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That means nothing to me ...

In 2000, David Harris built Hanuman for me. She was a beautiful boat, deep sided and I had him put a 5lw in her, coupled to a PRM 750. At the time I'd have liked a 2 or a 3 cylinder, but the 5 came up for sale locally to me at a knockdown price and I simply couldn't resist it. After a change from the first blade to something more appropriate, she went extraordinarily well, both at tick-over on the cut and like the wind on open water. My abiding memory is of being tied at Upton in full flood, with the river going downhill at a ferocious rate, swirling audibly around the bridge piers. I was in the process of untying and a chap came up to me and said, "You're never going out on THAT?", pointing at the water. His face was a picture when I clutched in and she leapt off the staging like a rocket and we disappeared upstream, smooth as you like, with no exhaust beat, and a fine wake. I sold her on, and I hear she's now got what I originally intended to put in her, a mere three cylinder LW. Bit of a shame really.

Think you need to get a better dentist 🤣 what stove is the grate from.

I can only comment on the zinc ones attached to my lumpy water prop hub, which dissolve almost an entire anode in a season (small anodes and salty water for you). If I don't mask them off when antifouling then the very small part of the anode which has antifouling on it is usually still standing proud when the boat comes out at the end of the year ie it hasn't dissolved. Since wasting away the anode rather than the surrounding material is the whole point of it, I would say painting them is a really bad idea!

Glad this thread is resurrected 😂. He pops up on Facebook boating groups now and again (I think he 'runs' one actually). I replyed to a thread that was suggesting his books as a good example to learn boating ettiquet, suggesting otherwise, and recieved a couple of unpleasant private messages from him🤣😅

Last night, Plymouth. Had a guided tour around this tanker which we'd been called to a few days previously to help an unwell crewman. Brings a new perspective to losing visibility under the bow, and yes he did have a bowthruster and no, I didn't call him a cissy 😄

I wouldn't recommend cooking in the ashtray or fire embers unless you're only burning seasoned wood. Coal ash contains various toxins which are highly likely to get into your food, even if wrapped in foil.

This is the inclined plane built in the 1960s as part of the Orlik dam, slightly higher up the Vlatava, in 1995. The incline for 300 ton boats was not put into operation, but there is one for small pleasure boats alongside. The Czechs have long had the idea of a north-south link from the Danube, and this is ne scheme. The best known is the Oder-Elbe-Danube scheme, for which there was a competition around 1900 to design boat lifts, one being very similar to that now built at Falkirk, though theirs would have been for 1000 ton standard boats.

Mr waterworks and his whining, nit-picking, trivial correspondences with CRT are reminding me of the Pareto Principle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle I suspect 20% of boaters cause CRT 80% of their administration work.

As you are flying a long way maybe go for 3 or even 4 weeks, just not so good if you decide you don't like it. Some companies might offer a good discount. September is a good choice. Maybe do the 4 counties ring with a diversion up the Caldon Canal, or if you have time the Macclesfield and Upper Peak Forest. Or maybe Chester? If you like cities and decaying industry then a diversion into Birmingham is possible, but this will involve a lot of locks. Get a decent size boat to have a bit of comfort, no less than 50 foot but probably a bit bigger, larger boats are, in some ways, actually easier to handle than shorter ones. Unless you have any specific things to see then day trips are not required, the canal system itself and its towns and villages should keep you busy.

How I bake potatoes on a Squirrel stove. Rub some oil and salt in to the skin. Wrap in tin foil. Place at a front corner of the stove, on embers/ash, but not super active fire. After three quarters of an hour, use the stove tongs to turn the spud over to even out the cooking. Cook for another three quarters of an hour. This is for a medium size spud. Cooks evenly and browns the skin. Adjust time for bigger, or smaller spuds. When removing, I put the potato in a bowl and unwrap the tin foil in that so any ash sticking to the outside of the foil is contained, before transferring the spud to a plate.

These damned woke lefties again.

A combination of Brexit, immigration restrictions and child labour laws mean they can't employ little Dutch boys any more.

Obviously refusal of a licence because of other fees that may be owed is unlawful not just an irrelevant use of words ( especially not to someone living aboard who's home is at risk ) My post does nothing more than confirm the truth of the matter.

Don't grow leeks under the tray. Short answer, you don't. Once it is well fitted and sealed you "assume" it will stay that way as long as you keep the boat. Fit the waste to the tray, the hose on the waste ( one of those small elbow ones with a 3/4" hose barb on ) and drop it into the floor, hoping there is not a batten in the way. Have twice the length of hose from the tray to the pump as you have from the pump to the skin fitting overboard so that any runback does not come into the tray.

Today I spotted two lockies replacing what looked like perfectly good black and white lock signs with new black and white lock signs but with a sunken tyre logo instead of a Swan. I asked why no blue signs lockie says "I don't like blue". That lockie should be the next Chief Executive of CRT.

I sometimes I suspect Pareto had it wrong where unreasonable issues raised by The Awkward Squad are concerned. My suspicion is 99.9% of these come from 0.1% of boaters.

How curious. I too have a CRT on-line mooring for one of my boats, and I've never been furnished by CRT with a square of paper bearing a letter "M". Have I been scammed?

The BSD3xx is not the smoothest of engines but its problems are solvable.It has a pronounced residual nodding couple at certain speeds and does not lend itself to mounting on flexi-mounts. It is better to remove them and solidly mount the engine using Tico pads between the bearers and full length engine feet. Put a vibration damping water pump/alternator pulley on the front end. Adjust tickover to the manufacturers recommendation, do not run too slowly. Fit a propeller which puts your water speed out of the engines worst vibration period. From memory we use 24" x 13" on a PRM 260 2:1 box. The exhaust note we reduced to a hiss at the stack outlet by using a large expansion chamber upstream of the silencer. It took some time to decide on these mods. but they do tame the beast and it has been very tractable for the last 28/30 years. Follow this recipe and you will save yourself a great deal of money. HughC.

Are the engine mounts OK? Aligned properly, broken, degraded, loose?