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Ooh, I beg to differ. My favourite photo from the 2019 BCN Challenge: Wednesbury Arm winding hole in the dark on a crap phone camera - I had to show Sue the GPS location tag to get the points!

it’s pretty obvious when I have tap on, water pisses out of splits in hose and pours proper from joints.

Watering up at market Drayton at a double point spot with a hire boat on one , enjoying breakfast on the back , and me on the other one.Boat came in , plenty of room,moored and then demands to know how long we had been there and did we know of the 30minute rule .Eh was my response need water not my fault the pressure is so low it's a trickle and takes about an hour to fill . Hire boaters were stunned by his aggressive standing, Me told him to do one !!!! or else .Filled up in 50minutes left grumpy behind .One of those weeks I am bumping heads with all the knob heeds on the shroppie lol

"Please be advised there is a windblown tree at Bridge 12 on the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union Canal, which is blocking navigation. Contractors have been informed and we anticipate they will be on site to remove the obstruction tomorrow. Navigation will remain open, however, wide beams will not be able to pass until the tree has been removed." I'm a bit intrigued as to how a widebeam could get on to the Middlewich Branch, seeing as how all the locks are narrow, and there's one at each end. Still, it's nice that CRT lets them know.

That's interesting, I still can't help think that even with a properly installed on board It the screen should be connected to the shore earth. It seems to me that a primary to screen fault relies on the shore rcd triping when someone bridges boat to shore and that's fine I suppose. However adding unlikely occurrence to the already unlikely, if someone is in the water and touches the live hull they could receive a dangerous shock, potentially leading to drowning. I think its largely academic/theoretical but I can't see an obvious fault mode where screen to boat earth is preferable to screen to shore. I think the most likely fault is, as you said earlier, insulation breakdown possibly due to overloading/overheating and I can't see it matters much where the screen is connected so long as the appropriate breaker trips.

If they set off late and get to Hopwas on the first evening I would think they were doing unbelievably well! I think you meant Hopwood 😁

Is that a rule you've made up yourself? I might start doing that for other things... The 15 minute lock rule: Get though in 15 mins otherwise I start opening paddles and gates to force you out of the lock via whichever end is quickest. The 24 hour "I like that visitor mooring too" rule: Move on from that desirable visitor mooring within 24 hours of me seeing it or I set your boat adrift in the night. The 2 minute elsan rule: Get out of my way when I want to use the elsan point or I dump my cassette all over your feet. Do you actually have any right to disconnect someone else's hose just because they've exceeded some arbitrary time frame that you have in your mind? Of course they didn't like it - you have no right to do it.

The instructions my dad use to give out to hirers when he did handovers at Alvechurch was you could boat whilst the grass was green, once you could no longer see grass as green it was too dark to continue boating.

So it was definitely your fault then 😁

This odd little canal on the west coast of Scotland came up on the forum earlier this year - as I am currently holidaying within sight, I've been for a closer look. A local walking guide has this information: Oddly enough the map which shows the most engineering features is not the historic OS 6" but the latest 1:25000: From west to east: 1. At the high water mark there are remains of concrete abutments 2. Bridge carrying the road to Rhu 3. Not on the map, immediately east of the bridge, the "old sluice gate" has a recess on the north side for a single gate, with vestigial remains of a wooden heel post(??), and on the south side, a rather small rebate it would have closed against; this side also has what looks more like a stop plank groove, but rather narrow and running deep into the side wall. 27 paces further upstream the same is more-or-less repeated, making the construction resemble a pound lock. The "chamber" is, like the rest of the channel, part masonry and part cut into the rock. 4. Only the concrete abutments remain of the footbridge marked, some supporting wooden beams were still in place in 2017. More info and lots of photos here: https://canmore.org.uk/site/277550/mains-of-arisaig 5. A little further "upstream" and now quite close to the sawmill (the curving cart track leads to it), is a widening on the north side which looks like some sort of loading facility. This is also not explicitly marked on the OS map. I've not found anything online which suggests boats of any sort were used, although the descriptions are vague and perhaps don't absolutely rule it out. One 19th C. document https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/digital-volumes/ordnance-survey-name-books/inverness-shire-os-name-books-1876-1878/inverness-shire-mainland-volume-12/57) elegantly writes of "conveying" the timber "to the sea". The presumed loading bay could be interpreted as a cart track leading down to a platform which was dry with the canal "empty", where the sawn timbers could be stacked, and flooded when full (sluice/lock gates closed) to float them off. Then I suppose they'd have had to be towed round to the jetty for loading onto seagoing boats. But surely boats would have been better? The photos on the canmore site linked above do show a lot of detail, I'll post separately a few more which don't duplicate. The extension of the canal below the high tide mark and the remains of the concrete abutment: Lower gate recess and timber heelpost remains: Upper gate recess - but here the heel post end looks more like a stop plank groove:

Yeah, and they've even improved it to a survey every 7 years (up from the previous 5 years) fairly recently. Provided the boat has been insured with Craftinsure for those 7 years - always worth checking the small print! I needed a 5 year survey during one of the lockdowns, and couldn't get one, so I paid an additional waiver on my insurance for year 6. At renewal in year 7 they offered me the same waiver again, but they'd just introduced the 7 years thing (new underwriter) so I queried it ... and didn't pay it!

