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Please call Customer Services (or speak to the on-flight VLockie if they are on duty) if you think there is any chance of a failure. I'm sure Canal & River Trust would rather use an hour of the Ops Teams to check it rather days/weeks of Engineering repairs. The VLockie has access an incident reporting system to ensure it gets captured and managed if needed. (Apologies if I am teaching granny to suck eggs .....)

No, its on the Oxford - Look thru the arch - you can see all the widebeams and a solitary NB on the RH side

Admiral Nelson, Braunston today. Not the usual crowd ?

It's a good question which I don't know the answer but in my opinion it misses the question of the basic recyclability ( is that a word) of the products we use, neither landfill or incineration should be our primary means of dealing with our waste, they should be last ditch

Me too. We used a mix of disposable and washable for our two babies. 50/50 on the parent nappy-changing workload of course when you wash things it often uses electrical energy which comes from somewhere. That's an odd thing to say considering the economy of the entire industrialised world is based on extraction of buried materials. If the materials become valuable humans will extract them depending on the financial benefits. Open cast disposable nappy mines could well become quite popular in future.

The duck likes diamonds.

You are still conflating the 2 distinct elements, which only serves to confuse the relevant issues. Attachment/touching, however temporary, remains a distinct act of potential trespass depending on what relevant rights either public or private attend the situation. US case law in this area is more comprehensive than here in the UK, but even so, the extent of permissible temporary (even accidental) contact with land over which one may legitmately float, has been the subject of judicial examination over centuries. A land owner may grant a right of 'occupation' that still requires an extra right enabling a less transient occupation. Where a boat can be kept stationary by means of attachment to the ripa rather than to a 3rd party's fundus, then the elements are satisfied - but the fundus owner in granting an occupation right over the fundus is not thereby obligated to also grant an attachment right to enable mooring TO the fundus in the absence of an adjacent riparian owner's consent. So far as I can see in this particular decision, the judge has been very careful to keep the distinct elements separate. It very specifically does.

Lovely lock side this day 2004 Nivernais canal. It was still the same last time we passed in 2018

No rumour, it's a fact. Since 2017 The Anglia Revenues Partnership a private company acting on behalf of Fenland District Council for collection of council tax, has classed boats moored in Marinas as second homes for council tax and has sent out bills addressed to the moorers primary residence. Both Floods Ferry and Foxes are non-residential. Which is in the mooring agreement, furthermore in Foxes case on the 23rd March, the marina went into lockdown, all moorers in the marina at the time were ordered to leave amd go to their Primary Residence. Foxes don't permit moorings to be used as a Primary Residence. Infact we can only stay overnight on the moorings for 44 weeks of the year. The marina did not reopen until 18th May for day visits to check on boats. These visits which had to be prebooked until 22nd June. Not until the 4th July can you stay overnight. Dealing with the private company (Anglia Revenues Partnership) who are only interested in profit is long and drawnout, Where the timescace for a reply is not days ,or weeks, but months. My mooring agreement clearly states non-residential which I sent copies. The marina moorings are zoned for business rates, a percentage of which is added to my mooring bill. I even sent a copy of the 1978 planning permission for the building of the marina which clearly states non-residential use. Some winter moorers were billed for simple not being able to produce a Council Tax bill in their name. Many spend the winter in Spain. The only method of contact is through e-mail or online form, which then requires that you wait 10 to 12 weeks for a reply. As for being moved around the marina, this happens 4 or 5 times a year. I yet to get the reason as to why the boat is classed as a second home, more worrying is that the address on the council tax listing is not even the marina address but at a house at the other end of the road. I taken this matter up with the Valuation Office Agency who claim that it is not their problem and that it is the Council who have to correct the address, Which the Anglia Revenues Partnership don't do. I'm not able to take it to the Ombudsman until I have gone through the long winded complaint proess. Which is clearly designed to make people give up. The local councillor Jan French supports the classing of boats as second homes and the charging of council tax on them and was the one who pushed for it to be done.

Give us a wave or a toot on your way past! We'll be somewhere between Parbold and Haskayne.

I wonder how on earth do folk in developing countries manage, with no electricity available for their front-loading Indesit. how much does it cost them? about time the third world taught the first world a few lessons.

Really? This doesn't look like a boat only fit for scrap. https://hnbc.org.uk/boats/taygeta From the photos it appears to have had the back end rebuilt between 2010 and 2016.

That will be the problem then. There is a very small hole on the inlet side of the diaphragm to let the gas in. You may have to disconnect the primary regulator from the genny regulator to clean both out. TD'

The poor soiled baby will be crying :(

Dynamic positioning is the way ahead. Electric 360 pods at each end of the boat GPS controlled to keep it in exactly the same spot full time. Small diesel generator as a power source. They do it at sea in gales so it's hardly rocket science to do it on a ditch

Agreed. Possibly the only way with 5 cylinder engines. I stick a neodymium magnet on the crank pulley, saves having loads of confusing marks. Just move it round as required. TD'

Hello, PDF sent by PM. Pity there is not a section on the site where we can post manuals and the like, for everybody to access. (Larger than 2.93MB)

oh yes it is!

