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The Wigan Towpath Taskforce Tuesday volunteers were very busy today on the Leeds and Liverpool Leigh Branch canal. It looked like there were around 20 volunteers cutting back overgrown vegetation and clearing rubbish and debris on both sides of the canal. They also had the use of a work boat to assist with hard to reach areas and they have recently covered the area between Dover Lock and Platt Bridge. Well done to all concerned.

Why? What on earth is the problem with threads running on for years? The thread about the SEMINGTON has re-ignited after almost 14 years! If you want a forum run by different rules, why not start your own? You would not be the first.

The thread doesn't belong to the OP

Get the brasso out polish the pipe and it will look great. No need to move it then.

What I am going to try to do is to give an idea of the sort of boats you could have hired in the 1970s: their specification, an illustration if possible, and the cost. But mainly to try to show the variety available, and the facilities each offered. I think things have changed a bit over the years. I will probably do it in bits because I am unhandy with scanning and such, and it may get boring. And it does I will stop. You, of course can decide for yourselves. My choice will not be yours. At least I hope not because one or two were pretty grim. I will start with Canal Pleasurecraft's Water Rat. It is 1969. To my mind this was a beautiful boat. If she had two faults it was perhaps she was a bit light and wind-taken. And she was slow. Powered by a Stuart Turner petrol engine, on a measured mile she made 2 1/2 mph flat out. But a fine boat and we were deeply apologetic to Mr Abbot for bashing her about in the old Harecastle Tunnel. Right in the middle where the roof of the tunnel sank right down, and bits of iron railing stuck out of the gloom, you could only see round the sides and it was easy to lose control and we did. Not the first time I think because when eventually we got out, the tunnel keeper lent us a mop and helped us wash off the coating of red oxide which covered the boat. He told us that we were the only boat scheduled to pass through that day. £22 per week at end of season. Great boat. Next, you could hire Redstart on the Brecon canal. £20 per week in 1970. A lovely canal, and in those days the lift bridge which was operated by turning a handle several hundred times was challenging. But we felt that the boat lacked character. It was cold at the end of the season. Heating was basic: a circular gas fire on a tube stuck onto a gas outlet. Also the propeller was so worn that it was barely effectual. If you chose this boat you might have been a bit disappointed, notwithstanding the beauty of the surroundings I am making a right mess of this. Anyway next is the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, and Wirral Dawn, part of Canal Boat Ltd's fleet. 1971. This company was operated by an elderly gentleman of military bearing, and formidable mien. We caused him pretty immediate concern when, after our first day, being unfamiliar with diesels, we turned the fuel off. Started the engine and drained the system. We were part way down the Wigan flight. We walked down the hill to a brick factory and explained our problem to the foreman. " I'll send a fitter up, don't you worry." Sure enough not one but three fitters climbed on board and examined the engine. But something got dropped in the bilges and after spending more than an hour they said they were sorry but they just had to get back. But someone rang up the base for us and and the owner arrived with Pip his fitter. He looked at us very sternly. By then we had found the missing bit and handed it to him. He said to Pip " We will have to do a cold start, do you think we need to do a cold start?". Dreadful clatters and black smoke and the engine started. The owner and Pip departed. But at bridge 43 when backing to the swing bridge we snapped the tiller off. We towed the boat back to Appley Lock. It was a Sunday afternoon. The owner arrived, took the rudder and tiller away, and returned with it in two hours, welded back together. We said we were sorry for all the trouble. He said to us " Well, I'd grumble a bit if you had done it on purpose. Can you honestly say you did it on purpose?" " Well, no." " Well there you are then." A boat of great character, very noisy air cooled engine and a remarkable list. £57 for the two weeks, plus £10 deposit refunded less fuel and a broken pyrex lid. An unforgettable experience on a great boat on a great canal with the very last vestiges of commercial carrying to Wigan Power Station. Right I am going to stop here. There is a long way to go and I am getting stuck. I will see what it looks like and then decide whether to go on.