There is nothing wrong with CdeB, but not much there, one pub and a convenience store mainly. But is a decent enough spot to stop overnight. The pub is The Boat, predictably enough, I don’t think they would appreciate you comparing it to a hungry horse (do they still exist), they would see themselves a substantially more upmarket than that.

From OP’s original comment/question it sounds like they’ve made their mind up to go straight in to Brum 👍 I’m sure the folk at Alvechurch will be on the ball and quick to get them going. I like the staff I’ve met there. Nice folk. And no one likes having to stay after work longer than they need. They’ll turn boats around quick enough. Will be nice to hear back off OP to know how they got on. There was a similar thread, unless this is the same OP.

Just now. Gunthorpe.

It has, but that's mainly because power goes up with speed^3, and in most canals by far the biggest source of the drag is from the narrow/shallow channels, not hull surface drag. I found I can use double the power in return for half the speed on a narrow/shallow canal like the Peak Forest compared to a wide/deep one like the Sheffield and South Yorkshire...

Thats one helluva coincidence, so was mine!!

I've considered it and yer right, I just rembered it was built the week before the RCD came along.

😀 It is until you discover Kingston Marine in East Cowes, it is a strange place and I recall it is technically a municipal boatyard that generates a profit for the local Council.

Or you could do a Google search and follow up various results including scientific papers, which are much more verbose and less easy to understand but which all come up with similar results... 😉 Any significant fault-induced voltage (big enough to even give you a mild tingle) on the boat GND/steel hull -- which is big, and submerged in quite conductive water, not deionised -- will easily give enough leakage current to trip any RCD, on shore or boat. Go on, man up and admit you were wrong... 😉

An unused narrow boat will grow weed around the water line. But after a few days boating it is mostly gone, so not something to worry about with a boat that is used. And sometimes you will be inside the boat wandering what the hammering noise is outside. Nothing to worry about, it's just the ducks pecking at the weed on your hull!

It sounds like you’ve been very unfortunate to be .2mm out. An alternative could be to pit/ puddle weld where the losses are greatest. That will take it back to 4mm. Is the whole length 3.8mm or is it just in places? Pit welding lets metal back in then grind flat. Quite a few welders will do that for you. It could be worth asking Stretton boatyard on the Shropshire Union or Streethay boatyard on The Coventry who maybe well placed to advise. It seems to be the surveyors answer usually to over plate. It’s not always the best option.

I don't think the possibility of British industry crashing and burning was uppermost in the minds of the Brexit zealots!

I agree with Peanut. I used glass flake epoxy, RS 500P followed by RA 500M some 15 years ago and it shows no sign of degrading yet: there is zero rust showing through and that's in salt water! It is extremely hard and much more resistant to scratching than most other coatings, but should it be necessary, it can be touched-in very easily without major preparation. The manufacturer suggests that it can protect steel for 25 years, and judging from it's performance over 15 years, I wouldn't argue with that.

Yes but... If its a slow tap and our tank is low it can take a while to fill, but if a hire boat turns up and is in a rush we will invite them alongside and lend them our hose. Hire boats are usually topping up an almosy full tank anyway....(why don't the hire compaines give them a meter, they only cost a bit over £100?????) Its just much easier to stop at one tap and fill up than having to stop at 2 or 3 for a half hour at each 😀 and then there is Hebden Bridge, stop at the services, put the hose in, go for a few pints in Nightjar, come home and decide to stop there all night 😀

BCN Challenge plaques are always correctly dated, including I’d wager the one that @MtB has. I’m sure he was merely referring to how quickly time seems to pass as you get older. It does help for folk to enter before the deadline for ordering them though to be certain. Not many spares are ordered because the cost of the plaques is significant. There were four left over for 2024 but requests for those have been received on behalf of crew members and they will be sold. There are still some 2023 plaques available if any participants and their crews are short of one. They are now optional for the Explorer cruises but still seem to be popular with Challenge entrants. The problem with making them optional is that the unit cost potentially becomes very high. That’s why for now they remain an integral part of Challenge entry.

It's pretty obvious if they have one of those lay-flat hoses though. And yes, I have seen it. I just breasted up and disconnected their hose from the turned-off tap and coupled mine up instead. Caused a right flurry of curtain twitching but nobody came out to say anything.

I'm sure I've seen "30 mins only" signs at water points recently -- Stone, perhaps?

The longest we have had to wait was an hour. This was because the hire boat had got stuck in the middle of the flash at Winsford and all RCR & their boatyard could suggest was pump out all your water and see if that lightens enough (so they said). Personally I top up at almost every unoccupied water point I come to so never take long.

You can’t book any mooring in central Birmingham, unless you want to go into the private Sherborne Wharf marina (assuming they have space). But it is nothing to worry about, there are a lot of opportunities for on-line moorings and it’s highly unlikely you won’t find a space somewhere. My preference is on the mainline between old turn junction and St Vincent street bridge, but there are opportunities above Farmer’s bridge top lock/outside the NIA, at the start of the Oozels St loop, and between Gas St basin and the Mailbox, plus a few other spaces. Most of Cambrian Wharf is now permanent moorings although there are a few spaces. Overall, I wouldn’t worry about it and central Birmingham is great by canal. If you turn down Oozels St loop bear in mind that at the far end you can’t turn right due to the angles (unless you have a very short boat) but there is a basin a bit further along towards Wolverhampton, you can turn in the entrance, or you can go round the interesting Icknield port loop.