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Showing content with the highest reputation on 13/06/21 in all areas

  1. A lovely thread. The boats are important but the boats plus people, now that is history.
    4 points
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  6. I’m sure if you follow the terms and conditions you will be fine. It’s only if you attempt to follow the relevant act of Parliament you will get into trouble.
    3 points
  7. Or get a perfectly acceptable pump out/porta potty at far less cost & hassle!
    3 points
  8. I wonder what proportion of keel cooled canal boats are built with insufficient skin tanks? I'm sure lots of narrowboaters who never venture from canals don't even realise their engine would overheat if they had to push it against a current for any length of time. I had to fit an additional skin tank myself to rectify this problem. Why is it that so many builders, both budget and higher end, are so incompetent in this respect? If they can't do a simple calculation based on engine output then it doesn't really say much for anything else they do.
    3 points
  9. It keeps getting repeated that a past civil court verdict by a judge meant that a boat with a home mooring wasn't bound to use it, and that though they still had to go by the "14 days in one place" ruling like CCers, unlike CCers they didn't have to meet the "bona fide navigation" rule and could therefore shuttle backwards and forwards between two places rather that having to go on a journey round multiple places of a length sufficient to "satisfy the board" that they were cruising. This case has been posted many times, usually by the same person ? CART recently updated their rules to close this loophole and apply the same "bona fide cruising" requirements to boats with a home mooring. I'm sure somebody will be along to say that they can't legally do this because of the judge's finding, and then somebody else will point out that a civil case does not form UK case law and could be decided differently if a similar case ever came up again -- but the upshot is, the new CART rules say you have to follow pretty much the same rules as CCers, except you can stay at your home mooring as long as you like. As Mike says, people asking this question are not usually doing it because they want to cruise the canals and are worried about being unfairly accused of breaking the rules, they're usually wanting to cruise in one small area -- clearly against the spirit and letter of the rules -- and are trying to find out how far they can push this and still get away with it, often without even having a home mooring. Most boaters not trying to bend the rules don't like people doing this, because if too many do it the likely consequence is that CART will tighten up the rules further, and more "honest" cruisers will be impacted as well as the rule-benders. If the OP is genuinely wanting to know what the limits are with the intention of staying safely outside the limits rather than seeing how far they can push inside them, Mike's advice is good -- if you're worried about whether you're meeting the rules, you're probably not...
    3 points
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  16. Last time we went through Foxton we had the same problem with an officious Voluntary Lock Keeper, who had no understanding of how to manage the flight. He said that, despite me having waited more than two hours, I had to wait anoher hour as they had allowed another a boat to descend. I suggested that I could go half way up and wait in the centre pound, but he clearly had no idea what I was talking about and said I had to wait at the bottom of the flight. I informed him that as a volunteer he had no authority over me, and I was going to ascend the flight, which resulted in him phoning his supervisor, who arrived on site about 10 minutes later. After a civilised conversation with the superviser, he agreed that my suggestion to wait on the centre pound was sensible, and he allowed me to proceed. The Voluntary Lockeeper was subsequently obseved, re-deployed onto grass cutting!
    2 points
  17. This the basin at Clamecy on the Nivernais, and just about as busy as it gets. The mayor here saw the possibilities of the canal long before others did, providing facilities such as a shower, re-excavating also the branch to the left .The three boats in the foreground are run by a group providing vacations for underprivileged schoolchildren The lock here opened in 1900, the canal previously continuing right through the town, culminating in the harbour shown in the second photo. Concealed at the downstream entrance to the lock is a monument to Jean Rouvet, 16th Century originator (possibly) of the system of flottage, whereby logs were floated down to Paris. Mischievous rumour has it that, following the realisation that no-one knew what Rouvet looked like, and there was a spare bust of Napoleon in the town library, they put that on a plinth instead.
    2 points
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  23. Same as it does when you dont push them.