Qmax

I see there has been quite a lot of content about the BCN Marathon, particularly 2009. We took part in three marathons organised by Chris and Helen Davey. Including their last, in 2002. They were brilliant organisers, dedicating huge amounts of their time to it. What happened to the Marathon after that I do not know because we had moved our boat away. The Marathon was a good-humoured competition to gain the most points for covering the largest number of miles, locks and difficult bits within 24 hours of boat movement within the 30 hours of the Marathon. All within the BCN designated area. In 2001, our finest hour, 62 boats took part. I wrote about it at the time. Someone might be interested in reading about it. So, if you like, here goes: " Saturday 23rd June. Set off almost last, only 'Grandpa' behind us , into Broad Street Basin, no other boats seem to have gone in, or if they have, they have been very slippy about it. Although 'Grandpa' was going in too. After that saw no other boat. Distant glimpse through Horsley Fields Junction Bridge of a couple ploughing up the Curley. 0910 Broad Street Basin.. No 54 'Odyssey' seen at 10.45ish going the other way. 1110 Dudley Tunnel gauge. We wait for the Trust staff to move the residential boat which is under the gauge. ' You pushed the bows out too quick!' An aside: 'You just can't get the staff these days.' We glide under the gauge. 'Push her over to the tug.' We do so, as 'Marie 11', built in 1966 by the owner, goes under the gauge. With plenty to spare. 'Do we have to wear them?' The lifejackets. 'Adults it is up to them but we do like children to wear them'. We are tied close up, but not tight, to the tug 'John C Brown' . Duncan is our driver. We set off. One hour and forty five minutes it took, he said, through the tunnel proper. Through a short stretch. Then into an oasis. Light. Three tunnel entrances. We turn sharp left and into the middle one. Now we are in the major tunnel - I think - although we enter a huge cavern, with a coal hopper or some such. Into the right of two tunnels, the left the Singing Cavern. Brick lined, cool, a constant pleasant temperature. The electric tug speeds up. Sometimes the tunnel sides are ribbed with mineral deposits. One such scrapes the port side handrail and rips off the sticky rubber protective strip we have applied. Into the rocky sections, hewn out of basalt, great jags sticking out. Duncan manoeuvres his tug carefully. He stops. There is total silence. Complete stillness. Individual drops of mineralled water plop into the water. Another rocky section. We creep through, the electric motor switching in, and then out. We take care to avoid an overhanging crag of basalt, jutting out across the water. A dogleg left, then right. The new section, concrete tubing. This is faster. But it is without character. And then the water deepens and the headroom lowers. Towards the end, the lowest. Down and down, comes the tunnel ceiling. But we do not touch it at all. At one point, the middle point we can see light at both ends. Now we can see people silhouetted beyond the fixed Parkhead gauge. The Hawne Basin flat is waiting to come through. The tug turns and passes us. We are through. We go on. We dip into both Arms and are booked by a scrutineer. 'It is better to take a photo, to be on the safe side.' At the bottom of Blowers Green lock at 2.30 p.m. after doing the Grazebrook and Pensnett arms and the Parkhead locks. There was a jostle of other boats at Parkhead. At Delph locks a comely woman, a pretty face. She opens a gate. She says it reminds her of her youth, forty years ago. 'Madam, you have a secret you should share.' 'We used to come and feed the horses at the stables. For the boats working to the brickworks.' People's memories. An elderly man at Parkhead tells be how, in 1966, he paddled a rubber dinghy through with one paddle, dipping this side, then that. He couldn't swim. 'I don't know what people would think of it these days.' At the top of the Stourbridge flight, we try the Extension Canal. It is very muddied up. We creep up to the bridge. A new bridge is building alongside it. We come to a halt. A workman, presumably a watchman, leans over the bridge. 'It is a dead end. You can't get through.' There are things in the water beneath the bridge. The boat is solid and does not rock. We reverse back, poling from the banks to keep station. The boat goes better back than up. We turn and carry on down the flight, in the first lock at 5.05pm. It is a bad road. All the way. For several locks a man with his little dog opens and closes the bottom gates. 'Give you a break', he says. He enjoys it. We enjoy it. At the very bottom lock, it is ready for us as 'William Clifton' leaves it. One of the five crew sees our bike. 'That's a sad sight, to see the wheel spinning like that.' Out of the bottom lock at 6.35pm. Up the Stourbridge Town Arm bumping over shopping trolleys in both Chubbs and New Bridges. We pass 'Marie 11'. 'You are doing well!' he says. We pass a group of youngish people picking up rubbish along the towpath. A rare sight. 7.11pm at the Bonded warehouse. Down to Stourton Junction, the sun a deep red disk through the trees. Back up the flight again. A bemused elderly couple, 'Have you been to the Birmingham Show?' They notice the flags from our mast. A thin moon crescent, low in the pale blue sky. In the dark we meet a Norwegian-flag boat, driven aground by the dazzle of our headlight. But they make a good road for us up the Stourbridge flight. In the dusk, couples walk quietly by. A shapely young girl leans forward on the lockside to look into our lighted back cabin. She holds closely to her friend. Shadows pass. The gleam of a cigarette. A lone dog trots down the towpath. Quietly, stealthily, we creep up to the locks, the headlight throwing a strong beam, my headlight a weak one. But it is enough to cross the gates safely. All but two of the locks are with us. Shouts and cries of football slogans - but none comes near us. Immediately around us, stillness, broken by the muted rattle of the paddles, the clump of closing gates. Even the motor seems softened. It is a rare and precious experience. We pass up the flight, unseen, in the middle of the night. (I will finish this tomorrow, I think)

