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Ah, almost every sensible contribution to a debate needs a bit of racism to spice it up, doesn't it?

If you think the UK can do anything whatsoever to prevent wars, especially after doing its best to bust a local alliance, declaring its willingness to break international law and its opposition to any general definition of human rights, you really need help. We'd be a lot better off having a nice well kept water park to play on while the rest of the fools play games.

1963 or 1964, and a young Paul Lorenz waits for a level so he can take Anker out of Watford Locks.

Been clearing out the loft at the ancestral Castle and found this. Of particular personal interest as the first boat holidays I recall were on Joanna, although I recall Magpie the Elder saying many years later that the family used to squeeze five onto one of the others, with me and @1st ade sharing one berth head to toe: we'd be about 2 and 5 at the time. I'm aware others are also interested in the history of leisure boating and hire boats. And finally - some customers must have been quite ambitious in their cruising plans judging by this paragraph!

My heaviest internet use is posting rubbish on here.

I don't drink beer, had a glass of Merlot. I went for a meal with a couple of friends. Had a chat with the new landlord. He has no intention of altering the decor of the pub at all. There is a new menu, and the food is of good quality. I think it is indicative that all the staff bar one have stayed. He was due to retire anyway.

I was going to say... If you want a go anywhere boat why would you choose a narrowboat? As much as a NB could be modified and some people have set to sea in them, seagoing boats are just much more suited to the sea.

Ian D answered that pretty fully. If he wants a sustained 10 knots, especially in adverse conditions, then he is going to need a big diesel generator to provide the power when is batteries run out, and at present that won't take very long at all. However, he does seem t be altering his wants to be a bit more realistic.

Joanna photographed in 1963 by Geoff Wheat whilst descending Farmers Bridge Locks.

For a boat you didn't buy from Aintree Boats, that's going significantly above and beyond what's necessary. Full marks to Aintree for doing so as a goodwill gesture, and thanks @Phil F for bothering to come back and update the thread.

This is not a description of the canal, no more than of its history - those you can find easily elsewhere. It is an indication of the vessels you could have expected to meet on a transit of it during August 1990. It is about boats and ships, with the waterway in the background. Most of the vessels I will describe have gone. Since I have no idea whether it will be of interest I will start with just a couple. If there is interest I will go on. If not, no great harm done. We start at the sea lock at Corpach on the West side. Just around the corner, beyond the lighthouse, ships would come into the loch to load timber from the forests nearby. But in this case it is a fishing boat, the Smallwood, which is coming into the lock. Looking for lobsters, and having gone aground, she is going across to the East coast, for better luck. In her bridge, the skipper has a print out of his sonar, which shows a large dark shape far below on Loch Ness. Was it Nessie? or a shoal of fish? He thinks it is Nessie. He says he thinks it is Nessie.The Smallwood, a trawler built of steel in Ramsey, Isle of Man in 1966 had had successful days -" in 1984 Smallwood and Bahati hauled 1800 boxes of cod. They had to tow the net into Stonehaven and it took 30 men 3 days to gut them all." By 1991 she no longer appeared in the registers. Locking up with Smallwood in the Corpach flight, the Vic 32. Built in 1943 by Dunstans of Thorne, one of the 63 VIC type puffers built for the Ministry of War Transport on the lines of the Lascar of 1939. A steam lighter powered by a water tube boiler, she is thought to have worked out of Corpach for a while, taking ammunition from barges and supplying the Atlantic fleet at St Christopher's naval base. Also at Scapa Flow delivering aviation spirit, and as a day boat at Rosyth until sent to Inverkeithing in the 1960s for scrapping. Bought by Keith Schellenberg to serve his private island, and then by Nick Walker who operated her from 1975 to 2002. With a crew of mate, cook, engineer and general help, he took hundreds of people, steam enthusiasts and some not quite enthusiasts, all around the Western Isles and up and down the Caledonian Canal in clouds of sooty black smoke. A master at melding people together, he had to be. In 2002 he gave the Vic 32 to the Puffer Preservation Trust and I believe she is still operational as the last steam puffer. And passing along the canal, just after the last castiron swing bridge in its two halves, a bright red hulled fishing boat the Green Brea. Built in 1973 as the Laurisa BA145 by Herd & McKenzie at Buckie for one Jimmy Gibson, a herring trawler of 54 feet, powered by a 230 hp Gardner diesel, of wood. Of her, said that we can now put a man on the moon but we cannot make the likes of her. A photo of her launch. She lasted in to this century and to I think 2010. Right, that will do for now. If there is interest, I will go on a bit further.

