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I've just sent out the final scores to the competitors. 1. Rivets 5000 - 451 pts 2. Tatty Lucy - 401 3. Misty Blue - 306 4. Dolly - 304 5. Goosander - 298 6. Rebellion - 294 7. Ferrous - 286 8= Misbourne no 3 - 281 8= Song of the Waterways – 281 10. Maxwell – 231 11. Melaleuca – 212 12. Tamar – 160 13. Thistle – 150 14. England – 143 15. Atlas and Malus – 133 16. Red Wharf – 88 17= Goliath – 82 17= Vulpes – 82

Hope everyone is feeling better rested! Thank you for a lovely event @Captain Pegg - excellent curry, terrible singing! See you all next year!

On the keystone at the centre of the arch .. 🤣😅

The scoring does vary to give advantage to certain boats, I think full length boats gain a points advantage rather than short boats though, the general idea is to encourage boats that could have extra complications. Have you ever heard of Mornington crescent and the famed complexity of the rule book? Well the BCN rules are in a different league which I why I prefer crewing, I will work locks and bow haul boats for 12 hrs straight, put the rules in front of me and I cry and open the booze

How really unfortunate for you. Glad it’s been sorted. Happened twice with us, worst one I had was a keepnet from angling though tbh. The trouble with bolt croppers is the wide ness of the handles when the cropper opens make it difficult to make some of the cuts needed as weed hatches are usually narrow bow to stern So except for a side cut 90 degrees from the propshaft access is usually hard. The spring wires are at different angles. Also each cut takes a while to get to find with hefty croppers and you need to ideally guide the croppers in to get at each wire you’ve found. The ones @ditchcrawler has posted are brilliant, maybe tie a piece of elastic round the handle and a loop round your wrist to stop them being dropped whilst cutting. Mattresses often have a thick surround wire top and bottom that seem to need hacksawing off first. Try to clear fabric off where possible, breadknife can be handy for that. We found pulling the mattress by hand away from the stern with a rope round a part not wrapped round the prop puts tension on areas to concentrate on cutting and as each important wire comes off the next one needing cutting becomes apparent . Try tension from different angles as that seems to make a difference. Aim for the most tense smaller wire from the springs as that’s usually the ones most likely to be twisted round. Don’t despair and keep cutting. Many cuts will make no difference. Try also to pull the wires over the prop blades and concentrate cutting ones that won’t go over NB watch out for fevers up to a few days after these sort of prolonged hand or body in water situation’s Weils disease is easy to overlook and you need to raise that a clear possibility with a Doctor ASAP if you get fevers up to a few days afterwards. The Doctor needs to be aware if it too, they shouldn’t mind you pointing it out. Easy to treat sadly can be fatal if left too late

A big THANK YOU to Jon for organising things. We, that being Victor Vectis, Little Else, Sprouts Mum and Sprout herself had a lovely time. And another BIG THANK YOU to all the other entrants. Without meaning any disrespect to ‘Vulpes and ‘Goliath’ any pillock can come last but to come second last takes skill, planning and cunning. So well done us. 😀

Rivets has the advantage of being able to achieve 4mph just about anywhere, although it does suffer from problems with weed around the prop as do other boats. It's massive disadvantage is that to compete seriously it requires to spend 24 hours in the open air over water with no sleep huddled around an engine wearing ear defenders with only the food and drink that you can pre-prepare and have room to carry. If it rains you're basically stuffed. Most folks would find an hour in Rivets to be plenty. The big advantage that Rivets, Tatty Lucy, Dolly and last year's winner Vulpes employed to their benefit was the ability to work locks efficiently with a crew of two. This gives a big advantage over a boat crewed with 4 or more. Although Rivets can share it is in peril of being sunk in any lock but most definitely so when it is sharing. The rules are pretty simple, any times entered that give an average of more than 4mph for any route section carries the sanction of disqualification and it has happened. Just doing 100 lock miles won't necessarily score that well if the locks involved include Wolverhampton, Tipton, Farmers Bridge and Aston and you cruise the length of the main line. Rivets and Tatty Lucy tackled 56 and 60 locks respectively and both did the big scoring Rushall and Walsall flights. Rivets advantage was that it cruised more miles but crucially that included the quadruple bonus rated central section of the Walsall Canal. Nobody wins the Challenge easily. You don't even get near without doing some properly difficult boating. I suspect having won that Dan and David will not wish to endure again what it took to win this time. And that's a better outcome than tweaking the rules to discrimate against one particular boat. What does happen is that the weightings and bonus factors are tweaked to try and give some sort of parity between different types of boats and given Rivets had competed once before and came sixth that's not previously been an issue.