Just to update - batteries stayed topped up, after 3 months (end of december) I waited in trepidation for the first bill. Kept asking at every visit, finally got told the other day that they don’t send out bills for under £1 ! So although there is a fairly small solar setup, together with the mains charger it is doing well - I can cope with 70p every 3 months. Cheap peace of mind.

We’ve covered this before on the forum. The idea that trees are helpful to slope stability is largely myth. A strong well rooted tree is likely to be beneficial but the type of slope they grow on is likely to be one that is well drained with deep soil and not at risk of failure. At risk slopes are generally poorly drained, shallow soil horizons overlying rock and the trees that grow on them have shallow roots which makes them susceptible to overturning by wind action. A combination of saturated soil and wind action on trees are common factors in slope failures. Early canal and railway embankments would likely have been constructed to a gradient of about 1:1.5. Modern slopes to something like 1:3. Early canal and railway cuttings mostly had crest drains that in most cases are long defunct. The nature of the land above the slope - both topographical and usage - is also critical. Particularly if the crest drainage is non-existent. Something as simple as changing the direction a field is ploughed can be a precursor to failure. On the railway de-vegetation is a key tool in the armoury of the Earthworks engineer. For starters it is an enabler to inspection. On the clay soil embankments of south-east England that are prone to seasonal desiccation any tree is bad news.

Many years ago it was the recommended method on boats (certainly ditchy boats)

Thanks. The painter in question says for weeks, is drawing up a detailed spec for me, and actively encourages regular visits while the work is going on, so it feels like it's all going the right way.

Oooh Tony, only if you get so exuberant that you cause the boat to capsize - that wouldn't happen in a house!

My parents purchased Hedge Rose which was an ex Alvechurch hire boat. That must have been early 1980's, not sure how long it had been a hire boat. It was a steel narrowboat with wooden cabin. We moored there when the small hire fleet was run out of a shed and a caravan before the A frame building was built.

