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What I’ve seen of cyclists recently on the Towpath it is them that do not respect others.

Short update as thanks. I did as Tony Brooks suggested. I'm not sure how much air is meant to come out when you bleed if there is a problem. It wasn't much. But, the temperature when running the engine doesn't go above ~70C now, both in our previous mooring spot and for the past three hours that we've been cruising. Hopefully that was the issue, thank you everyone

Dav and Pen showed these locks some time ago, a staircase on the Loire side of the Nivernais Canal. I used the second chamber as a drydock(?) once when we bust the propellor on our previous barge Secunda. This was outside navigation hours, working from a Sportyak dinghy, since the sluices leaked so badly. On the plus side Monsieur Cretier, who ran the tripping boat Aster, and who had been born on a barge, lent me his propellor extractor, a family heirloom without which we would be in there still. To work it you get the shaft nut off (remembering, in our case, it has a left-hand thread), then put the disc over the shaft end with the claws gripping whatever is left of the blades. Then, when all is tight, you whack the central thing with a heavy hammer. This, when working from dinghy, can be a life-threatening experience. My pal Edward Bonel, who helped, is pictured when the job was completed, around 4 am. We had passengers arriving that day, a healthy motivation to keeping the job on track.

Most of the boaters on the Great Ouse are extremely strongly against the link. They don't want lots of nasty steel boats on their waters (their newsletter, a few years ago, had some incredibly vitriolic articles on the subject). One of their observations, which I reluctantly had to agree with, was that just one narrowboat with typically 2 people on board, can occupy an entire Great Ouse mooring that could otherwise accommodate at least 6 four-berth GRP cruisers and maybe provide shore access for a couple of family day-boats. Such opposition also seems to make the link's construction unlikely.

We bought the boat because we liked it. We were not fully aware that the guy who sold it to us was a rogue trader and you get to the point of either giving up and saying goodbye to the money spent or finishing it. The boat is a matter of pride and we are not looking for financial gain just to know that what we have is to our specification. There are things we could have done better but we all learn and we wanted to bring a bit of history back to the cut. The boat has seen the bottom of the cut at least twice and been seen by others in " a sorry state" but has now earned the right to join the other boats on the cut fot the purpose it was intended. In essence it is nice to see a bit of history being restored for the sake of it not for its resale value but for the love of doing it. We have an ethos if you do something do it well.

It was sad to find that the original Black Prince Owners' Club web site is no more and that the wayback archive version is incomplete. I had contributed some photos of the original Black Prince livery (black and red) taken in 1977 which did not make it. As I have been unable to find any other photos of the original livery on the web, I thought it might be of interest to post them here. I was in fact a member of a party of 14 who, in 1976, hired the entire original fleet of two boats (Nelson and Rodney) from the original Cosgrove base. Because my still camera was broken, I only recorded that trip (to Fenny Compton) in 8mm cine. Due to the closure of Blisworth tunnel, the 1977 trip (to north of Leicester) was from a temporary base at Braunston. In 1977 he had expanded to four boats, so that year we only hired half the fleet! I don't recall the name of the second boat, but it wasn't Rodney. For the 1976 trip, the owner suggested that we might like to try lashing both boats together side by side when locking through the 14' locks. We only did so at the Braunston locks (with only one boat under power), and it certainly speeded up lock entry and departure. Conditions of hire prohibit such an activity these days.

And the blistered pain on the outside also points to possible local overheating (shorting coil ). I think I have asked that twice now but the OP fails to answer. Edited add that I think that we can conclude its energise to run.

Shows your experience. You simply unscrew the whole tube assembly from the housing, then unscrew and remove the complete plunger end so all you have is the tube, put the tube over the hole in the Morris grease tin and push down, the tube will fill with grease. Unscrew the plunger fully out then re screw the Plunger assembly back onto the tube. Then re screw the whole assembly back into the housing. Simple, takes about a minute.

Armitage Tunnel is the place where I received the biggest scare I have ever had on the cut. We met a huge floating "island" of reeds, which got sucked under the boat and stopped the engine dead. I opened the weedhatch and was removing the reeds from around the prop, when a frog jumped out of the weedhatch and onto the counter...

