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!

They don't need to justify it, they can charge whjat they like in a free market economy. Just as you don't have to justify deciding to paint yours instead of paying £44 for a new one. But by way of explanation, I'd suggest the ten quid ones in B&Q are that cheap because of the economy of scale. House bog seats are very 'standard'. They probably make them in batches of about a million in China by workers on £1 a day, while the 200CS seats are probably made 500 at a time in Thetford, by workers on £28k a year with a pension.

Bear in mind most of the price of a pint is not for the beer, it's for rent on the space in the premises you are taking up whilst drinking it, staff costs to serve it and wash your glass after, a million other business overheads etc etc.

Glad to be of help.

On no account fully tighten the heads down until you have fitted and tightened the manifolds, give the heads a chance to twist as you tighten the manifolds. Tightening the heads first has been known to crack manifolds when the heads were slightly twisted. Treat the injector leak off pipe system gently, I would be inclined to anneal it before refitting, but take are not to melt the braze on the joints.

My view is in that case, you'd be better off keeping the widebeam permanently at Brentford and getting second, smaller boat for the cruising. Widebeams on the Thames are fine but once on a canal, they are tiresomely cumbersome, progress is slow and moorings harder to find. I'd suggest you'd get at least twice as far in your proposed one-week cruises in a NB as you would in the WB.

View from Dotterel's cratch this morning at Weedon.

saw Toyah Wilcox there once, believe that Tom Robinson has also played there. lots of tribute bands, many of which are very good

It seems any actual spannering and thought process beyond major component replacement is beyond them. All the engineers can’t be that incompetent so it has to come from higher up.

Because they seem to like to replace major components that somehow cost their customer money despite all the advertising about replacement parts cover…and those components are possibly of variable quality…. Oh and one of the MD’s love to threaten you if dare to criticise them….

It seems that you also need to fill the text field otherwise it will display that error. Example screenshot below.

I wonder how travellers get on with taxing and insuring their vehicles? Many are constantly on the move with no permanent home address.

Pardon intrusion in the Tracy and Jim show but dare I ask what the IWAs role in this is? They used to be a pressure organisation in large part to ensure canals were preserved in usable condition were they not? As it appears CRT are failing in that custodianship shouldn’t the IWA or someone start creating more noise? The seasons been pretty dire in many areas for boaters who actually care to use their boats. Though thanks in large part to the IWA for many canals existence, isn’t it time someone ie the IWA stepped up to say things aren’t working currently, and that the canals are fast becoming a mess. Ive not been too involved for a long time so perhaps I’m just being naive 🤣 apologies if so!