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They were having an adventure. Much more character building than vegging out in front of the telly, or playing games on a console. Sometimes adventures go wrong. They won't make a mistake on their call out time again, so have learnt something. No one hurt. The local HART crew get some exercise. OK, officially they shouldn't have been there. The same goes for most urban exploration sites, which can be fascinating places to see. A victimless naughty act. I'm involved with a cave rescue team. The media always want a condemnation quote from us when someone gets rescued to spice up the article and give their readers a self rightousness fix. They never get it. Happy to help when things go wrong. You'll note that there was no such condemnatory quotes from the services involved in the Sentinel articles. Just factual stuff. Jen

I think it’s always a good idea to see what most other people have, and bear in mind that is based on a long history of what actually works. Re-inventing the wheel without much practical experience usually doesn’t end well. Most people have a solid fuel stove for their main space heating. Certainly the vast majority of live-aboards. Reliable, Cheap to run, uses no electricity. This is often supplemented by a central heating system comprising one of those evaporative heaters such as Mikuni / webasto / eberspacher. They are good for a short term heat boost on a chilly spring morning or evening when lighting the stove isn’t justified. They are not particularly reliable and use a fair bit of electricity, but clean and convenient. Before they were popular, people used Alde gas boilers which were compact and reliable, used very little electricity, but it is expensive to heat your boat using small bottles of gas. For hot water, most leisure boats have a Calorifier (hot water storage tank) that is heated by the engine - free heat when you are cruising and probably lasts until the next day’s cruise. Which is great for a leisure boat that is probably going to cruise most days, but no so good for a live aboard unless they have shore power to run an immersion heater. Off grid live aboards often have a gas instant water heater such as you have already. so plenty of choice, but all those things take up some space. The diesel evaporative heaters are very small though, and can typically be installed in an engine bay. You rarely see a Combi gas boiler in a boat, such as you might find in a house. Partly because they need a permanent mains electricity supply, partly because there is no product approved for installation in boats, and partly because heating you boat solely by bottled gas is pretty expensive.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-gets-keep-50000-boat-22113594

After reading the second article, to be honest I don't think they did anything heinousy wrong. No, they shouldn't have been in the tunnel at midnight, but life without adventure would be deadfully boring. They took sensible precautions, arranged a check-in system with their mates, and their mates did the right thing and called the emergency services when they failed to check in. A massive inconvenience to all who attended - but no different from SAR action being triggered for aircraft who forget to close their flight plan or solo walkers who forget to call their friend when they get to the pub. Better this way round than three dead corpses being discovered in the morning...

I am glad I didn't due stupid things when I was younger

Hi Rach, i have been doing a bit but had to watch the pennies due to no work since March but got half way through making the mould, then work started going mad since the slight lock down lift. I didnt want to show much unless it worked out but hey ho, this is a project and projects dont always go to plan. so a few pics, there has been a few modifications since i took these pics aswell.

Sorry. It won't happen again I promise. ?

We found several wooden churches which had survived at agricultural warehouses, with painting as below. There was also one church which had been converted to a power station, with diesel generator. The last photo is of one of the wooden locks we found.

Some people seem to have their lives ruined by boats passing them too fast, constantly complain about it, go to the trouble of putting signs up about it etc. Whereas I can’t remember the last time a boat passed us unreasonably fast such that we were annoyed and might have wanted to shout “slow down”. I suppose it’s probably happened a few times in the 40+ years I’ve been boating. I wonder why that is? Perhaps because we are super lucky, our god is looking out for us? Or could it be that we tie our boat up properly?

There are definitely some people who shout at you to slow down regardless of how slowly you are travelling. For me the classic example was one day when I started my engine, untied the ropes, and pushed sideways out from the bank; before I could put the boat into forward gear, somebody leaned of the side hatch of the boat that was moored directly in front of me and started shouting and yelling at me that I was going too fast!

I've been living aboard for 18 years and I don't agree with the school of thought that says passing boats should slow to tickover so that the occupants of moored boats don't feel their boats move. Slow down of course, but for some ditch dwellers it will never be slow enough and all this talk of broken crockery and flying teapots is for the most part simply myth. If boaters can't handle a bit of movement there must be alternative pasttimes or types of accommodation that would suit them better. Boats move, that's what they do. I lived on a garden end mooring on the Thames for 3 years and passenger boats would go past at 8kts without slowing down at all. It's a wide deep river but once you've experienced that you won't worry about a bit of movement as boats go past on the canal.

Unfortunately, you cant win here Had you posted a question about tickover speeds, the same people would probably have told you in no uncertain terms to do a search before asking your question. If I were you, I would feel free to respond to threads of any age, and ask any questions you like. Then ignore the arsey ones

I lost my long ash pole in a storm last winter as I stupidly had wedged begind the integral handrail to hold a tarp down on the roof and the tarp lifted and the pole went flying into deep water. I was thinking about a replacement, but I've no idea how I'd get one back to the boat as I don't have a roof rack on my car and it's probably not the sort of item that can be delivered. Then it occured to me that in 15 years I only used it a couple of times at most. Does everyone carry a long pole on their boat and how often do you actually use it? It's always worth having a couple of different length boat hooks, but my widebeam weighs nearly 30 tonnes so a barge pole seems to be of limited use.

Yes that was my original thoughts. AngloWelsh are quite flexible but obviously the boat would have to be returned to the starting base. You will probably have to pay a small charge for the extra bedding though, pumpout would be free as long as it's done at an AngloWelsh base. I suggest you contact them and discuss your requirements.

Presumably Anglo Welsh from Great Heywood & Bunbury would have the advantage that you could go from one to the other in one week and then arrange for a pump out and maybe clean bedding for new guests and then back to the original base. You could easily arrange two different one week cruises between the two with some side trips off the straight route.

Before we discovered the North we spent winters on the K&A where boats of any length moor IN the winding hole ? ................................Dave

And the batteries are probably all but below the horn so the man feed to the relay is easy to wire in.

I have now seen another media photo which shows the main line and that is also empty. It does not look like a rainfall issue but a familiar pound emptying event. Either paddles left open or leaky gates, I would suspect. The pound on which the wharf sits is quite short but is fed above from the main stretch of the river through the city centre. If there is insufficient to keep this pound filled then there will be really substantial issues with the river as nothing will be going over Evans Weir!

"We were 1,300 metres through when we saw a torch behind us. We still had about 45 minutes to go. "We didn't think that much of it at first and thought it was probably a dog walker. ... Hmmm. Acquatic dogs. If it had been 1972 there would still have been a towingpath ...

You can see the contacts on the Square D. Y- shape Shown in the picky just behind the vertical rod with spring washer and nut that adjusts the cut-in pressure. Check there is voltage at the inputs: the right hand pair in the phot appear to be the positive terminals and the left hand pair the negative ones then push the Y shaped piece away from the spring to bring the contacts together. The pump should run if it is OK N

Ideal first boat ... because if you know anything about them you'd run away. I'd sell it to you = @Mike the Boilerman for £7,000 just to prove a point ...