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Can we end this speculation as to which member is human and which is an AI. Seems to come up with increasing regularity. New members are on moderator approval for their first couple of posts. We make enquiries of some of these and they don't get approved for general viewing if we aren't satisfied that they are human. There are AI posters about. We get some of them. There is a middle ground, where we don't know who is human and who is an AI from a single post. Speculating about the humanity of a new member is very off putting to that person. If you have concerns, then report the post and the moderators can look in to it. There can be all sorts of reasons why a first post can appear "off", from English not being their first language, through to cognitive differences, to to the wish to give a detailed technical answer. Once AI's start going boating and have some valid experience to contribute, then they won't be a problem. Until them, they are regurgitating information in their training data, with a sprinkling of making stuff up, which will degrade the usefulness of CWDF if it gets out of hand.

Although hardly a typical canal boat, mention has been made of the 'Vindicatrix' recently and some may be interested to learn a little more of her history before her arrival, on September 1s 1939 at Sharpness where she remained until towed away by the tugs Addie and Primrose for breaking.She was built of steel by Russell and Company at Port Glasgow in 1893 as the 'Arranmore' for the Maiden City Line, and managed from Glasgow. Her maiden voyage was in October 1893. She was very heavily rigged, with stump topgallant masts and fore and main topgallant yards 76 feet long. A three masted ship, square rigged on all three, she must have required carefully handling to avoid the fate of her two sisters 'Blairmore' and 'Culmore' both of which were sailed right under at sea. She had her problems. In 1899, after a change of command, her new captain fell ill with dysentery and died after being put ashore in Rio de Janeiro. Her chief officer took over, but after rounding Cape Horn, the ship lost her rudder. Her new captain rigged a jury rudder and brought her safely to Valparaiso. Misfortune followed her and in November 1903, while at anchor in Algoa Bay, a ferocious storm drove many ships adrift and one of them, a steamer, bore down of the Arranmore, dragged her anchors, and drove her ashore. The impact carried away her masts. Her crew, and the captain, his wife and two children managed to struggle ashore over the wreckage. For six months the Arranmore remained semi-submerged before she was salvaged by Smit's ocean tug the Zwarte Zee and towed back 6800 miles, over 54 days, to the Clyde. Repaired she made her first visit to Sharpness in 1906, with a cargo of salt. In 1910 she was sold to H.Folshe of Hamburg and was renamed 'Waltrute'. She sailed with that company until 1913, when sold to the Hamburg Harbour Mission as a sailor's hostel, her masts cut short. In 1914 the ship was commandeered by the German Navy and, used as a submarine depot ship in Heligoland, fitted with a locomotive boiler for steam, cooking facilities and electric light. It is thought that it was then that the main deck was covered in. In 1919, surrendered to the British Navy, the 'Waltrute' was towed to Leith and used as an accommodation ship for German crews awaiting repatriation. At Leith, misfortune struck again and she dragged her anchors and ran ashore at Inchkeith. Salved again, she became the property of the Shipping Federation Ltd, renamed 'Vindicatrix' and registered at London. In 1925 she was towed from Leith to the West India Dock, London and fitted out as a seamen's hostel. On completion she was moved to Gravesend, with the intention, it is thought, of using her as a strike breaker in the 1926 general strike. But she was never so used. Then came the move under tow to Sharpness, where she stayed until her last voyage, to the breakers, in 1966. All this information comes from a short article by Mr C H Wright, 'Vindicatrix' first officer, in Sea Breezes July 1966, in case you hadn't read it. Mr Wright drew his information from a former officer of the 'Arranmore', Capt J H Pelham. There may be more to tell. And while on the subject, again in case it is of interest, I will endeavour to reproduce the National Sea Training Schools pamphlet. You could tear off the bottom of the back page and send away for more details. This is what my neighbour did, under age, to escape from his East London home. He was a Vindi boy, as tough as you make them and as good a mate. It should come out in four bits: page 1, top and bottom, page two likewise and a photo of the cadets to finish with..

