Leaderboard

Just over a year ago I ordered some Leoch Pure Lead Carbon batteries, after a discussion on here, and I think I said I'd let everyone know how I got on with them. Much more recently I was asking for people's experience of the typical difference between batteries' nominal capacity and their actual capacity; this is a follow-up to that too. Unfortunately I don't think I have anything terribly worthwhile to report. I got what should have been a 432Ah bank of Leoch PLCs fitted late last year, but very quickly got the impression that their actual capacity was not as advertised; following a full charge, I was seeing about 110Ah-120Ah counted out by my BMV before my Smartgauge showed a 50% state of charge, suggesting an actual capacity of 220Ah-240Ah or so. Long story short, after many, many emails back and forth and a bit of heel-dragging on both sides, I've just managed to return the batteries for a full refund. I've just fitted a new bank of the same size - the cheaper Leoch Superior Lead Carbons this time, as a like-for-like replacement wasn't available - and they do seem to have the advertised capacity. So it seems reasonable to assume the other ones were just faulty in some way, rather than that the manufacturer is routinely overstating capacity. But one year on I still have no experience of a non-faulty set of lead carbon batteries to share, I'm afraid.

We send most of our major plating work to Tim. 1. We havnt got the time. 2.Tim has the space and ability to get underneath in that space 3. Tim has got a wealth of experience with welding modern and old boats.

Near one of my moorings, on a clapped out unlicensed cruiser lived a seriously dangerous guy who bragged sbout stealing from our boats, and that from local knowledge we knew it was true. He stole coal, diesel, generators and anything else he could get, broke into a few. Police wouldn't do anything, couldn't even be bothered to interview either us or him. None of us were particularly surprised or saddened when someone set fire to his boat, nor were we bothered that he was asleep drunk at the time. He and his dog (which had bitten enough people for us not to care about that either) got off and survived unhurt, the boat didn't, he shoved off somewhere and all the thieving stopped. Trouble is, the law is useless against most antisocial behaviour, however bad it is, and so sometimes you have to treat badly behaved animals like you do similar nonhuman ones. Rules only work against people who recognise their validity, and pisstakers don't. Thus CRT takes years to get a liveaboard off the water, and everyone suffers for that time.

Yep ? subject to survey of course. A cheeky offer did it ! Thanks for all advice offered. I will keep you all posted as the story develops

Ah! So that's why we were all born wearing clothes and shoes then. Keith

My only input on this is he went to the press and stated he hadn’t been living on it while renovation was taking place but in another fight he is battling Camden council for housing benefit for the boat as his home. Neither thing is wrong to do but if your up against a council, saying in press you don’t live on boat is a opening for the legal team they can pry wide open. Ive been on jobs where productions have splashed the cash to compensate for damages done. I once had to go door to door offering pictures of residents houses from above as one owner threatened to sue for invasion of privacy because the hoist was up and could see in garden so we took pictures of all the houses that wanted them had them framed and then the only person complaining was a minority and the rest of street were our best friends and the complaining resident asked for photo in end. All before drone tech. Point is production would have worked out the problem they caused without the press. It may be that the spotlight he has drawn upon himself may light up other interested parties.

Sorry I'm not getting this. The guy has been taking the p*ss for 4 years, drives his neighbours round the bend with anti-social behavior, running a genny whenever, has a boat that is basically a scrap claims moving it was the cause of it sinking and people here expect all of us to feel sorry for him and hope he gets a payday. I truly hope he gets exactly what he deserves.

Wear one if those isolation suits with external ventilation plug the vent/breathing pipe to a handy socket installed in a mushroom vent, do all your cooking on an outside BBQ

Another narrowboat side launch:

I use shoreline so seldomly, I think a manual will be fine

Proof, were it needed, that bow thrusters are the work of the devil.

Not a trailer but a van... In my teens I had an A35 van while a couple of mates had minis. I had warmed the engine up a bit, dropped the suspension a bit but road holding was dire to say the least. 4” cross-plies. To improve things a bit I fitted wheel spacers on the back, and with a combination of a bit of extra power, lowering, the spacers and my driving skills I could keep up with the minis. After a very ‘sporting’ drive back from the coast with my mates in the minis, the back end seemed to go a bit wobbly as I turned into my girlfriend’s road. A look at the back end showed three of the four stud extenders had sheared off. One more hard corner could have been entertaining. I did actually have it on its side once, sliding along the road, sparks flying, girlfriend loose in the back. Some people in a nearby house came out and helped me tip it back on to its wheels and we carried on to the cinema. Ah the immortality of youth eh?

