Leaderboard

My thought about it not being the show for me any more is confirmed!!

Foxes what? They are just a complete pair of nonentities. Watched some minutes of their videos and decided it was just the usual self obsessed shyte*. Can't understand why they are so popular 😱 *To be fair 99% of all vlogs, not just theirs, are self obsessed shyte.

Any hydraulic system is inefficient to very inefficient when compared to a mechanical one. It was used in those hire boats to it a transverse engine to give as much cabin space as possible while keeping the engine and passengers as far apart as practical. It also, once correctly set up and glassed in, does away with any need for shaft alignment so arguably gives quieter/more vibration free motoring. Note that nothing here is to do with efficiency. Those boats may well also use one of the less efficient hydraulic pump and motor. The hydraulic mounting plate MIGHT make motor mounting easier, but it is so low in the boat would be asking for ongoing expensive motor problems. It is in the keel. If you decided to overcome that by driving the pump by an electric motor, then you are stuck with the inefficiencies and thus a larger (guess 25% to 30%) battery bank. I suspect you would need to use something like a toothed belt drive from a higher mounted electric motor, and that would impinge upon back cabin space and need the mountings made up and glasses onto the hull.

My guess would be Ditchy was (clumsily) pointing out that moorings agreements are renewable, i.e. you need to renew them and there are no guarantees renewal will be granted if your face doesn't fit or you are generally making a PITA of yourself in unspecified ways even though you might have been keeping to the terms of the mooring agreement. I could be wrong though. This often happens. A point that no-one has made yet though, is if one's face does fit, one goes out of one's way not to 'make waves' and to generally keep 'under the radar', many people have demonstrated one can live full time for many years on a leisure mooring. Flying below the radar means don't get mail delivered to the boat. Don't run your engine at unsociable hours of day or night, including times when you are technically allowed to but irritate others e.g. on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Don't cover to roof of your boat with crap, especially not WC cassettes. Keep your boat clean, tidy and respectable-looking externally. Don't play intrusively loud music. Avoid the smell of smoking weed drifting across the moorings. I'm sure you get the idea.

Oh dear… I find myself agreeing with you on this….. what’s sad is that the drivel they spout is taken as gospel by some. I’ve had people on this trip amazed that I don’t hang on their every word.

That power can be useful stopping sharply, instead of ramming the boat coming round the bend on the wrong side. Also used for reversing the boat off the sticky bottom the bow has slid silently onto and is now preventing forward progress. As both of these are reverse gear maybe a low power motor for one way and a big one for going astern.

I bet I'm not alone in having been there only once, a few years ago now. I found it really interesting, but not interesting enough to want to go again! Foxes are inviting expressions of interest in buying their boat as their new build starts soon. They describe it as "one of the most famous narrowboats in the world!"

In the 60's & 70's almost every cottage on the flight known as the Hanwell thicket to working boatmen was lived in by ex working retired boatmen they where lockie's or working for the company (waterways) at the time almost every one of them connected to my Nanny or Grandads family My GG Grandad is listed as being there at lock 90 on the 1911 census under Southall top lock but his Grandaughter who was born in the same spot 8 months later has Hanwell top lock as place of Birth on her cert . I have lived in 3 of the cottages on the thicket norwood bottom lock was the last & was known as Norwood little lock in the 70's or sometimes the horse cottage as in the days of horse's they where stabled in the field behind this cottage that was before they where no longer needed then they where all walked across the field to southall horse market one day .It was looked on as progress by the women to move up the flight the lady in the cottage now at lock 90 is the last of the working boat connections herself coming from a well known boating family & her son is a member of this forum

Chances are that a towpath cyclist might well be a boater too. For every mile I travel in my boat, I travel a mile on my bike on the towpath too, going back to get my van. The curious thing is, if I boat five miles then go back for my van, I'll wave at a boat or three on the way. Then I'll drive me van 10 or 12 miles along the cut and park, get the bike out and ride back to mebote and pass those same handful of boats a second time. Some of sharper ones comment asking how the heck did I get where I am when they passed me two hours ago, ten miles back up the cut!

I disagree. The smell can be FAR worse than that. I bought a boat 15 or 20 years ago with a pumpout bog and the first time I pumped it out, the experience was so horrendous (smell especially) I sealed it up and installed a cassette.

