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I do like a nice Barolo. My one pot wonders are either a nice Beef Rendang or a couple of good meaty lamb shanks, browned them slow cooked in red wine and orange juice with loads of garlic and rosemary and charlottes or onions then throw in spuds and carrots 20-30 minutes before eating. Can also slow roast them with less liquid in the tray (still with garlic and rosemary of course) and turn that into gravy.

Bet you never did the Huddersfield narrow 😀 and the South Stratford must have been a bit tight.

"Having walked the route of the Bradley restoration I'm not convinced it would benefit that many boaters." Those pushing forward with the scheme would disagree especially as most of the infrastructure is buried, but still there. The BCN society does its best to promote their navigation and this is one scheme that will open up a new route. The canal to the Workshops sees a reduced usage, at present, and restoration to the Walsall canal would encourage increased use as well as creating potential new boating rings. The same argument could have been said about the Droitwich!

I personally don't know of any but there must be many, especially the ones with a new stern and counter. its all those riveted seams and things that would be a headache. Heat exchanger cooling using canal water would be easier or even external cooling pipes if they could be squeezed in. Its always struck me how inefficient keel cooling tanks are. I have a Beta 43 with a heat exchanger, the innards of that exchanger are the size of a couple of baked bean cans full of tubes with canal water flowing through them. The exhaust and water that comes out of the side of the boat is comfortably warm, if that engine was keel cooled it would need a great big slab of a thing welded to the boat and there's every chance it would still be too small or barely big enough. Odd.

Boston is on CRT waters and is connected to most of the other CRT waters around the country. No need for any other licence. Agree that the hiring out idea is probably a non-starter, although some existing hire boat companies do have privately owned boats on their books on a sort of retainer basis. I know Kate Boats in Warwick do this so it might be worth VMax contacting them to discuss how it works as it could have a bearing on what boat they buy.

I’d rather not spend time in the company of people that don’t like dogs or animals in general…maybe you could sit outside or just stay at home…..

A couple of reasons, firstly and simply a large alternator can run a large load (via an inverter of course!) - washing machine, tumble drier, electric kettle etc. without using any battery juice. But in the context of battery charging, people seem to think that because their (eg) 70A alternator only charges at 40A from a few minutes after starting charging, that a 175A alternator would only be charging at 40A under the same circumstances. This isn’t true. It’s to do with the regulation curve of an alternator’s rather basic regulator. The current supplied by an alternator is related (inversely) to the terminal voltage. So if we presume for example that the regulated voltage is 14.4v, at 14.4v it is producing no current. At 14.39v it is producing maybe 1% of its output. At 14.3 maybe 10%. At 14.2v maybe 25% You have to get right down to perhaps 13.7v before it is producing 100% of its output. (Figures made up, but the principle is right). You’ll notice I’m quoting the current as % of maximum output, so of course if the max is 175A vs 70A, the actual amount is much bigger at any particular voltage. It is of course true that with more current the battery voltage will be a bit greater, but even so the charge current will be significant more. Example: with our Trojans, on first starting at maybe 60% SoC we would get 175A. This would fall off pretty quickly but still be 120A a long time later. It would take several hours to get down to 70A. Of course it is true that the tail end of the charge takes the same length of time, but a lot of time can be saved in the early and mid stages. So if you want to add a hundred Ah without fully charging, you can do it in under an hour. Linked to this of course is the other myth that “the battery determines the charge current”. Well not quite a myth, it is of course true in theory, but in practice the soft relationship between an alternator’s current vs voltage is a very significant factor. This was brought home to me when I installed my home made alternator regulator which holds maximum current until the regulated voltage is reached within about 0.1v. I seem to recall posting something on here where the charge current was around 120A despite the SoC being 85%. And now of course with Lithiums, my only limitation is the risk of overheating the alternator. I limit it to about 90C and that gives a continuous 125A or so, right up to about 99% SoC. But short term I can put 175A in at virtually any state of charge. And with the Travelpower and 100A Combi playing as well, 275A. That’s a day’s worth in well under an hour.

"We're going to need a bigger windlass Doris . . ."