Dont know wat all the fuss was about. Ah there wasnt any lol. As last seen bulkhead was removed. Now i have fitted a new one I was happy to start with on Friday i picked up the Marine ply, 18mm two full sets at £157, bargain. That wood yard is best in Bolton. If not Manchester. I havnt been faffing with boats for a couple years now due this and that but i never throw away, which is good as all the other materials i had int shed. Poly/Epoxy resin, woven, CSM and resins, and all inbetween so saved a fortune here. One thing i am near out of you will guess later. OK this H is doing me head in and sick of editing the post so please burrr with as i keep dropping H`s. I know it was a good price and need a 2.5m x 2m area covered i made as much of this ply as possible. Had to order some Puraflex 40, my choice of adhesive as its excellent and same ingredients as Sika 291i. Just Toolstation had to get it delivered as out of stock, which it didnt turn up so i bought more from a TS further away and went to collect it. hey ho an hour wasted already haha. Now this is my trick of the trade for templating anything needed to be ...well templated Basting tape. real good double sided tape used in sewing mainly. And no so new acetone. down to my last 200ml i reckon. if tat. just stick the tape all around the edge to be templated Where in some you will have your murder scene. Dont worry i am still alive, T still loves me.....tab god And then i marked out the cutting edge wit perm marker. trim the polythene but leave a few inch/75mm then you can place it over sheet and get it were you want before trimming back, just so you know your sheet is big enough. trim back to line, mark around wit marker and cut ply. CUT tough inside the marker line on ply as tat is the cut line needed. it needed a wee fettle to get fitted and like a idiot i am i cut to much off one edge, but easy sorted. You dont need to see that bit lol. ok the bit i cut to much out to fit snug The gap the the Portside is were the sheet maxes out on width. no problem as will make a new bit to fill tat. Rest is the same, I was wanting to add Spead Toe Carbon Fibre but i couldnt find any wide enough and no patience. So now i used poly resin with added styrene for three coats, first being 5% last being 2%. then lay up of one lam of 350grm CSM. you can see in that pic i chamfered the edges in a few places to give a good area for connecting the boards together. I fixed the new bulkead in with Puraflex40 along the top and side down to the gunnel with 20mmx8mm SS screws. . Here you see the camfer i did where needed. to be filled wit CSM and woven. then a topping off wit filler. So set to work tabbing in the bottom and sides upto gunnel. Not that you can see , i did five layers of a mix of CSN and woven. good and strong. One thing though i messed up wit rushing was that i wanted the joints to be epoxy and filler but as i used poly resin/CSM the flowcoat will not stick. so i used Poly resin a through. still do the job though. I cant remember now which filler this is but i usually use it wit epoxy but as said i am only using Poly resin i tried it and works fine to fair in the joint. Not tat it needs it as it will not be seen ans its below deck. But still it will do, its not my best as used t be OCD, now i just want it done. Last bit for the last two days is Flowcoating it. I found about 2l int she and as its old i thought i should test it first. And to my joy it is fine Just gave it a good mix I gave it a single thick coat then when is was greening off i used the rest. I will polish it back next week wen fully set in. It looks out of place now wit te boat. now ill need to polis te boat back up to match I have two more windows to refurb whic i will as and wen as no rush so mainly ill be getting te fuel tank back in and rear deck. which i hope leads the deciding on the starter battery calorifier homes. Captain Faffer singing out as shattered now and need a cider

Their big advantage is length, or lack of same. The boat can turn round on a standard width canal, no need to look for winding ‘pled. Well done to them for winning, even if none of the crew fell in this year!

I have a theory which is that there is a box that the data collector taps to say whether in their judgment on that day the boat looks like it is lived on. Their are giveaway signs but it is an assumption. The reason I think this is because one of my boats got onto the enforcement system when I wasn't moving enough while living on another boat on a CRT owned residential mooring in the same area. The enforcement letter mentioned that as I was living on the boat under enforcement I would need to remove it or find elsewhere to live as they would be removing it under Section 8. This letter was sent to my CRT owned residential mooring. Although I was in fact living on the residential mooring I have to assume the data collector made a judgment (incorrect) that I was living on the boat which was under enforcement and moored on the towpath side. They do watch more than you think they watch. This is not paranoia it is an assumption made from experience.