In other words the OP could save himself an awful lot of time and money by simply buying a conventional narrowboat and planning those tidal journeys carefully, which he would be wise to do anyway whatever vessel he was on. If it were me perhaps I'd be looking for a slightly higher freeboard, vents, etc, and maybe an enclosed bow but they would be about it. The idea of being able to plough through the water at 10kts is nonsense as you generally go with the tide on these passages and any turn against the tide is short. Anyway, I'm sure the hull speeds of most narrowboats limits them below that figure.

My advice would be to simply fill your water tank with potable water from canal side taps or marinas rather than filter dirty water. Taps are the norm in most marinas or if a ccer I always found I passed one at the very least every other day.

Hi Clare I'm aware it's been a few years since you posted this so anything could have happened in the meantime. However I wanted to get in touch to let you know that I'm just in the process of purchasing a French and Peel narrowboat local to you, which you're welcome to come and look at.

That was done at Aynho years ago when I was fitting my shell out there. Even though I wasn't involved and lost no money BW gave me a years licence and mooring for free off the back of it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68880171 Downing Street says spending would increase gradually over the next six years, reaching £87.1bn by 2030 - £7bn higher than if spending stayed at its current level of 2.3% of GDP. That 0.2% of GDP increase -- not the total! -- is about 30x higher than CART's annual budget. If they'd increased it by 0.197% instead of 0.2%, that would have paid for a 50% increase in the total CART budget, probably enough to make all their maintainance/funding problems disappear... 😞

I can see how that comes across yes, but we have actually researched online for maps, that's what I was doing most of the day yesterday, but maybe not found the right ones. And we bought guidebooks and maps in the past but not for this area yet as everything has come up so quick. Definately one to do and thanks for going into detail on which ones etc. Indeed, and there is some confusion on whether it's 25km or 25 miles and whether it's from Oxford or your main "base" site. So just in case we will consider further afield too. Side note, we're actually in another country right now on the other side of the world, seeing family with the newborn, when we got all this news, so it's been hard to go in person to research or buy books until we get home. But shortly we'll be back and going straight to Oxford to check it out and the surrounding areas. Thanks again Tony for the further tips in your last post, it's really helpful.

Why does it matter if the pump doesn't activate immediately? I'd have thought the pressure switch would still turn it on when needed.

It’s 12v but use a DC-DC converter if running from the boats 12v system, avoid connecting it directly as it goes up to 14.4-14.8v. Some routers seem to be fine with the variation, some die within a week or two.

We looked to hire a boat on the Broads this summer for a week but very quickly changed our mind when we got to the price page. (£2768 + £25 parking + £40 pet charge) https://www.broads.co.uk/boats/fair-chancellor/?unit_id=1556&arrival=2024-06-29&duration=604800&adults=2&children=0&arrival_time=16:00:00 We have booked the Isle of Wight ferry instead and will have a week over there with the van. Including food, drink and fuel it will come nowhere near the cost of the boat hire! The hire yards are very much at a point now where they are pricing themselves out of the market. Foreign travel is open for business again and it makes holidaying in the UK look damn expensive.

We were in Brum over the same period, and did a quick run around the Black Country ring over a few days before we went back down to Droitwich. Brum was quiet at both ends of the period we were out. Quiet at every mooring we stopped at, space on the VMs at all the 'honey spot ' locations. As others have said, Easter was early this year, the weather was a bit pants. Busiest day was coming down Tardebigge when all the ABC boats from Worcester were on the way up, but I reckon that only amounted to about 10-12 boats over 2 days. Most of the Black Prince boats were still in at Stoke Prior. I chatted to the staff whilst we were hovering waiting for the lock and they said they had very few boats out or booked so far this year.

Hey Sorry- it is the stop solenoid- 😆 just testing. It is to the right and tucked under part of the engine.

As one of those young whippersnapper new liveaboards people love to moan about, I'd say we've done pretty OK over the last 90 days...

As did ours. I would absolutely say that a sacrificial link (cable tie) saved us from a potentially serious incident.

Oh yes forgot to mention...there are some great wild moorings, even on some islands, if you don't mind where you are and don't need a train station or a town