When we still had the shareboat the roof was repainted due to having a large rust patch forward of the rear hatch, round the mushroom vents and chimney, and on the leading cabin edge above the welldeck. I was not privy to the fine details of the job, but i imagine it was just rubbed down flat and then painted and was done at the cheapest/quickest quote from the Marina. Afterwards the roof looked great. Within a year shadows of the former rust patches could be seen through the paint, corrosion was starting to show again by some of the mushrooms, and the lightest scratch would reveal undercoat. Cost £2.5k and took a week back in 2019. Our own boat is booked in with a proper boat painter (booking made two years ago) to go at the end of next month for above the water repaint, it will be shotblasted back to clean metal with everything removed, then properly painted. This will take 6-8 weeks. Quote was £12-13k when booked, but i'm sure this will have increased, at the time they guesstimated 5% more but who knows now with the way things have been going up. Having seen the results of a quick turnaround paint job at a Marina we are loathe to repeat that mistake.

As has been suggested the majority of your money is in prep and therefore labour which is where your money goes. To know the answer to your question you need to ask for a detailed spec of exactly what process he is going to complete. (Stripping, filling, windows out, fittings removed, brush / roller / spray? etc etc. £10k doesn’t sound a huge amount for what COULD be involved, but without knowing the condition of your boat currently and his intended process it’s impossible to know.

With a premium job the prep also means taking all the windows and fittings off so that the paint can go underneath before they are refitted. A premium job should also include premium paint so I'd be asking what type and brand of paint is being used. If that quote includes the hull sides, etc below the waterline and it really is a premium job then for a big boat that seems like a very good price. But for me a premium job would be grit blasting and 4 coats of a good epoxy on the underwater areas (not necessarily including baseplate) and really good prep of the topsides (not necessarily blasted) and several coats of topside epoxy applied, sanded smooth between coats.

As with any paint job, no matter what is being painted, preparation is key. With the better/best boat painters they prep the boat very well indeed then many coats of primers/undercoats before they get to the top coats. Proper prep takes time as does applying the various coats of paint so that is where the money is. It should with half decent aftercare last for a very long time. John Barnard has a series of painting videos on utube, worth watching imo.

Not sure if anyone would be interested to see these, but a relative has some pictures and memorabilia from 1978 which I believe was the first year of the Basingstoke canal cruises on the John Pinkerton. The skipper was John Hulbert.

Totally agree. There's been a horrible trend these last few years to take the cabin conversions off historic hulls and return them to 'carrying trim'. In the process the undervalued 60s and 70s historic conversions are all being lost.

Just because the OP isn't posting doesn't mean they or others are not reading, I have learnt a lot from this forum - mostly on threads I didn't start and often didn't post on. Automatically closing a thread at a certain point could mean it getting shut part way through a relevant exchange. The moderators could do more to keep threads on topic, but some thread drift can still be relevant, so it would mean putting more pressure and work on people who volunteer which doesn't seem fair or realistic.

And really *really* don't let it loose in the middle of the night after you cat has sh*t on the carpet... 😞 Not apocryphal, actually happened to a friend. He wasn't happy, and neither were his pale carpets...