If you dare to go through Blackpit Lock on a Bank Holiday Monday then this is the sort of crowd to expect. A lot of cyclists have gone past today including a bloke on what looked like an electric conversion of a vintage motobike, and even he didn't get an audience. A canal without boats really is a muddy ditch.

Fair play that took some dedication, doing the challenge on a more "conventional" boat is hard work never mind winning on or in rivets. Plus congratulations to @Captain Pegg on getting the scores completed so quickly and of course stepping up to take over.

If anything, it illustrates that an invited overtake is much easier than a unilateral approach. That's about as far as its useful to extend the car analogy though.

Thought I would give an update on this very under used waterway and try to encourage people to make the effort to get all the way to Sheffield. Here is a brief résumé of the steps on our journey. We started from our temporary winter mooring at Long Sandall. There are good visitor moorings here too and a little further North good CRT services at Barnby Dunn. All locks from Long Sandall to Eastwood are large and automated to accommodate the 60m long oil barge 'Exol Pride' that runs roughly twice a week between Goole and Rotherham. The locks are operated using your CRT key unless lock keepers are present. Doncaster. Well worth a visit and exploring for a few days. Good, safe 3 day visitor moorings right in the centre of town. From Doncaster you quickly go through some lovely countryside on the river Don Sprotbrough. Two day visitor mooring just after Sprotbrough lock. Some wonderful walking around the area including Sprotbrough Flash nature reserve, Conisbrough Castle, Conisbrough viaduct and Cusworth Hall. Next stop was Pastures, just after Mexborough Low Lock. Mexborough itself is a depressing town, however, where the canal passes through it is delightful and known locally as the 'Meccy Riviera'. Special mention to the Gorilla Brewery Tap room just after Station Rd Bridge. Space for two 57' NB's to moor up outside and sample the goods Apparently you can also moor overnight here if you seek permission of the owner. After Mexborough there is a CRT mooring available just before Waddington lock at Swinton. We didn't stop here, but it looks safe, gated and secure with what appears to be services that are not shown on the latest Nicholson's guide. Perhaps someone could confirm? Kilnhurst. Mooring available. No facilities. Probably ok for an overnighter. Eastwood (Rotherham). Safe gated visitor mooring here with CRT services (shower/toilets/elsan etc) and a huge retail park nearby. However, mooring space was limited due to some 'permanent' residents and an apparently abandoned craft with 'notice for removal' sticker on it. From here we booked our passage on the Tinsley flight via CRT. (24hrs notice required) Rotherham town centre (30 min walk from Eastwood) is well worth visiting. They're really making an effort to improve the town and I would encourage you to go there and see for yourselves. Leaving Eastwood, we stopped overnight on the lock landing before Holmes Bridge lock.(no problem with this as in the evening nobody will be descending the flight) It is from here the CRT assisted passage starts for the Tinsley flight and the lock keeper met us at 9am the following morning. It takes around 4hrs to do the Tinsley flight. We had four excellent and friendly CRT members in attendance and they know their stuff. It's a lovely flight. The final hour into Sheffield is very interesting and ends at Victoria Quays. A lovely terminus a short walk from the city centre. CRT seem to have handed over responsibility to CV Marine, but we never saw a single person from the company. The office was permanently closed. The showers are permanently closed. Cost is officially £50 a week to moor. Only two days visitor mooring allowed. We stayed nearly three weeks. We loved Sheffield. First impressions are bad though as the Castlegate area near to the Quays is rough. It is a fascinating city, easy to walk, full of history and culture. The beer pub and music scene is outstanding and access to the magnificent Peak District is easy via public transport. We highly recommend it. In the three weeks we were there only three boats arrived. One stayed overnight and left the following day having been put off by the Castlegate area. Such a shame as they missed a lovely city. In summary I would say this section of the system is a hidden gem and extremely under utilised. Sections of the river Don are an oasis of tree lined tranquility and most travelling days we were blissfully alone. I would encourage people to put aside any preconceived thoughts of the areas industrial reputation. Sections of the navigation are absolutely stunning. One caveat, just keep an eye out for the weather as the Don can flood rapidly. I hope this brief synopsis is helpful. Enjoy. For photos see my wife's Instagram page 'Lock and Quay'

For a while, I had a long commute and was away from the boat 12 to 14 hours a day. In winter, just kept the stove ticking over, which was enough to keep it cozy when returning. When the outside temperature dropped to -15C this wasn't effective as that needed the stove running pretty much full power to maintain a comfortable temperature inside, but that is a rare situation. Not yet found the need to install diesel back up heating. Where it can come in handy is in Spring and Autumn, when an hour or two of heat early morning and in the evening can take the chill off, without the faff of lighting the stove, then the boat getting too hot. I just put on an extra jumper!