If you are 50 or older I doubt it will open before you die. Much like the Buckingham Arm and possibly the Wendover arm as well.

Some of us don't have the 'luxury' of gas 'on tap'. We have Calor, for which we pay a premium per litre / kg compared to 'mains gas' and we also have to pay £19 +VAT per month for the privilege of having one of their tanks in the garden (next to the sewage treatment plant - as we don't have mains sewerage either).

Hi, you might have this info already, but here is link to the official website for this project http://www.b-mkwaterway.org.uk/ Somebody else might have of course some 'insider' information.

That in my opinion is a very good question and if the original owner did buy it VAT free I would want professional advice on the situation.

I believe that Melbourne is on a repeat of its Level 3 Lock down following an increase in cases. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jul/09/coronavirus-victoria-melbourne-stage-3-lockdown-restrictions-metropolitan-metro-mitchell-shire-explained-covid-19-what-you-need-to-know

That's a lot of weight hung on Floan's head line ? ⚓ Tam

On this day Safari and Adria left going downstream. The other 2 arrived in the afternoon heading upstream. They were heading for Germany by the Rhône Rhin canal which was closed at Dole by the river section being in flood. Floan was going to Belgium from Sete. They all knew each other and we had a very convivial evening on our back deck.

When you have two symptoms appear concurrently I find that if you chase down the easiest then the reason for the other will usually become apparent during the fault finding process. There's a caveat goes with that, in that the smoke may have been appearing soon after start up for months and you only saw it this time because you looked when the engine stopped!

You will be roasting in a black boat, The difference in temperature in sunlight between a light coloured boat and a dark one is massive.

Yes I found the same with mine, any failures were from scraping against protruding bolts or towards the end of its life, the epoxy coming off on the stem post where it had caught the cill when locking up. I hsve now repositioned the front fender a bit lower down, but may invest in a second lower front fender to protect against this.

Not quite guaranteed to destroy the eyes of an on oncoming steerer thus making a collision more likely. You will be able to see him or her shielding their eyes as they bounce off the wall.

Ah, so in extremis then, we've all had to do that, if only you'd said that.

Rather you than me. CC'ing around the London area at those dimensions is possible, but as DMR points out in post 5, your interpretation of fun may bey tested. Taking into account the lack of available mooring room against the towpath in that area means that narrow beam boats are doubling up. So you've already got a restricted channel. especially if you meet another fat boat coming the other way. You'll be looking for 57 ft of suitable towpath without doubling up, or you'll be dwarfing single moored boats on the inside and still sticking out into the channel. What is it that has persuaded you this is for you? Have you decided to upgrade in size after a few years of narrow boating? Or have you researched and concentrated on the romantic elements of spending your free time carrying buckets of poo and pee around while trying to work out when you'll need to start rationing your water? Or have you been listening to Bloke down the pub?

?good luck with your project?

Guaranteed to destroy your eyes in a tunnel!

In my opinion many more deaths probably occured than should have done because of the governments two week or so delaying the lockdown and whatnot, they wanted the money to keep rolling in. They thought the virus was just going to go away as did that imbecile Trump in the US. And then our goverment suddenly realized it wasn't going to just go away, suddenly panicked, called for an immediate lockdown, started building Nightingale hospitals and all the rest of it. The governments obviouselly had their scientists and health advisors in their pockets. Murderers.

2002. Vishny Volochek, halfway between Moscow and St Petersburg, where the Englishman Captain Perry built the first successful waterway link between the Volga and the Baltic circa 1710. The photo shows the northern end of the canal where it entered the river Tsna.

Had hundreds of people at The Pig Place on the Oxford at the weekend. All outdoor seating and spaced sofas and cafe seating. Campsite also full but I spaced em well. Two forumites have visited so far in the nice weather.

Mine (Lister) wouldn't start without revs on, obviously in neutral. And stopped in neutral. I just speeded up the idle screw till it didn't, and now it keeps going happily. Can't reall help till we know what the engine is.