Leaderboard

Torksey in the 1960s and, I believe, in 1939.

Castlefields etc in the 1960s. Gloomsville indeed.

The clue is in the name, morons. https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/bridge-quay-residents-blast-council-for-moving-barge-outside-their-homes/?fbclid=IwAR0lW6fz1AnsI86HYlbLZtGL7UKZevx1LW6AMLl6qmHd0fXJWzANz8WQyrw

I have a 1600 watt inverter and have, this summer for the first time since fitting the panels, run the immersion from the solar panels (same output as you have). On a good day the panels gave me 40 amps and the inverter was taking 110 amps to run the boat and immersion. I have 6 x 110Ah batteries on the domestic set up and so I believe that the required 70 amps from 6 batteries acceptable in the short term. I ran the immersion for 30 minutes at a time with at least 1 hour recharge time after that. If all was well I would repeat. For a 50 ltr calorifier I found that 90 minutes of immersion time gave a tank full at 60 degrees C from a start of ambient about 16 deg C

Forgive me butting in here - I'm new to the forum - but I'd be interested in your views. I have about £50k to spend on a used narrowboat. Not an inconsiderable amount of money I think most would agree. However, some of the brokerages I've been in touch with or seen on the internet seem to have an attitude towards customer service on a par with a poke in eye the sharp stick. Also, many of the boats I've seen don't even appear to be readied for sale with even just a quick tidy up and removal of 4 inches of water out of the engine bilge! Same with marinas I've contacted who seem to say 'yeah we've space, cost you a lot though and we're not really bothered if you take it or not. Oh and by the way that's just the basic cost. We also charge for extras like the air that you breathe and the jetty you walk on'! Am I missing something here? Are narrowboats some sort of massive inconvenience to marinas and brokerages? Is there really that much of seller's market they can afford to be offhand, incompetent or rude? Actually, when I do buy my boat (and I have my eye on a few) I do know where I'm going to moor it. A new marina, architect designed, in the south midlands, close to two junctions not far from a prison. They called me, emailed me and were extremely pleasant. That's where I'm going even if it does cost a little more than others. I'm not even bothered if there's a prison break - they'll probably be nicer and less crooked that some of the boat businesses I've come across! JRT

At the 'request' of Associated British Ports (ABP) Farndale H now has a combined plotter and AIS fitted so we can now keep track of her on the tidal river section of her voyage: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-1.4/centery:53.6/zoom:11. Her last position shows up on 23rd November just shy of Trent Falls on her way loaded to Leeds. As there are no AIS receivers along the canal section she will only show up in the river. She is due another run this week so should be away from Goole between 07.00 & 08.00 tomorrow with the tide, which means she can make Hull in under three hours. Ten loads have so far been delivered into Leeds and there is talk of CRT moving funds to cover dredging from next year's budget into this. The river section below Lemonroyd Lock is still a problem, even with several inches of fresh on the Aire and the canal section around the Thwaite Mills Museum (amongst others) is a nightmare, testing the skipper's skills to the utmost. Once the dredging is undertaken (and the surveys are now all complete) 500+ ton loads should become the norm rather the current light loads of 350 tons.

I occasionally suffer from phantosmia. I have a very poor sense of smell but sometimes I can smell burnt toast or roasted coffee beans when there's nothing there. .............................. the good side is that neither of my dogs smell at all

Lisa, When people post a question like yours, it is quite usual for some people to inflate minor issues into major issues, because they "might be", (and they "might" be right). If it "needs" overplating now, it actually "needed" overplating when it was built, and it's amazing that it is still floating a quarter of a century later. This looks like a boat that was built with a 6mm bottom and 5mm sides, and there is up to a millimetre less metal in some areas than when it was built. Having said that, he also says that the initial thicknesses were nominal, so it may actually have been thinner than 6mm and 5mm when built. The surveyors recommendations are that the boat be washed, rubbed down at the waterline to remove the rust, and blacked. There may be more recommendations on the next page but, the fact that you haven't posted it suggests not. Had the surveyor been concerned about the thicknesses and pitting, he would have recommended more. There might be some major rust behind the rubbing strakes, but there might not be. In the picture posted by matty, the rust is obvious below the strake. So.... overall, quite a good survey where a few things might warrant closer looking at, but nothing to put you off. My caveats would be: 1) The bit of the date we can see on the survey looks like it is not recent, and is not your own survey... it also seems quite sparse, so I would assume that there are several ore pages with more detail? You shouldn't buy the boat without having your own survey. When was the survey carried out? 2) There have been some people who have had difficulty getting insurance on boats with thinner hulls, so it is probable that people will be wary of thinner hulls. There is also a strong chance that buyers who ask questions in canal boat forums will be steered away from thinner hulls, even if they are likely to last 75 years or so before needing any real attention . Thus, you might want to be ultra careful and avoid boats that started with thinner hulls. Mine was 10mm base, 6mm sides, 4mm top. It would be interesting to hear from owners here with "thin hulled" Springers and the like, and their experiences of insurance?

