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Fortunately @LadyG has become very smart at filtering out the persistent offenders meaning she can enjoy a bit of fun with the well meaning banter. Solo boating can be an incredibly lonely life, I'm pretty sure she often comes on here and starts topics mainly for a bit of social interaction - nowt wrong with that is there? A bit of kindness (or holding back on unkindness) really doesn't hurt.

We have just completed the Huddersfield Narrow. This is our 5th transist. This is the easiest passage ever, there was even enough water to get to Lock 1E (Huddersfield). We missed the CaRT blokes text telling us to wait at Lk3E (as he would let some water down), so we were out early at 14.00. There was a couple of paddles that did not work and all pounds were weiring. We managed to find a floaty mooring each night. Mrs TNC managed all the paddles she did, using our cranked out (to miss the locking gear) Big Bertha windlass. I managed all I did straight up with a medium throw windlass. On the down side, much of the paddle gear on the Yorkshire side would have been easier if it had recently seen grease. There was a fair bit of crap in the water up to Stalybridge and small amount Huddersfield end. Trips down Weedhatch 1, when pulling up in an empty lock.

True, but the thread length is about the same as the distance between max and min, and the distance between min and the end of the stock is about the same. So if you do not screw it in the Min becomes the max and the end of the dipstick is the minimum mark.

I thought most builders required stage payments before and during the build? It sounds quite unusual not to pay anything for a new build until it's launched. That's what I did but perhaps I'm out of touch with what happens these days? I bought a new boat through a broker. I got quotes from the builder and the broker and I got a better deal from the broker so I went with them. Not necessarily. See above. ⬆️ * I do sometimes wish people wouldn't adopt a condescending tone and automatically talk to new members/new boaters on this forum like they must be stupid by default. Why not ask questions and find out instead? Sometimes you make yourselves look silly when it turns out it's actually you with all your experience who doesn't know what you're talking about! 🤣

And Cif still tastes the same.

I think it makes you hard so you dont need pain killers

Up to 20 boats congregating for up to 24 hours in one place utilising a combination of an independently operated CRT-owned mooring site and towpath mooring adjacent to a junction and requiring multiple breasting up of boats. The selling of alcohol on CRT property. The Challenge has the ability to inconvenience other canal users if not properly administered. It also has the potential to put pressure on infrastructure and water resources. The BCNS aren't daft enough to not liaise with CRT, it's not in their interests.

Touch the stick on clean loo paper

Just to put thing in prospective, our new counter block cost just over £5000 shaped and delivered. Total docking bill just over £10K, have not done the labour sum yet, but at a guess about 1/2man year of effort, which we the owners and our friends did. Wooden boats are not cheap, and require a considerable skill set, if your going to manage the cost, time, quality equation.

Moored at the County Hall now, hopefully try this weekend. I did get a little past Wilford the other day but it was getting dark so turned back.

Viewing the boat manufacturers website will change your mind ...

I think the only section of canal that criterion can properly be applied to is Braunston to Hillmorton and what you describe is what CRT have done. I am aware of nowhere else that widebeams are present (excepting for direct commercial purposes with business boating permissions) where the canal concerned was not designed, constructed or maintained to some degree for wide beam boats and where there is no legal requirement to enable their passage. Some of those canals have not seen widespread widebeam usage in their history and are still relatively devoid of such craft. As a result should it increase there could be genuine issues that arise, as opposed to most of the supposed issues in this thread that are really just everyday stuff that can be mildly annoying but is blown out of proportion because it involves a widebeam. Once widebeam owners are paying much more for their passage than narrowboaters then it wouldn’t be unreasonable for them to pressurise CRT to make nominal wide canals more suitable for such craft, such as by clearing the full width of the channel and properly fixing pinch points such as the WFBC bridge. To encourage CRT to take action beyond the provisions of the 1968 act would be very stupid since there will come a day when the consequences of that would not be to your liking. The latest ‘issue’ occurred on the Birmingham line. If you think this is an unsuitable canal for widebeams we could both list all the dates we’ve cruised somewhere between Napton Junction and Camp Hill in the past five years and enlighten the forum as to the issues we’ve had when encountering wide beams on that section??

After a trip down to Sharpness, we are moored at Gloucester Docks (or rather just outside) again. The SHarpness was great and the views of the estuary and docks has an atmosphere all of its own, very otherworldly. We are off to get back on the river tomorrow and get to Tewksbury and lock up onto the Avon. All being well we will be there mid-afternoon or a bit later. I am looking forward to a few days of not doing much on the Avon and the towns along the way.

I actually thought it was a canal for big boats there? Sure Wigan has the Leeds Liverpool running through it ? So it's the right canal for widebeams can't see the problem.

And it stops you from rolling out of bed.

Tap the stud / pipe coming out of the bottom and fit your own metal bolt,

The Cutter Ferry bridge has been there since at least 1928 (with the present bridge dating from 2005). This photo (from https://capturingcambridge.org/chesterton-2/cutler-ferry-bridge-dants-ferry/) shows the footbridge in 1928, and the ferry is still present. But I can't imagine the ferries would have survived long after the footbridges were opened. Surely the OP's photo is later than 1928.

As Steve says, I would be suprised if you don't have an oil cooler. It's usually a sausage shaped heat exchanger (the oil passes through a water jacket) rather than something similar to what you would find on a car which relies on forward motion to ram air through a small radiator.

Having been used to a 70ft boat years ago I found handling a 25ft one recently far more difficult. The small one was hard to steer straight whereas the 70 often seemed to steer itself, as that was what the canal was designed for and deeper draft tended to follow the channel. In locks the 25ft needed constant gear changing and speed adjustment or tying up to avoid being thrown into the lock gates, whereas the 70 with tug deck could just be nosed against the gates with engine staying in tickover and be left alone, the tug deck meant that leaking gates were no problem.

'I live on a canal boat but it's tougher than people think - and more expensive' (msn.com) Robert told the Mirror he doesn't know how people "begin thinking about buying a house in London", but recognises not everyone can hack life on a canal boat, which is much more expensive than people think now that the "golden days" of bargain buys are gone. He added: "No one I've met recently has been doing it because they can’t afford the cost of living. I have personally not found it a cheap way of living as I’m always out buying bespoke/non mass produced items; coal not subsidised like energy bills, private healthcare, launderette costs, and occasional mooring fees when I need to leave the boat for longer time periods. "To work 9-5 and continuously cruise or maintain a boat on your own is near on impossible, so in the past I certainly have had to cut work hours to compensate. "You can’t just go in and flick a switch and everything turns on - on some narrowboats you can but you still have to understand how it all operates and where various pumps and things are."