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In case anyone is interested... Just over a week after leaving hospital with 7 days of antibiotics I am still not 100%, don't get me wrong I am not ill as such just tired and not quite right, at least I am able to do a the normal day to day stuff as long as I take my time, anyway I've been signed off for another week and hopefully that should see me right. I have been spectacularly unlucky considering how many people live, work and play around canals but it's certainly worth keeping in mind if you get a fever after contact with the water

Sustrans are a campaign/pressure and fundraising charity, they don't actually manage and maintain the cycle network, they get other people to do it. The biggest problem for whoever has responsibilities for the canals and navigable rivers is that the current available budget to spend is not enough to maintain them in the long term. It doesn't matter how good at management you are, or if you are a boater or not, the simple problem is money. Getting the general public to donate to a charity to maintain paths that they probably think are maintained by the council, and waterways and locks for rich boaters isn't going to happen. Charging boaters more will help but won't be enough on its own. CRT's strategy of trying to convince the government that the canals have a public (mental) health benefit that can only be maintained by central government funding is probably the most likely way to get the missing funding. However their implementation of the strategy leaves a lot to be desired.

When the National Trust were responsible for the South Stratford Canal it was in a terrible state. I think we need more focus on navigation aspects, including preventative maintenance.

No matter what boaters write the results are always positive lots% satisfied On a scale of 1 - 10 how satisfied where you with C&RT 1 = Negaiive 2 - 10 = Positive

Rust is approximately 8 or 10 times the thickness of the metal (depending on which book you read) it has 'consumed' So 2mm of rust = 0.2mm of metal thickness. Don't worry, nothing there to be concerned about.

One of the warnings following leptospirosis is you must not under any circumstances indulge in any domestic chores - this is dangerous for both you and anybody else on the premises. No washing up, hoovering, cooking, basically anything. You may quote me if it helps. Intake of lots of fluids highly recommended.

Or byelaw no. 48. "Damage to property 48. No person shall wilfully, wantonly or maliciously deface or destroy any notice on or in any part of any canal or break, injure, deface, mark or otherwise damage or destroy any building, bridge, lock, gate, railing, fence, hedge or other property of the Board, on or in any canal." I think deliberately banging mooring pins into concrete would constitute wilful damage to other property of the Board on or in any canal.

The third chapter of the Bank Holiday- We'd really saved the easiest bit until last- the panels to the rear of the panel put in originally. Nice and easy, nice and flat, plenty of things to line them up off. Chop chop... (Because this panel was as far from the stands holding the hull up as possible, not the portapower ram underneath the baseplate to stop it going all floppy) And steel tacked in. Much much faffing around then occurred as I pulled and pushed and levered the fresh steel into place. This involved a lot of nipping in and out the boat to put a tack here and weld an eyelet on there, which the little RTech was mega useful for. While I did that "the apprentice" was given an angle grinder and set to cleaning off areas of the swim so that they could be ultrasonically measured. There's about 4 garden pea sized pits on either side, but the rest measures 5.6mm and above, consequently i'm not going to replace the steel there, just weld up the pits. Result! Which hopefully fills in the blanks leading up to the image posted originally

Nice.

Agreed. In practice CRT seem to allow some boats an awful lot of latitude before they take action. That said, we don't know how many of the perpetual non-movers are working their way through the enforcement process, which can take a long time, particularly if the boat is the owner's home.

Where's the efficiency saving? You higlight the first bit of text you want to respond to and click on 'Quote' which opens the reply box with the quoted text, you add your reply, you then scroll up to the original post, highlight the next bit of text you want to respond to and click 'Quote' again, and the quoted text is added to the reply box, add your second comment. Repeat as necessary and finally click 'Submit Reply'. Works just as well with multiple sections quoted from one post, or with bits from several different posts. And it's clear to readers who has written what, and no need for bold or coloured text.

Idle Days makes what seems a very valid point to me. Also there is some reassurance that a boat with a licence on display has had insurance and a valid BSS within the last 12 months. CRT will send printed licences in the post on request. However, ideally you'll then need to laminate them because CRT tend to fold the letter across the licence 'disc'. (I had to ask a bit more firmly this year as the CRT person on the phone told me it was not necessary as well as suggesting I could download from my non-existent online account. I then pointed out that the CRT lease terms where the boat is kept expect the moored boats to have current licences on display.)

My paper licence is years out of date. I stopped putting them up when CRT started expecting us to print our own. I don't have a printer. CRT have been quite clear that they don't need the licence displayed, just like with tax discs in cars. To the OP - your post reads like you're just trying to stir up division.

No you don't. You "sell" your boat to a friend and ask them to apply for the new licence.

It's a pleasure doing the work and quite good fun to write about it too, pleased it's well received Exactly yes. I looked at buying a historic boat, that I think is still on brokerage in Staffordshire* that needs 3/4 of a baseplate fitting to it. Lovely thing, gorgeous lines and vintage engine but 10x what I paid for this, and would basically have to be taken back to a bare shell (naff insulation too), at which point I elected to just buy a bare shell and save the extra pennies for doing the work *Just checked, it's sold I really did consider it, I was on telly doing up my current boat, but even with other people filming and editing and directing everything took 3x as long as it otherwise would. That said, if anyone with a channel wants to come along and document it then I'm happy to feature on your channel and don't want anything for it, but don't want the work of filming it!