Pick your professional with care. At this stage, I expect most professional boat electricians know less than the most knowledgable boaters who have fitted them. A bit like asking an 18th century universtiy trained medical doctor for advice on an illness. The best you could hope for is that they wouldn't make you any worse!

We attempted Salters Lode and failed badly at 3.5m. I contacted the ML to enquire as to the width and they said that they didn't actually know, but to try it and see (good old UK Navigation Authority!). We would have fitted into the chamber OK but they have nailed a load of huge lorry tyres to the downstream fender - probably to stop narrowboats crashing into it. These tyres made the angle too tight for us - so we were jammed into the mouth of the lock on a falling tide - excellent stuff. Managed to reverse out after a bit of stress, and then went around The Wash - which IMO is a lot less stressful (as long as the weathers right). I had a look at the corner at Upwell and thought it would be tight but wouldn't cause us a problem - however there are some very low bridges which might have done. Maybe explore the ML from Peterborough by all means - but be prepared for a bit of reversing, and don't attempt Salters Lode unless they've moved those tyres.

Nothing in that survey says it would be uninsurable fully comp, however, if the survey is several years old, things may have got worse since then. It also doesnt read as needing complete overplating. One of the worst areas for corrosion could be under the rubbing strakes, never dries out completely so the rust just eats away.

Not sure about Mark though....

Excellent. Now please get some house coal on the fires.

Northamptonshire. Sparrows were also spadgers.

I have to agree with restless nomad. I don't have a dog, but every dog I've ever met smells of dog. Every home with a dog I've ever been in smells of dog. Every car I've ever been in which is used to transport dogs, smells of dog. When dogs get wet, they don't smell, they stink! That's my experience. It's well known, that constant exposure to a smell will mean you can't smell it any more.

Yes, that looks spot on. I think the picture for the plastic plugs is generic as they have a range of sizes. Check that your tank fitting actually is 1,1/4" BSP, not 1,1/2". The diameter across the threads of the usual plug should be 1.65" for one and a quarter inch BSP and 1.882" for one and a half inch. Jen

Great! Thanks for the update. I'll make one up.

guess not to their owners coz they are used to it...

Just a quick heads up.about ABNB, look at the 70 footer back up for sale for £50k this week. Absolutely desperate paint job, Diesel heater system (not fitted), Travelpower...not working... It's not ABNBs fault, entirely the fault of the previous owner(s). However, I was surprised to see a boat like that on the ABNB books.

I have just skim read the link and this looks like the 'memory' effect that has been discussed on the Crusier forum - and to which I have referred to in a number of posts when I set out with Li's. On that forum, I seem to remember the general consensus was that only charging to 70% ish caused the issue and the way round it was to go up to 100% now and again. This is why I take mine up to 100%, 3 or 4 times a year - to reset the BMV but also to get rid of the memory effect. I know this was discussed in a lot of my earlier posts in 2018. I will do a 'deeper' read tomorrow.

My surveyor actually drilled out unobtrusive holes in the lining to check the inside of the hull, leaving me the plugs to replace. The 'self fitout' often rings alarm bells with insurers. £33K seems expensive when you consider many Dave Clark boats only had 6mm bottoms. Also the BMC 1.5 not the best of engines these days and I would have thought this was not fitted by the builder, so would query it's ancestry.

My guess is that this stuff is nowhere nearly as stiff as plywood. So it would be OK if laid over a solid floor, but it will need closer supports than plywood or floorboards if it is to be the main floor in a boat.

I started playing with one set of my CALB 200Ah cells (because experimenting with all 600Ah was going to take too long off the boat with only a 20A charger!). I top balanced them which didn’t require much, seemed pretty good as shipped. It is amazing how they just sit at 3.2 or 3.3something volts and then suddenly it’s 3.5 then 3.6 even though I was only charging at 5A with bench power supply by then. So all balanced at 3.6v, less than 1Ah to be moved around, and now I’m discharging via a BMV 712 to check capacity. Slow going as I can only drain 8A, but so far I’ve got to 60% and the cell voltages are within 3mV of each other. Yes that’s 0.003v. Which is pretty amazing. Also the difference between open circuit voltage and draining at 8A is about 3mV per cell. They really are a different beast! I can sort of see now that routine cell balancing probably won’t be necessary even if the SoC is taken quite high.

A Springer is a good choice, only disadvantage is the boat will be full of dog hair!

Don't jump three foot gap holding a 2 foot rope.

Just realised this is in the ‘Gardner’ forum (not obvious when going in from VNC).