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Hi everyone (again!), It’s me, Neil (the Gay guy!) who registered on here as “Gayzingalone” and then disappeared a while back. The basic reason for my disappearance was a combination of losing my mobile (Yes, of course in the canal!), and the “Lock down” that prevented me trying to get everything sorted. Even little things like getting a replacement SIM card was a case of “Press 1 for this and 2 for that etc, etc. and eventually being disconnected and asked to call back later, and later, and later. After one journey before lock down to the “Narrowboat Pub” at Weedon I returned to Whilton Marina where I stayed for the duration before leaving there on Friday 29th May. My stay at Whilton was a time to do many things within and on my boat, re-painting, etc. and meeting a lot of new friends in the “Lockdown community”. We all stayed safe, yet were able to have some social distancing events like concerts on the water provided by some very talented musicians. I also re-named my boat to “huami” (think about it!) … Yes, it says “Who am I” and under the name as you will see in the attached photo’s is the text “It’s.me.Neil”. I was very fortunate being a complete “newbie” to have been invited to follow and travel with some very good friends who were my neighbours at the marina. It has been a steep learning curve yet in quite a short period of time I have managed to get through upwards of 100 locks, under bridges without demolishing them, navigated the River Trent (anchor and life jacket!), traveled the full length of the Chesterfield Canal (inclusive the obligatory photo of the bricked-up Norwood Tunnel entrance), and many more adventures. At the moment I am onboard having a week’s “holiday” as my traveling companions have left their boat next to mine near Shireoaks Marina on the Chesterfield and have returned home for a break. Next week they will return and we will continue our journey with a new direction of York where we will also hang about for a week or so. If I feel confident enough to ditch my “L Plates” I will possibly drift off alone and after conveying my appreciation for all their help I will leave them to get on with their life. We have all said we will be heading back to Whilton Marina when things get colder where we will hang around for the winter, and I will look forward to meeting them again. Since recently I have full mobile broadband on board with an amazing omnidirectional antenna which has given me more freedom to communicate so I look forward to saying hello again on this forum. Ideally, I would love to meet some (male! Hey, I’m gay!) traveling companion who might like to share some of the work and at the same time enjoy a free holiday. (He doesn’t have to be gay, just open minded!). The boat has plenty of sleeping accommodation and after this “Virus time” that has been very expensive for many people it might be a nice break for someone without costs. If anyone on this forum knows of anyone who might like to cruise along for a while, they are more than welcome to get in touch with me. So, I might like to change my forum name to “huami” (but I don’t know how!), and please if you see me in passing do say hello. It’s been amazing how many people have said “Hi Neil” ….

If you are referring to my posts them I apologise. I don't actually see much in the way of shooting down. What I do see is yet another low post count member coming on with a question that by its nature precludes them getting a sensible answer, who has yet to tell us if its for a boat, what kind of boat or land based, and because of that might be a troll. I don't think you are a troll but have just not done much research about living on a boat. If as you imply you do not understand much about on-board electricity then do some research. It will pay massive dividends. Look at the pinned items at the top of this forums sub sections, study the course notes on my website, see if you can find The 12V Bible on line, do some forum searches looking for topics on batteries, charging, and so on. Study the Battery Primer pinned at the start of one of the sub forms. Sorry to say that unless you severely moderate your electrical equipment expectations you WILL be looking at very expensive boat keeping with the frequent or very frequent need for new batteries because you have destroyed the last set by over-discharging and under charging over a prolonged period. Either that or you will need to stayed tied to marine berth by along mains lead. If you are rich enough to select Lithium batteries and their attendant more complex charge control systems then you will go a short way to minimising the charging problems you face because lithium batteries are happy to accept all the charge you can throw at them for long periods of time. Unlike lead acid batteries that after the first half hour or so of charging start reducing the current they will accept until you run out of charging time before they are fully charged. Leaving LA batteries partially charged reduces the amount of electricity they can hold. Getting your use of electricity, the battery bank size, your method of charging, and your charging regain right so you get optimum battery life is an iterative process where you do some calculations, see the results, think about how you will achieve the results and then go back and start again with other assumptions. You are 100% correct in starting with a power audit although I would have done it in Amp hours rather than Watt hours because batteries are sized in Ah but I see no explanation of how Bimble account for alternator charging and the time running the alternator so we can't really comment on its accuracy. What we do know is that a minimum of 6000 Ah - that is 60 x 100 Ah lead acid batteries is unlikely to fit into a typical narrowboat and if you really required that number for your electrical use you would never be able to recharge them while cruising and away from mains power. I know the responses you got were probably very different from those you thought you would but if those with long experience and/or professional competency can see you are heading for problems what would you prefer them to do? Try to point out where you may be making mistakes and where your apparent expectations are unrealistic or pat you on the head and encourage you to carry on. This forum will usually do the former because we want to help and as in your case all too often vital information is withheld so it is asked for. We get questions like yours almost on a weekly basis and all to often the questioner gets upset by replies that do not try to hide the truth. Having pondered on what has been said on this thread and studied a bit please feel free to come back and ask more detailed questions or ask about something you come across but do not understand. You will have to learn to ignore the jokers though. You should also accept that some on here really do know far more than you and their views are real and hard gained expertise. If you don't want their input to your problem - for free I might add - don't ask the question

