solution. Most of it will come to pass ... eventually .... but not in the time frames being spouted today.

I’m in agreement with @Dav and Pen. If there were punitive costs to the infrastructure manager for having the facility out of use to commercial customers the repair work would have started last week. There’s plenty to do before any work on rebuilding the permanent canal infrastructure would take place. Access agreements, haul roads, site compounds and then clearing the debris that’s been washed in to the channel. If it were an operational railway that stuff would start immediately. I’m sure that’s happened over the past week. But none of that applies so I think we should be grateful that we live in a country that has laws that compel the infrastructure manager to ultimately repair it despite it being of no direct commercial value to the economy. Proof we live in a pretty civilised place. We should always retain a degree of gratitude that the inland waterways are retained as a leisure facility. JP

Could a mod change the topic title since the story isn't about banning stoves. Maybe something like 'banning housecoal and wet wood'

Hi Guyz .... and a thousand apologies for disappearing for such a long time. I have actually been very busy with lots of administerial tasks. The one that was causing the most dramas was that I was waiting for the return of my new passport and the absence of which was calling no end of delays. One thing was that until I had all my official ID documentation (The passport office had my old passport and my still valid European passport!). This being I was unable to open a bank account or subscribe to a mobile and internet provider. Now after nearly three weeks of waiting I have both my passports back, have been able to open a bank account and next week I shall look to sign up with “Three” and at the same time buy a new mobile. I even managed to get a Senior Rail Card (£30) which gives me 33% discount on rail travel. I am still very complimentary about Whilton Marina who have been nothing but the perfect company from begin to end. I am now living “on board” and will be taking to the open waters from 1st March. I will then be going on a two day “Helmsman Course” after which I will attempt not to crash into any of you whilst I’m speeding along at a wonderful maximum of 4 mph. What else is new (or possibly I already mentioned it? ….. I’m getting old!) but my boat will be re-named “huami” (Who am I) and under the name I am going to put (in smaller text) “it’sme.neil”. As soon as I get a decent phone, I will upload some photo’s … but in the mean time I hope that everyone is well and keeping warm and dry.

Congratulations! ? ? ?️

No I mean someone who makes life difficult for others he deals with, and consequently finds that they are less likely to cut him some slack when it would help him. But you knew that. As far as I can see, CRT are well aware of the heritage issues involved, and are rightly looking to the incoming tenant to address a backlog in maintenance, in accordance with listed building requirements, and they are prepared to accept a temporary rent reduction to reflect the costs involved. You have already said that you think the new occupant is sympathetic to the historic nature of the site, so what's the problem? And CRT staff are not public servants, although I'm not sure what difference that makes.

Presumably, the other half of the time they do need power tools and, if you have one for half if the time when you need it, you might as well use it for the other half of the time? just a thought