I agree with Tony above. If you are planning to be out on the cut living off grid, then generating enough electricity will challenge you far more than avoiding frost damage. If on the other hand you are planning to moor in a marina with a shoreline 230Vac hook-up, then no problem at all. The two styles of living aboard could not be more different. Which are you planning?

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I nearly had an accident when I was pulling in behind someone having already overtaken some cars. I don't know if he was trying to be helpful or awkward. I I began to pull into the gap behind him (because there was a car coming the other way but some distance away) this guy hit the brakes hard, which reduced my planned braking distance considerably, and I only just managed to.avoid running in to him. Perhaps he only saw me at the last moment and thought by braking I would get past him before the other car arrived, without realising that I had planned to pull in behind him. Whatever the reason, I wish people would concentrate on driving their own cars and not try to drive mine for me.

Yes everybody says they’ve got nothing to hide, that’s the usual argument trotted out in favour of mass surveillance. Just because I live a more interesting life than yourself, theirs no need to get jealous.

Failing the hold boarded over there is this option. Photo K. Doddington.

Just watched the launch of this brand new narrowboat opposite my mooring. Looks a bit on the small side and for some reason the steerer was wearing yellow waterproofs on a hot day...

Good luck with your sale

Time for a hand with locking

Watch out for tearaways riding motorbikes on the towpath

As the smoke and CO alarms on the boat and at home come due for replacement I'm going back to replaceable batteries as I've had at least two (Kidde or FireAngel, can't remember which) of the long life battery types start giving a low battery warning after about 2 years. CBA with the hassle of claiming under warranty as I expect they'd find a reason to wriggle out of it. I like the convenience and lower whole of life costs of the long lIfe types but only if they last as long as they're meant to. Seems to be a bit of a lottery.

Don't exaggerate Nick. I think you're probably an order of magnitude out here, maybe two! 0.01% or 0.001% is far more likely. I'm not sure exactly how many yards of narrow aqueduct trough there are out of 2,000 miles of CRT waterways, but I'd be astonished if it was over 2 miles ...

Obviously if we have caught them up from far behind, they are going more slowly than us. How much slower can be assessed by the rate of closure. The effect you mention is going to slow them, but only by a very small amount. Something like a trough aqueduct is of course going to make the effect more significant, but most of us spend less than 0.1% of our time on such aqueducts so you point is an exception not normality. The obvious indications of a boat ahead at or close to tickover are virtually no sign of prop wash and virtually no discernible ripples from the bow. But surely you know this? If we are only very slowly catching them up, eg we are doing 3.5mph and they are doing 3.4 mph, then I am not fussed about overtaking and we will reduce from say 1300rpm to 1200 rpm, no big deal. It is the people who you come up behind rapidly with their boats barely making a ripple from the bow or the prop, that are the issue. Our boat does about 2 to 2.5 mph at tickover (depending on depth etc) and any slower, we have to go into neutral. I can’t help feeling that if you put more effort into thinking about how to considerately let others pass you, and less effort into thinking up reasons why they shouldn’t, the world would be a better place.

One of the previous BCN challenges ended up at the Titford Pump House. Following major problems at the factory flight and delays at the Walsall, there was a VERY large number of boats approaching the Crow at lunchtime on the Sunday. One idiot on a 45-50ft boat decided to descend and insisted on less than half a paddle open only.. This lasted until the crew of Tawny Howl approached and an evil look in the eye of RWLP decided the future of said boat and skipper. UP shot the paddles, and swiftly down went the boat. He did insist on staying in the locks though, and forced 70 footers to move over between the locks.

The canals are primarily a transport system. I am not advocating speeding and eg creating a breaking wave, but equally there is no virtue in going as slow as possible and causing frustration to people behind who just want to go at a normal speed. You say there is not much difference between 2mph and 4 mph but in fact there is a huge difference. A journey that would take 1 day at 4 mph, will take 2 days at 2mph and some people have busy lives that don’t allow for an extra day to be taken. If you want to go at 2mph then fine, but don’t force everyone else to do it.

It's not always possible to leave earlier or go by road if you're working on a canal. It's about being courteous, nothing more.