    2 points
  24. 2 points
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  27. You've gotta love this self editing system
    2 points
  28. Having looked at the photo in another program: 1. Remember that the battery must always be connected to the controller BEFORE the panels. So disconnect and insulate one of the panel cables until the battery is connected, then connect it again. Working from left to right on the photo terminal 1 = panel pos terminal 2 = panel neg terminal 3 = battery pos terminal 4 = battery neg I would suggest you ignore the next pair for now but typically they will be: terminal 5 = solar load pos terminal 6 = solar load neg The buttons normally allow you to cycle through display options and maybe zero cumulative counts of Ah etc. It should still charge however you set them. Also, I suspect this is a PWM controller, so in time think about swapping it for a genuine MPPT one that will give more charge for the same panel size.
    2 points
  29. If the voltage shown is the battery voltage, then nothing has been charging the batteries and the batteries are now dead. Do you have a multimeter ? Test the voltage at the actual batteries and see what it reads. You only look to have 3 wire going into/out of the controller. You would normally need 4 wires as you need : Both + and - from the panels to the controller, and Both + and - from the controller to the batteries, If the person needed instruction then I take it he was not a boat electrician, and / or had never installed panels before ?
    2 points
  30. Have you considered getting a grp cruiser instead of a narrow boat?
    2 points
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  32. It is always a concern when someone has gone to the expense (£800 - £1000) of having a survey and then, presumably, walked away from the boat. There must have been some serious (expensive) issues found. So problems are known, and buyer did not consider it viable to have the repairs done at the asking price, and / or, the seller refuses to accept the problems and keeps the price 'high' , no negotiation, hoping someone will come along and buy it anyway. When a boat is overplated the 'new' thickness is not added to the previous thickness, the boat now becomes (in this example) a 4mm thick hull. Most / majority / many (it varies day by day) insurers are now insisting on a minimum of 4mm thickness for fully-comp insurance, so the slightest corrosion or pitting even 0.1mm means that the boat may well not be insurable. Best to keep walking.
    2 points
  33. I very much doubt it, especially in marginal areas and those with horizontally polarised infill transmitters (Henley as the Thames has been mentioned). The Moonraker will be relying on its amplifier so needs a 12V feed and amplifying a crap signal will just get you a larger crap signal. Much like the squirrel cage and flying saucer jobs. Although you can not get 100% coverage, I found a small, easily stowed log periodic aerial with an inline amplifier (left over from an Omnimax) plus an app on my computer got me signal most of the time. Not very good a Beale Park and up the Caldon. The app gave polarisation to set the aerial. A cheap signal finder also helps to maximise reception.
    2 points
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  39. It used to be said of certain shops (think Bond Street) that if you have to ask the price the you cannot afford it. Much the same, it seems to me, to apply to cruising/mooring rules (aka expectations): if you have to ask if your hoped-for pattern is acceptable then you already know that it is not. This is made even more likely since CaRT are only able to pursue the most egregious cases and anything that even begins to look like an acceptable pattern will be accepted. Those who seek to have a legal rule on how much they have to travel are more often than not those who want it to be as small as possible - there are a few calls from those who want to set it much higher, more consistent with an actual cruising pattern. However, as things stand at the moment there is little chance of there being new legislation and therefore we are all stuck(?) with what exists which pretty much comes down to: (a) maximum stay of 14 days in one 'place' (and remember that no satisfactory definition of place has been found) (b) boaters without a home mooring must engage at all times in a bona fide navigation, making progress around the navigable system. (c) apart from the 14 day (or less if signed) rule, everything else is dependent on the boater convincing The Board (ie CaRT) that they are compliant. Originally, the Board was the last level of appeal on the matter but today there are generally more opportunities to challenge such bodies, but the principle remains the same: the Board's decision if the effective one, subject to them complying with any other more general legislation (human rights, equality and diversity, reasonable admin etc) In other words, if you have any doubt in your mind that your cruising pattern is or is not compliant then you had best assume that it is not. If you cannot convince yourself, what chance do you think you have of convincing The Board? As others have discovered, once you come onto the Enforcement Radar, life can become quite difficult if you do not accept that you are wrong.
    2 points
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  46. So if that is the lavatory block, where is the houseboat?
    1 point
  47. I would suggest you swap out the charge controller you have, replace with a real MPPT unit. The one you have will drag the panel voltage down to something near the value of the battery, it's a simple regulator. An MPPT will do more work, to charge the batteries.
    1 point
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  50. We currently own Hawkesbury and have done since 2013, it would be great to know more about the time spent in your Dad's hands as this period is missing from the folder of information we have.
    1 point
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