That says to me that you have never had a folding prop! They are not that simple. Just a smigin of cr*p on one blade can stop it folding/opening. As per Alan above, we had diving kit on our lumpy water boat to free up the prop - and we I used it quite a bit. Why bother with a folding one? A fixed one may knock 1/4 knt off your speed in a 60ft steel sewer tube. Essential in a racing boat but little else.

We got ours moved from Boroughbridge to Selby a couple of years ago We don't have a big boat but, and I don't really care what others say, I wouldn't take a narrow boat on the River Ouse or any other river for that matter. I don't know whether the people that moved our boat were "professionals" or not but we paid them. All we did was ask at Boroughbridge marina and they organised it all for us.

I am certainly not a climate change denier but I do wonder what impact the early UK reduction will actually have in practice, given that it was mentioned in a recent radio programme that the UK is only responsible for about 1% of the world's man-made CO2 emissions. It's like the UK being responsible for one hole in a collander. Even if we close our hole completely, it will have no real impact when other countries are actually making new holes by cutting down rain forests or building coal-fired power stations. There is also the unexpressed assumption thst there is such a thing as a normal climate and a normal temperature. I must admit to not being a professional geologist, but have always taken a great interest in the subject since my schooldays Even in our present post-glacial era, Europe's mean temperature has not been steady but has fluctuated from century to century with negligible assistance from man. Things were significantly warmer in the Roman era, when grape vines were easily cultivated in Britannia. In the Viking era, say from about 1200 years ago, the coastal regions of Greenland were warm enough to support viable colonies - calling the newly-discovered land "Greenland" was not entirely Viking spin to attract colonists. By the 1600's Europe's climate became colder. Trees no longer grow in regions of Ireand and Scotland where they used to thrive, as evidenced by tree roots found in bogs. It is sometimes asserted that government policy (in general) l is supported by the figures. When I was a Civil Servant I once attended a senior management course that included a session on statistics. Now when I was at University I learned how to use statistical methods to establish the truth about things: batch sampling to ensure that manufactured items were within specified tolerances, how long is something expected to last before it develops a fault, etc. Analyse the data first, and then make objective conclusions based on the data. Not so with the government. I learned that the usual procedure was to put the cart before the horse by deciding policy first and then requiring their civil servants to produce figures in support of that policy afterwards. In real life, figures from different sources rarely agree, and you can nearly always find something to support your view. As an exercise, all participants were given identical sets of genuine official statistics and the same policy statement. Half were asked to present figure showing the statement was true, the rest that it was false. We were each able to produce figures supporting the two opposite policies. So you will understsnd my cynicism whenever I hear a minister refer to what the figures show: I muse on the supressed figures that could well point to a different conclusion, or indeed the figures that have not been collected at all for the same reason.

I have your back here, who in their right minds consider picked eggs actually edible

A great boat dog... loves swimming too

This little girl was a fantastic boaty dog. Crossed the rainbow bridge in February, still missed every day. Millie our Corgi JRT cross.