1975. Boat Enquiries Ltd - Conifer Class - 'Larch'. What we actually got was 'Talpa', an ex-BCN dayboat, 50', with a 22 hp 2 x cyl. Petter McLaren diesel out of 'Hydra' a BW Woolwich built 40' tug. Wow. Not the most comfortable 4 - berth, with the main accommodation at the fore-end, and two pipe cots backing on to the engine room. But for canal credibility this boat was a winner. The engine was superb and if one inadvertently left one of the cylinders suppressed, the remaining one tonk, tonked away quite happily. A joy, this boat. Sometimes these interesting substitutions happened. We saw this boat for sale some years ago and with a bit of luck she is still going. This was the first time we had used a booking agency. For the first time, a very wide diversity of boats to choose from and really useful. £140 for two weeks in October. 1977. I have got the years out of order but never mind. Boat Enquiries. Romulus class. 'Romulus'. This was a pleasant steel narrowboat, the shell built by one of the well known builders but I cannot remember which. Nothing particularly special about it, but a good quality reliable and trouble free hire boat. £140 for two weeks at the end of the season. 1978. 'Merlin'. A 36' steel Springer with a Perkins 4/99 diesel. Not hired this time, but swapped. Two weeks on the boat for two weeks on our Devon farm. Based at Longwood Boat Club on the BCN Rushall Branch, it allowed us to explore the BCN. Not trouble free, the Perkins engine had overheating problems which caused us some concern in uncertain areas of Birmingham, but eventually we were able to extract a smooth round wooden pellet from the cooling system after which all was well until the ignition switch fell off while negotiating a tricky part of the navigation. But Birmingham then was not as it is now. The public was kept off the waterways by high fencing, to avoid, we understood, children falling in and drowning. But it made it difficult to get out. One day, for various reasons we had done a longish journey of over fifty locks - no great difficulty because the BCN locks worked like silk - and arrived back in Gas Street. We had to climb a fence to get out to find food, but there was nowhere. Nothing at all. So we went to bed hungry. Deeply fascinating in those days, fleets of 30 or more day boats with attendant tugs, 'Caggy' the tug the only moving boat we saw in two weeks. And nobody about. There we are. Not a hire boat, but nevertheless these swaps were then current. So ways of getting on the canals other than hiring were available. A very jolly boat, Merlin. I like Springers. That is it. A good variety of boats were available in the 1970s. But after that, too many sheep to look after so boating for us was put on hold.

Look at Wyvern Shipping at Leoghton Buzzard. Old established family firm with really good boats and excellent in-person locking and boat handling tuition. Routes go up into the Chilterns, or North through Milton Keynes, which is really leafy, by canal, to Stoke Bruerne, the Waterway Museum and, if you are feeling brave, Blisworth Tunnel. A good selection of pubs either way. N

As your children are in their 30s and 40s and are outdoorsy I'd say don't be constrained by limiting the number of locks. They are fun and will be easy peasy with 4 adults on a boat. Hubby and I regularly did 30+ in a day and the sense of achievement is superb - nothing like feeling you have really earned a pint at the end of a day's busy boating! So much of the network is stunningly beautiful so you will be spoilt for choice. Hope you all have a great time.

The only issue I've found with that is that the highest point is also often the hottest point to the header tank will be hot and may emit some steam which isn't really what you want inside a boat. I actually took a hose from the cap of my header tank to a skin fitting high on the cabin side so that any steam goes outside. It looks slightly odd and people often ask what it's for.

Yes. That's how mine works.

Or if you connect a pipe from the highest point going up to the header tank the whole system should be self bleeding.

This is exactly how mine is plumbed. If you do need to bleed the system, closing off the return valve brfore opening the radiator bleed achieves the process.

She might have a beard.

The Bubbles and Lockgate have pot burners with holes in them for combustion. They do not produce ash, so there is nothing beneath them to collect any ash if it was small enough to fall through. If the pot were to be removed and replaced with some form of grate, then there is no provision for enclosed ash collection. What is your problem with the oil stove? With the cost of the right fuels these days, the delivery and storage of the same, there is no real advantage whereas the minimal maintenance oil stoves need along with the superior cleanliness gives them an advantage.

Assorted avian apertures...

Progress at last. Photograph shows the first of the bottom gates being lifted out. It gives some idea of how much stonework needs to be removed. Goodness knows where they will put it. The site hasn't enough room to swing a cat. Interestingly, it is Bentley who are doing the job rather than Kier who did the last one higher up the flight.

Narrowboat World is the Daily Mail of the waterways on-line press. Exists to provide a rage fix to its readers. Truthiness of the stories is optional and shouldn't get in the way of the rage.

No sarcasm at all, just frustration with folk who think living on a boat is cheap housing and a piece of cake but expect chapter and verse from the forum without expending any effort.

Very informative Laurence. Thanks for that.