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It may not be important to you but it's very important to those that live and travel there, and is truly beautiful so important in its own right.

Moored at Westport Lake, just had a few boats going past and all set our boat bouncing and banging somewhat. Were they going too fast? Not really. The mooring ring spacing is sub-optimal. So I have just been out and added a spring at the stern, ie taken a line forward to the next ring, and tightened the ropes properly so the boat can’t move fore/aft. Took about 2 minutes. Now another boat has just come past, fairly fast. Our boat didn’t move at all. How often do you see boats moored with a spring? Hardly ever. So I say that every person who shouts “SLOW DOWN” or even thinks of doing so, or likes to whinge about boats passing too fast on here, only does so because they don’t know how to tie their boat up properly. (With possible dispensation for being moored on pins).

I find it more effective to push the beam from the correct side rather than the other side. This is based on the experience of several occasions. I worked this out all by myself, without any volockies telling me.

I had a phone call earlier from a friend of Mary’s. Swan was meant to be at Audlem for the gathering this weekend. As a mark of respect, the organisers are leaving a vacant berth where she would have tied. A lovely gesture.

My impression is, that some boaters quite enjoy the confrontation of bellowing 'SLOW DOWN'. I've even noticed that some leave their mooring ropes deliberately slack for greater effect. The K&A is particularly bad for people with such an attitude: not that I ever speed of course!

When boats move on water, they push the water about, so any boat moored on the water will move. With caravans it's the wind that moves them about. Never really understood the desire to be on water but not move. Rog

It's a great place to overwinter, just ask Ange.

Yes I know the feeling! And I think they rely on most people not wanting a scene. But the more control freak volockies are tolerated, the more they feel empowered. I had that at Stenson once, went to open the top gate and the micromanaging volockie said “No, it isn’t ready until the water level (inside the lock) reaches this mark”. I pushed anyway and of course it opened, because it is nothing to do with the level inside the lock, only to do with the difference in levels, and the pound was slightly down. This is the sort of intelligence and competence that one has to deal with with some volockies! No idea of the big picture, everything done by numbers.

I find pushing with the bum is easiest and allows the most force to be applied to a recalcitrant gate. As you say, when closing you have to start off by pulling but then you are not trying to fight the last 1/2” of water pressure and as soon as I can, I switch to bum mode. However it is absolutely nothing to do with a volockie how you choose to operate lock gates. Tell them to move away from the lock that your boat is transitting as their assistance and opinion is not wanted, and that “nobody likes a back seat driver”. They might get the message, although probably not!

Using your back allows the use of the strongest muscles in your body - your thighs, and stops potential back damage caused by pushing with a bent back that a 'forward push' requires

Yes the optics aren’t good and yes it used to irritate me. But many if not almost all are done via council, governmental dept and other funding. I believe that was the case with the recent Market Harborough resurfacing works. It states here, £900,000 from Dept of transport and Section 106. https://www.harboroughmail.co.uk/news/environment/ps900000-revamp-to-improve-stretch-of-harborough-canal-towpath-is-set-to-begin-4152677 It shows that someone at CRT/IWA / local Canal Society are awake and keeping an eye for opportunity. That doesn’t get away from lock problems of course.

that reminds me, I had a friend come visit and they had a bad lower back, after making sure they were still happy to do locks I suggested they keep their back straight while pushing with their arse/lower back and using their legs. They went home in a much better state after exercising properly. Tardebigge flight too.

It aggravates me no end when you see the CRT workboats working on resurfacing miles of remote towpaths and then the next set of locks you encounter are leaking and the paddle mechanisms are faulty. I don't pretend to know about CRT finances and CRT priorities and CRT work practices but all I do know is that the optics, from a boaters perspective, are awful.

Not 70 ft! I reckon whoever specifies ring spacing thinks everyone has a 55-60 ft long boat.

You really need to tie one of the rings off or the boat can move back and forth with the rope running through the ring. You may of course have done that with the stern line, I cant quite see, but I often see boats moored just as your bow is.

I use my backside on the Balance Beam - with my knees very slightly bent... The biggest advantage (to me) is that when the gate starts to move, you push about two inches and your knee naturally locks - while the lock makes a proper level. Other techniques mean you start to open the gate, then the rush of water slams it shut again.

If you use RS 500P, which is a surface tolerant primer, there is very little pressure to get the first coat of primer on. It will go onto gingered steel (oxidised) and it can be damp if you are unlucky with the weather. In my experience, the wet, slurry blast shiny steel remained shiny for less than an hour before discoloration began, but it doesn't matter when you use the correct primer. You can roll on a second coat of primer as I did at your leisure, or go straight ahead with the RA 500M glass flake. I did a coat a day until I was happy that I'd achieved at least 500 micron and more at the waterline. I had 80m² of steel media blasted at a cost of £800, but that was 15 years ago. The wet blast system requires no masking or enclosed building as there is no dust and the tiny amount of media used in the process mostly disappeared into the gravel on which the propped up barge sat. The above probably accounts for the lower price compared to dry grit blasting. The tonne of dry grit is hazardous waste and is a problem to collect and very expensive to dump.

Maybe it’s important to all the people that walk, run, fish, boat, paddle board, canoe and sit by it. Maybe important to the Kingfishers and people with moored boats there too. Hope that answers your daft question

Well in that particular case, we had already drained the lock and driven the boat in and opened the appropriate paddles ( bearing in mind Stenson is one of the few wide locks where you open opposite side ground paddle first). So it must have been pretty obvious. Encountered that just yesterday at Planet lock, Caldon. On arrival there was a boat in the lock coming up. He opened the top paddles and then disappeared inside as I walked up to the lock. I sat on the balance beam and then started to open it, at which point his boat started moving forwards as it was in gear. I was momentarily alarmed thinking I shouldn’t have helped open the gate, but then he appeared, lowered the offside paddle and drove out. Presumably he was sat inside waiting to see the boat start to move, then came out. Quite cool I thought, although personally I wouldn’t be inside in a lock with no-one outside whilst it was filling. Although I love a good anti-volockie rant, it also has to be said that there are some good ones. This morning we went from Westport Lake, to Harecastle tunnel entrance just to turn round and dump rubbish. A young (relatively) volunteer tunnel keeper of female disposition came over for a chat, she was very pleasant and interested and presented a good customer facing image of CRT. Makes a change from the usual taciturn grumpy grey-beardy limpy old men!

Weve been quoted quite a fair bit more from Debdale but we are 70 foot. I did some research and Debdale are at the upper end of the price range, but not the most expensive. They have very good facilities and competent people so you pay for this. The zinc spray is costly but they have the monopoly. DIY is possible at some places but I would really not want to DIY grit blast. Grit blast + epoxy is a big job so needs to be done well. Doing it outdoors is a big risk, if the weather is wrong it will give a second rate job so a big waste of money. I would think that most dry docks would not allow a DIY grit blast, and most do not give access to the baseplate. I suspect the cheaper contractor quotes do not include masking up, or removing the grit and cleaning up afterwards. If a grit blast and epoxy is done well then it protects the boat for a long time.

I use the power of the human backside whenever possible. That way you push with your legs and avoid back strain.

I'd have thought the momentary starting surge current to get the pump motor running would overwhelm an 8A brick power supply like that.

You mean that they are not the 35ml ones ! If they are still using the old 25ml optics they should be boycotted !

Since it's obvious you are making this comment again purely to get a bite, then I'll give you one. ...with a force of 1,000 PSI