Hardly. If you were not under way, then absent some attachment to land (whether fundus or ripa) you would be drifting out of contol contrary to byelaws. Any mooring right comprises 2 essential elements: a right to float on the water, and a right to attach to a fixed point of land. The boat licence allows only one element, the gift of the other lies with the appropriate land owner.

Believe it or not, I’m quite safety conscious. The cannisters will be kept in gas locker, with all the right holes in all the right places. I intend to take the cannister out of the unit when not in use. The main reason I've bought one is, I like steak. I like steak fairly rare. I like steak burnt on the out side, seared?, I don’t particularly like a pongy and smokey boat after I have achieved the above. Thanks for all the words of wisdom and advice.

If I wanted a boat with a gas system, a good 12v electrical system and all the other things that seem to be missing from this boat, then I probably wouldn't buy a boat without all that stuff unless it was a sailaway or a very good deal.

I came up the Marple flight this morning. I wasn’t looking forward to doing 16 locks single handed in the rain. Luckily two volunteers showed up at 8am. Not in uniform because they’re all officially off work, so they weren’t representing CRT. They simply wanted to be of help. And their help was greatly appreciated. So hats off to them for turning up in the rain when they needn’t have. It made for a pleasurable journey instead of a chore.

I have a golden rule. My boat, in my lock, please go away. I will work the lock, my way. TD'

"The Marcellus" and The Old Man. The year after I bought "Marcellus" 83/84 (?) Pete will know much better than me. It all started when I put both boats on Uxbridge Dry Dock for blacking and adenoids. "Marcellus" was on the left which was the darker side of the dock, "Rigal" was on the right, more sunlight and lamps above. About day three and we were into blacking, I was doing "Marcellus" and Zita was blacking her clothes and the dogs over next to "Rigal". Most of the week we were on, individuals would stroll in to have a gander at what was what, most didn't approach or say anything, probably for fear of being given a brush and told to join in. I was over in the furthest dark corner sloshing coal tar around the butty's stem post when my right elbow was tugged and I heard an indistinct murmur. I started to turn I could see a dark shadow slightly behind me, but was interrupted by the person who shakily pointed out three patches I'd missed. I replied something about it being dark over here, and a couple of more places were tapped which I'd also not seen. I minute or so later my dogs appeared next to me and Zita chuckled and asked me who I was talking to. She'd heard me and wandered over to see what was up. She said I'd been on my own and nobody had entered the dock or passed her by. Having come off dock we wanted to practice more of our buttying techniques and strewth there was a lot to learn. We went down The Paddington Arm and then back towards Jim's Stink Hole where we kept them. It was upon leaving Denham Deep heading North that we made the poor decision of trying a long line. There wasn't enough ballast on the butty to stop her floating like a ping pong ball on the surface, plus there was a cross wind which was catching her side cloths like a sail. Those who know the area will appreciate how open that area is (was in the 80s). Alongside The Flashes I realised I was crabbing with "Rigal" I quickly turned to check how Zita was doing with the butty. She wasn't fairing well and was in danger of ending up on the bank. That was the point I realised there was a second figure back there. If the line was about 60 feet it meant that back of the butty was 130 feet behind me. However I could make out she had an old man dressed in a dark coat next to her, and the two of them were together rowing the elum to keep the stern out. I was busy enough keeping "Rigal" straight to look back again, plus I had to start to prepare for the upcoming lock, keep the butty moving, plan for breasting up etc. In the lock I asked Zita how she'd felt about that stretch. She said it was blowy and at first was worried she'd stem up against the bank, but she suddenly realised to use the rudder to wash the stern over and was surprised how easy it was to do. Some years later we had friends stopping over and gave them the butty's cabin for the night. They were unfamiliar with a traditional cabin or its layout. However next morning they told us they'd dreamt about an old man entering the cabin. He was fiddling about with the wall where the panel with the picture of the castle's painted. Then he kind of walked through the bed and then the end of the cabin. What intrigued me was they didn't realise the wooden panel with the castle painted on it was the drop down table behind which was of course the larder. Nor did they realise the bulkhead the other side of the bed was a door which passed into the hold. Mainly though I was intrigued that it wasn't immediately obvious to them that two people don't share the same dream, especially at the same time. Things went quiet for a while until Jan Deuchar of Paper Dasher “Hereford” commented that whenever they passed our boats (we were moored on Crocker's field at Shardlow before it was dug out) on their fortnightly jaunt up to Shardlow basin to fill, empty and return to Trent lock, Their two children (both probably pre school at the time) would wave as they passed "Marcellus", but ignore "Rigal". When she asked them why they told her they waving to the old man sitting on the back of the butty. I'm not trying to convince or persuade anybody, I merely submit our experiences as they occurred at the time. A few more years and "Marcellus" was cut and made into two boats by the late Ian Clifton. The back end was formed into a bow for the shorter boat subsequently named "Marcel". I understand both boats are now named Marcellus, I have not learnt of any subsequent owners' experiences.