Schools have never closed. Teachers have never stopped working, they've been contacting kids via email and internet, running distance learning, rewriting lessons so they work that way. Round here, they've been opening at 7am to keep the breakfast club going that feeds a stack of kids from the local estate. Schools have been teaching NHS and essential worker's kids as well as a stack of the disadvantaged ones. It's as ignorant a comment as saying teaching is a cushy job because they get such long holidays - so cushy that loads leave every year because the pressure on any home life is just too much - most teachers do about three hours work a night at home and at weekends. The government thinks that schools are basically just childcare so their parents can go out to work. There's actually a bit more to it than that.

Yea but he knew how to make a pint last until Lewis turned up to get ‘em in

I arrived early one evening at the top of Rothersthorpe flight to find that some single hander had come up and left all the top gates open. Bloody annoying thing of him to do, it meant I couldn't stop for a beer as I had intended but had to go down the flight before stopping. How inconsiderate can some people be.

If model villages are opening will the social distancing be to scale?

If the boat has no historic value then bite the bullet and get the cabin made in steel. A good welder/fabricator with boat experience will do this quite quickly. You can then concentrate on painting, insulating/lining etc. It will be a lot easier to maintain and add much more value to the boat than a "woodentop". Over a reasonable lifetime it will likely even work out cheaper too. .............Dave

Sanitise your arse after every flight.

That was my original plan, but having to clamber up on the roof and then root about under the panel trying to find the connector(s) was just too awkward.

No no. The national arse. It was established in the forum years ago that my arse is a perfect polished peach held in trust for the nation. It's got a bicycle park and everything. God! This must go back 10-15 years! The arsemower is due for replacement soon too.

I’ve been travelling with a bucket of water and a bar of soap. Washing my hands after locks. The big habit to drop is touching my face. Picking my nose and poking my eyes. Scratching my ears. Can’t see a good reason for me wearing gloves. Just another throw away item to clog up the planet. Easier to wash hands. And I’ve begun to see the new normal in litter on the towpath; face masks gloves sanitiser bottles

Possibly longer if the horse has a long face

Thanks for all the helpful replies. I can see that I was over reaching my expectations of solar power. We will make the necessary adjustments and we will go for panels in the near future. For those of you that said I had no clue and needed to understand solar power/electricity....guess what? That is why I asked the question. Not the first time that certain people on here have spouted their superior views. Never known a forum quite this bad for shooting people down.