In a boat that size with the use the OP proposes I agree........With a Single tank as big as possible. If you were continuous cruising I'd probably lean towards cassette. Don't go by smell.....a pump out can smell quite bad from outside when it's getting full and smells like the most putrid bowels of hell when it's actually being pumped out. Don't consider a composting toilet. You might be tempted after researching them on Youtube and watching all the 'Vanlife' people and even some narrowboaters rave about them. Well I recently bought a boat with one installed (£1000 top of the line model) and while I suppose the concept is good, and in California where it is warm and dry maybe they work well. But in real life in the UK they only work well for light use (1-2 people). It's crucial the moisture content of the solids container stays low. With 4 people in typical UK climate the unit got overwhelmed after about 4 days use and had to be emptied due to strong smell (not sewerage smell but strong musty smell). Also with 4 people the liquid bottle needed emptied every single day which was a nuisance. You can't put the solid waste into C&RT bins either so you have to take it home.....another major faff. So I'm going to replace it with a cassette toilet....there are Elsan points all over the network and quite a lot of pump out sites so they (and pump outs) are much easier to live with overall. I did consider a pump out in my boat but it is a 40ft narrowboat so space is at a premium, as well as that cassette toilets are free to empty! There are some boaters that swear by composting toilets, however I think the tide is seriously turning on composting on the canals now that C&RT have banned the solid waste from their bins.

I think it's the anti-tamper cap on one of the governor adjustments. You can see the crimp at the engine end where they squeezed it to stop it coming off, but I am more used to seeing them wired on with a lead seal. I think that you could pull it off as long as you are never tempted to adjust the nut and bolt that is under it. I don't think you can tighten it long term, but try squashing the engine end. If it pulls off as I think it will, you could put a drop or two of sealer down the hole (polyurethane glue?) and lightly stick it on.

Just as an aside, why is it called the Suez Canal and not the Suez Channel as it is connected directly to the sea either end?

The problem is that the cheapest (and most common) way to build an electric boat is a relatively small (10kw or less) high-speed motor -- usually air-cooled -- geared down to drive the prop via a toothed belt, easily available because it's used for things like golf carts. The motor isn't quiet because there's a high-speed fan (3600rpm or more) pushing cooling air through it, the toothed belt whines, and this noise escapes through any vents needed to let cool air in and hot air out. This is what most of the electric boats out there do, and it's why they whine. The next cheapest way is a standard air-cooled motor directly coupled to the prop, these are usually sized to run at 1500rpm-1800rpm for full power (10kW-15kW). The fan is still noisy but not as bad as above, air-cooling still lets sound escape through cooling vents. The prop is a tiny egg-whisk which is noisy and not very good for starting/stopping. Not as cheap or noisy as the above geared solution, but still not designed for the job. This is what most of the better (more expensive) commercial solutions use. Less whine (direct drive) but still not as quiet as they could be. The most expensive and quietest way is a lower-speed water-cooled PMAC motor with direct drive to the prop like the Engiro 205W-12013 (15kW continuous at 1080rpm), which means a bigger quieter prop, no cooling fan noise, and no need to have vents to let cooling air in and noise out, can be sealed in -- I'm pretty sure this is what Finesse use. Needs extra hardware (pump, keel cooler, water cooling plate for controller) which adds even more to the cost, motor plus hardware plus controller is maybe £5000 or so. No noise except from the prop, and this is low because it's bigger and low-speed. https://www.voltsport.co.uk/engiro-motors-all/Engiro-205W_12013 Note that the motor weighs 100lbs and uses neodymium magnets, which gives a clue as to why it's expensive...

Her you go. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/climate-crimes-oil-and-gas-environment And the billions being spent (over years) https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/mar/22/top-oil-firms-spending-millions-lobbying-to-block-climate-change-policies-says-report

When we were allowed out I worked a lot of shows both trade & public. Some are still popular…vegan food fairs in london for instance and things like yoga shows…anything that the punters can interact with or taste….the shows where you just go to buy stuff seem to be attracting less since the web arrived. It’s very easy to see that the “show promotion” can be bettered online. The london boat shows were a case in point. They were manic in the Earls Court days…the last one at excel was deserted.

A good smear of Vaseline on the contacting surfaces, as well as over them, can help prevent corrosion. Vaseline is very different from lubricating grease. Unlike lubricating grease (which is designed to stay put), Vaseline will flow readily under pressure when clamping up battery terminals and so does not affect contact resistance.

Thats why my last couple of battery monitors where NASA. Having had victron and other makes NASA are way better in that a grown up can actualy see the numbers rather than only 12 year olds.

Found myself this connoisseur 900. Proud of my (water caravan) and still working on it as you can see 😅