Me, unfortunately without The Captain.

I've got phat phingers and a small fone ☹️

Bobbins. You have a statutory right to a licence if you... Have a BSS ticket Have insurance Declare your mooring status Pay the fee

A few years ago it did feel like Castlefield was coming alive and might just be a little version of Birmingham. The Wharf pub had just opened (despite resistance from Peel holdings?) and there were a couple of other venues, plus canalside events. Then suddenly it all slipped into reverse. I think maybe building more flats rather than shops/pubs plus Peel converting all the visitor mooring into long term moorings is what did for it. We used to like a couple of nights in Castlefield but now prefer to come down the Rochdale and up the Ashton rather than heading into Manchester.

The problem, these days, is that under those very nice tarmac towpaths there is a huge 'spaghetti' of Fibre optic cables, phone cables and VERY high voltage cables (typically 66,000 volts) and you wouldn't really want to knock a pin thru one of those. C&RT make almost as much income from charging for allowing utilities to use the towpath as they get from all 30,000 boat licences.

Also, your boat must be really SLOW. For the last week or so I've been moored between a lock and a bend in the cut. I can feel a boat coming before it appears around the bend from the advance wave moving my boat ever so slightly. Nothing to do with hearing it coming!

glad to hear the canal was still there 😃.

It's a poison chalice, the top management are well aware their tenure is short term, "take the money and run policy"

It would make sense overall for a canal network to be provided with mooring places and places where you can not moor without anything to tie up to should be mooring prohibited. Obviously it won't happen but it would be a very logical way to run a network. If there happened to be too much demand then charging for services is not an unknown approach.

1962 Transport act. Bear in mind the section CRT uses has never been tested in court, it is their interpretation only and their legal dept have a long history of blatantly lying, these are the people who appointed their own bent ombudsman in secret .

The contrast between Manchester and Birmingham in how they treat/use/value their canals is massive...

It'd be nice if it's still about in another 50 years, maybe then someone will put it back to "ex hire" condition and "deconvert" it To me overplating would make mo sense on this, it's hardly any more work to just cut a hole the right size and stick a panel in, get rid of the grot for good

So nice to see a boat being repaired properly, well done for extending its life.

Hungry and vengeful squirrels shave all the fur off their tails and turn in to rats.

“…looking for boaters to share money saving tips” “Don’t buy a boat”

I'm in London, and have been since December. There is plenty of room coming in from the West until Alperton. From there until Paddington (2hrs) it's mostly full, but even at the Westway there were a couple of breasted-up spots. We paid for a weekend in the basin (6 places there plus another 2 in Little Venice). However, we then found a spot for Xmas/New Year by the station. Followed by a couple of weeks back in the basin behind the hospital. We then went back out onto the mainline at the Harrow Road. Now the big leap over to Kings Cross - there are no moorings really (apart from the 5 spots in Camden) for a good 3hr cruise through Mary!ebone, Regents Park and Camden. We'd booked a week on the eco-moorings above City Road lock. Then back to Kings Cross and an extended stay on the Coaldrops (because of Storm Eunice), then back to the eco-moorings for a futher week. There's a major problem with the eco-moorings (which occupy the entirety of the moorings from East of Kings Cross to City Road Lock) in that the booking website doesn't allow one to cancal a booking within two weeks of arrival, and thus spaces go wasted. I've just spent the last week back on them and 4-6 spaces (of 10 at Colebrooke Row) were vacant every night. From the eco-moorings we went East to Haggerston, and then down to Mile End for two weeks apiece before returning to the eco-moorings. Yesterday we discovered that there were no appropriate spaces at Old Ford in Stratford and had to travel a whole mile and a half further north to find a lovely space on Hackney Marshes. The next moorings will hopefully be outside Lidl on the Limehouse Cut and then somewhere in Brentford before climbing up to the Fox in Hanwell. In the last four months, the only time we haven't found a space in or close to our preferred destination - was yesterday. London is not full; it's crowded, but there are always spaces somewhere. And now there are many more bookable moorings in the centre of town (website incompetence notwithstanding) so, so long as you don't have a massive widebeam, or will not breast-up, you'll find a space. As to the locals. They're young and new. They can't move out of London, because that's where their jobs/families and schools are - but in general they do seem to try and obey the guidelines for cc'ingas they currently exist, and many want to make a go of living on boats. There are a few who are obstreperous, and care nought for the rules - some have dependency or mental health issues, others are merely self-centred and selfish, but they are a very small minority. As to CRT - they're pretty universally seen as remote, uncaring, ignorant, incompetent, and biaised against boaters. The farago of the 'safety zones' on the Lee over the past year has played, once again, into the hands of the NBTA activists. The workers on the bank are respected, but the employment of District Enforcement is destroying even that. But in two weeks, I'm back off up-country for 7-8 months. I'll report back next time I come down to this country within a country....