There are some clowns, even on here, who argue that you should always leave gates open behind you (probably not with the paddles up, though). As a single-hander, I'd cheerfully murder the lot of 'em. I'm sure it was a very efficient way of doing things back in the day when boats were hurtling in all directions all the time; these days, with leaky gates and a falling to bits system, it's just daft. In your case, I suspect an idiot in a hurry or someone who simply doesn't know, and may well have been told by now. I met a family on an inflatable today who nearly got squashed because he didn't know we drove on the right. He does now, but i did impart the info in a friendly manner!

OK so floating cottage with no concept of off grid living - sorry but this sort of mistake is all too common. NEVER EVER use batteries to create heat so install some other form of water heating. That gets rid of your two immersion heaters. However keep them for when you are on shorepower. I can't think why you need two on a boat. Use a kettle on the gas stove unless the engine is running at charging speed. Toast under the gas grill. No need for a toaster unless on shorepower then the convince does not wreck batteries. Ditto microwave. Alternatively get a dedicated diesel power generator fitted than you can have as much electricity as you want between 8am and 8pm unless it is cocooned for silence. You watch TV 24 hours a day!!!!!! I suspect the fridge freezer consumption may turn out to be a little optimistic but it not too far out.. On a boat battery supplied electricity shoudl be considered as gold dust and conserved if at all possible.

Most boats are broken into via large side windows, especially if all other doors appear to be well secured... Must saying. ? Best to get a dog such as a GSD for real security.

Not minor on broad locks

Pat Barton's Quercus from 2013

Bosworth Marina. This evening.

No, it should be higher. (Unless you want it to blow whenever the controller is putting a decent charge into the batteries) The fuse is to protect the cable, not the device, so assuming you’re using something chunky (like the 10mm2 you mentioned) then an 70A Megafuse should survive.

If you overplayed the existing wooden cabin with 3mm steel plate why would the reduction in gunwale width be any more than 3-4 mm?

Yes I have mcbs on panels and to batteries, both easy to use but can't get turned off by accident........yet

It's an "unfinished project" Graham - use your imagination (or your memory of other horrors you've seen)! Although now we have the description, it does rather suggest this may be an exception.

You really should only have a fuse between controller and batteries, I have mentioned this to Bimble(and customers buying kits from Bimble)...but they keep recommending overcomplicating things. Had a chap a couple of weeks ago, boat with a trad stern and engine underneath. He had installed a 60A breaker between his batteries and an Adverc charge controller(where his panels ran to). Bimble said good idea. Unfortunately, due to the location of the breaker...on his trips into the boat, he kept knocking the breaker off, thus allowing his 500W of panels at 24v in series to destroy his controller when he flipped it back on several times. Bimble sent several replacement panels out, until finally replacing the controller.

On this day in 2001 end of the BCN Marathon Challenge at Gas Street Basin overlooked by the organisers Helen Davey and Chris Davey

There's a difference between a round turn(s) on a bollard that has: 1. the standing end (the end attached to the boat) lowermost - below the coil. 2. the standing end uppermost (above the coil) It's a very good ideal to get to know the difference between the two and practice how to "tie" both versions Version 1 will lock the centreline against the lip of the bollard once the roof rises above the bollard. Version 2 won't. Rule of thumb: if the boat is going up in the lock, your rope's standing end (end attached to the boat) should be up if you boat's going down, the standing end should be down. If you line does get locked against the lip of a bollard. Don't panic, put your foot on the taut line and put your weight on it, 99% of the time it'll be enough to unlock the rope underneath, freeing it. Don't ask me how I know.

I am pretty certain the CD was taken from the boat section of his website. Below is one of Magpie Patrick's photos of the new berrichon when at Orlesn last September.

Weld a 2" or 3" high upstand to the gunwale and fit the wooden top 'over' the upstand. Minimise the number of fixings of the cabin to the upstand. Use some for of 'mastic to seal along the bottom of the cabin-to-gunwale. Without the upstand you will never get a water-tight seal and the boat will leak and internal woodwork will rot. The difference in thermal expansion between wood, fibreglass and metal means that the cabin top will always be 'on the move' so ensure that you have a large supply of 'mastic. to keep it sealed.

Chances are that another boat would arrive when you were not looking and proceed ahead, thinking you were moored up for lunch.