Hi All need your help! Its a relatively easy task. First, some nearly really good news A developer is proposing to restore the 1936 breach above Prestolee Locks at Nob End, Little Lever, Bolton. Unfortunately the plan is only to restore it for narrow boats, even though the M&BB is a broad waterway, and the new locks in Salford off the Irwell have been created as broad locks :) I would be good if you could all to write to Bolton Council and object to the restoration plans for the 1936 breach above Prestolee Locks at Nob End Bolton and that the restoration should be to the original gauge of the canal of 14ft 2inches or 4.32m in modern speak. There are two parts which matter to the canal, first is the new bridge to access the Creams site, this is proposed to have a 2m towpath and a 3m channel. The second part is the restoration of the breach its self, where again only a 3m channel is proposed. I believe we should object to both, on the grounds it will stop wide beam boats reaching Bury when the restoration is completed. One can object online at https://www.planningpa.bolton.gov.uk/online-applications-17/search.do?action=simple&searchType=Application with the reference no. is 09775/20 Unfortunately they do not make it very simple!!! One has to create a login. Go to the link above, put the reference 09775/20 into the simple search box at the bottom, and click search, this should bring up the Planning » Application Summary page for the ERECTION OF 274 DWELLINGS ON TWO SITES Then click the comments tab, then click login and comment, you have to create a login identity, before you can comment, and that process sends you a verification email - uhhh! Once you have leapt these hurdles, the site has a timeout, so it is better to create your comment elsewhere and copy and past it in. Oh and you only have 2000 chars to play with! But you can repeat the process if you want more space. The M&BB Canal Soc think that getting a 3m channel is the best they can get, and want to go with this. I believe otherwise and that we should all push the council, so that Bury is not excluded from getting history wide beams back, because of the short-sightedness of Bolton Council. The bridge is not a major problem as the designed can be modified I believe with a floating/removable towpath which can be pulled out of the way to allow wide beam boats to get through it, and on to Bury. This should enable the developer to not have to build a huge spanning bridge over the canal, which would cost significantly more, I'm guessing. The bridge design can be modified so that it does not have a towpath, it would be cheaper to build for the developer and either the developer could provide or C&RT or the M&BB Canal Soc could raise the money for a floating towpath, as the final solution. In the mean time access could be via paths going up to the road from either side., which should be provided so that the local residents have easy access to the canal. The floating towpath could be constructed of standard narrow canal boat hulls in principle with support legs, a walking deck and hand rails, giving an approximate 2m width of path through the bridge. By definition two narrowboats will fit through a 5m gap! The termination of the towpath at the bridge abutments would have to be redesigned so that it links to the floating towpath. Please see the Rochdale Canal passage under the M62 at Castleton, for an example of how this can be done. The length through the breach can also be re-organized by doing two straight sections of 4.32m min width we really can keep it that tight, and why not? That is what the locks are. This is only another 4ft 8inches on the currently proposed 2.92m channel. Then at the intersection of the two straight lengths a rotating area can be provided which would allow full length maximum beam boats to realign for the other straight section and then carry on. They would not be able to simply sail through, but would need to be guided through as at locks, but they would get through, a slight increase of another 100mm would help but is not totally necessary. please see brown markup on attached plan. The realignment area can either be at the front (towpath side) or at the back away from the towpath. I personally think at the towpath side is best and a curve can be used. The architects would need to do the detail but its not far away from what is being proposed. They could gain some of this extra 1.4m by pushing the northern wall back into the bank a little further. By totally removing the old offside wall. They could also shrink the towpath a bit and make the apron that supports it slightly wider, and hey presto we are there. The area for the twist to realign the boat will be at the back of the breach area and so would not cause significant addition loading on the land slip area, and would need to be approximately another 3.3m wide at the apex of the two offside lines, I calculate. It is easy to fix and not that much more expensive. It may also be possible for volunteer labour to help. please see the Granthan canal and the Lichfield canal restorations, I for one would be keen to help. Its not ideal, however it would work. It means that the costs are not running out of hand, and it's a workable solution for the developer. Below I have added an image showing roughly how I think a 4.32m channel could be achieved through the breach area, shown in brown.

Agree that rotties can be as soft as anything. Unfortunately they are, like GSDs, often picked by people wanting an aggressive dog. Like staffies. I did have one unnerving experience late one evening at Hurleston when a couple of Rotties came running round under the bridge and didn’t look very friendly. The owner appeared shortly after, shouted something and the dogs immediately stopped, turned and sat down. He did apologise and said he didn’t expect anyone to be out at that time. I love well-trained dogs with responsible owners, but unfortunately there are too many irresponsible owners out there.

Find a partner with the same problem. Then read Kama Sutra to find intimate positions that don't involve face to face contact.?

I have 36 KWHs at 72 volts of LifePo4s for my drive batteries, that is 30 batteries at 36 volts, it will give 10 hours cruising with no sun. These batteries have built in BMSs and all are connected to each other. A narrowboat will happily work at 48 volts and would require 1.5 KW to cruise at 3-4mph (figures from Finesse). I have a lot of solar 4.6 kw in fact, you will need over 2kW, 48 volt is a easy voltage to work with as 48 volt inverter/chargers are around. A 48 to 12 volt converter will take care of 12 volts needs

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!

More like a Witchetty grub (we thought) This is all that remains of the last one who said something similar :

Springers are sporting dogs, very active and have excellent sense of smell, as with all sporting breeds require discipline, and plenty of acivities. Border Collies and such like are very keen to please, they have a herding instinct and relatively easy to train, though like any dog they should do as they are told, when they are told, not always easy, I had a collie cross when I was at College, he was absolutely brilliant, others used to borrow him to go rabbitng, and rough shooting, he could also round up the sheep with no guidance, and bring the cows in, all this with no training other than 'lie down' and 'come here' and 'sit'. For the boat, I'd like a whippet crossed with a coarse haired lurcher, or a mediun size crossbred, must be friendly, but I'm too lazy to get a dog, the cat is my preferred companion on board, he looks after himself, and only sheds his coat once a year, gets a good brush once a week.