I don't think licences have been undercharged. Certainly a lot of people who have enjoyed years of boating wouldn't have done so if they had been more expensive - me, for one. The problem, as the introduction of surcharges indicates, has been the proliferation of pseudo-continuous cruisers, dumped boats, unlicensed liveaboards and boats used as luxury housing. Whacking licences for bog standard leisure boats up to astronomical levels would not only reduce overall income but hugely cut the number of boats on the system, giving every excuse for further support and maintenace cuts. Either the system is a national park and resource or it isn't. If it is and is for the benefit largely of the non-licenced users, then it should be supported by taxation. It won't be, of course, because nobody wants to pay for something that looks free, but isn't. You can tell by the state of the roads, schools, hospitals, flytipping and litter that nobody really gives a toss about anything except their apparent income tax rate and can always find someone to blame that isn't themselves and the choices they make when occasionally given the chance.

Oh gods , another one. When you come on a forum and ask for opinions, that's what you get. That's sort if how it works. The fact you may not agree with them doesn't entitle you to start slinging insults about , it just makes you look a prat. It cost me £1000 to black a forty foot thin boat. Less than twice that to do something more than twice as big does look relatively cheap, in my opinion. I may be wrong, but there again, I may not. The fact that half of it has fallen off tends to make me think I'm right and you got what you paid for, instead of stumping up for a proper job. It's the experience of almost every long term boater that unless you keep an eye on what's being done, it gets bodged. Again, you didn't, and it was. If you're fool enough not to listen to advice, and idiotic enough to insult those who suggest ways you could avoid repeating your mistakes, , you're heading for another crap job for exactly the same reasons and, tbh, serve you damn well right.

Nah, that's how mobility chariots steer normally! Glad to see you dumped him in the lock on the way past.

I know it's a false perspective caused by the front cover, but it looks wide beam. Also Braunston Marina, please note you can't be "very" unique.

Now then children please play nicely. It seems this thread about my 2LW has been taken over by a load of spanners.

In our defence, nobody knew that until now. This is very helpful as we now know new posters in particular have been looked over by a human bean before being permitted to post.

More to the point, they then blame the body responsible -- CART, councils -- for being wasteful and inefficient, when the real blame lies with their austerity-driven funding cuts. And even worse, lots of people seem to believe this... 😉

Part of justification for BW becoming a charity was the efficiences it could acheive by change of legal status ... There is a basic difference between CRT and councils in that reduction and elimination of funding was agreed between the parties informally at the outset.

Go searching in your mail system, you should have had an email with the details

I think my suggestion is largely valid, though I accept your argument. Abandoned locks may only have collapsed due to decades of dereliction and zero maintenance and thus this does not necessarily negate the value of the original design. Also I suspect there are some part demolished locks (or photos of them in a part deconstructed state) which will also give an indication of the designs used.

I had to do that when I refilled using a bit of water followed by almost an equal amount of antifreeze repeating until full, I thought that doing bit by bit it would be happy, but it stratified (is that the right word ) in the rad and only the bottom got hot. Spent a couple of hours draining from the rad and putting back in the header tank.

The three laws of Engineering: 1. Always use the right tool for the job. 2. A hammer is the right tool for any job. 3. Anything can be used as a hammer.

Leicestershire County Records office have a collection of drawings by William Jessop for the construction of the Leicester Navigation. These include details of locks and bridges. I have a copy of the bridge details but not the locks. The locks are broad but the principles will be the same. The catalogue details are below.

Yes, I think I said in an earlier post that the sensor has an 8mm hole (its a thermistor potted in a copper tube terminal) so did not easily fit onto the alternator so was not installed for my initial engine run, so I had to set a quite low duty cycle. I have now carefully reshaped it a bit so that it can fit over one of the long bolts (m4 or m5?) that hold the two halves of the body together. I really need to drill and tap the alternator body but this is a bit more complicated. I will investigate the Zeus data logging later today and see if I can capture the temperature control cycling etc.

As mr parry implied in his piece, when you have less money than is really needed, then you gave to make judgement calls in what has to be omitted. In this case they cut it too fine but CaRT are really not where the buck should stop - the real decision lies with the Gov, proxy for the Great Britushh Public. Same goes for many if the long term non-maintenance problems in Local councils. Gov has been forcing councils to cut maintenance budgets to fund tax cuts for decades. They oft try away with it because the time lag before the impact us felt is too much for mist folk to join the dots.

On this day in 2007 Wet, at Trent Junction River Trent and Erewash Canal Cranfleet Flood Lock with the gates closed Compare 10Sep1978 21Nov1982 4Jun1991 14Jun2015 2Jan2023

Typical bollocks. They said "It hasn't been drained for 20 years" It was done in 2009 that's 15 in my book. And using a pump what is that about why not use the proper drain plug?