Hi Gary, I take it you dont do facebook then

Good hand hygiene.

Hi Jen, Your profile picture reminds me of my hair when I look in the mirror. 21 weeks since I had a haircut (but think of the money I have saved!). 34 locks were quite an initiation and then to realize that you have to turn around and do it all again! It certainly is a beautiful stretch of canal and I'm sure once a few boats start moving again the weed problem will get better. Have a great day, Neil

Having had both Nanni and Beta engines I will add the following: Beta very helpful, easy to contact, good range of spares. Build the engines themselves Nanni dealer difficult to deal with, unhelpful, spares not in stock.

They spelled out DIS, short for Distance. Back in the carrying days there had been many arguments and fights between boatmen, with claims of one boater having "turned round" a lock against another. In attempt to defuse the situation, the canal company installed these posts and stated that it was against their rules to turn a lock around against a boat that had passed the distance marker. As a result, no longer did they argue and fight about who had reached the lock first. Instead they argued and fought about whether or not the oncoming boat had passed the distance marker (which was often invisible from the lock anyway!)

Apparently it's the covid19 effect. People don't need to be in central if they are working from home or furloughed. London boaters leaving 'London' and spreading out is also exactly what some people who complain about london have always wanted isn't it? You reap what you sow?

It would be a shame to miss out on the Rising Sun in Berko if you like quality ale and a great pub atmosphere.The pubs around Boxmoor and Hamel are much less interesting. The Riser are doing takeouts at present. You can always stay on the 24 hours Limehouse Basin VM's overnight,interesting spot and into The Grapes (pub atmosphere) and Craft Beer Co. (ale).

Your experience with the old maintenance team at Tattenhall is certainly at odds with mine, and pretty much everyone else I've ever spoken too. In the almost four years that I was moored there I always found them extremely approachable, helpful and professional in every interaction I had with them. Even when I was blacking my own boats (I have two) they were quite willing to provide assistance and advice. I tend to do as much of my own work, including electrical, wherever I can so it was very helpful to have expert people I knew I could talk to along with a well stocked and readily accessible chandlery. Their departure was a serious loss for the marina and a source of a lot of the ill will that now exists there. The few interactions I had with the new workshop team showed them to be quite the opposite. Expensive and off-handed and not necessarily particularly knowledgable. The chandlery is rarely open and when it is, it's staffed by people with very little knowledge of boats or the products they sell. As for the marina itself, physically it was a lovely place to moor a boat and to spend time. Room for dogs to run and easy access to the towpath. The cafe was a happy and welcoming place and there was a great community spirit. Sadly that was all in the past. While it's still a great location it has been seriously let down by its management who have shown a chronic disregard for their clients. Lack of maintenance which lead to unsafe jetties, especially in winter, with inevitable falls a constant cause for complaint. The cafe now caters more to the passing cyclists and walkers than it does to marina moorers. Dogs seemingly actively discouraged. It's unsurprising, therefore that the marina is now significantly unpopulated with many more boaters vowing to leave and not come back. In my opinion, best avoided for anything other than an overnight stop on your way to or from Chester.

That was my objection in discussing this topic. But everyone (and I include people who do not and have not owned an eco toilet) told me I was being silly. Dogshit and napppies all go in the bins, and going forward while the pressure on landfill is great, sawdust and shit are relatively benign elements to add to landfill, and may even help with breaking things down. The pressure going forward on our sewage system is more pressing, so I'm told. Double bagged in biodegradable plastic, they won't make the bin smell much more than it does already. I was thinking, "But it's so antisocial, what if a bag pops in a rubbish truck?" But everyone just said, the crushing goes on deep inside the vehicle and nothing would be likely to be flung out, and that rubbish trucks smell like hell either way, it's not going to make a noticeable difference. And, while I still harbour my doubts, that all sounded like sense to me. I don't own an eco toilet - I have a cassette. But I'm thinking about it. I know some savvy, old school boaters (not noobs like me) who are, too...