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And you sound like another one with a large mouth if I'm being honest. There's no more a "typical wide beam attitude" than a typical narrow boat attitude. That's just a figment of your own prejudice and bigotry. So you intentionally insulted someone because you didn't like their boat and then you got offended when they returned the favour? Can you spot the hypocrisy? There are plenty of instances of conflict and insults thrown around between owners of lots of different types of boats including narrow boat vs narrow boat. But if you really want to try to negatively characterise people on the basis of the boats they own it really says much more about you than it does about them.

I still don't understand why anybody would use those posts when there is a perfectly good M8 bolt that fits M8 lugs perfectly.

Yes it could damage the part of the cill facing into the lock chamber. But many locks have (or in some cases had) a loose timber beam held on by chains provided specifically as a bump board to absorb the energy from an entering boat. These were designed to be replaced from time to time, but I'm not sure CRT bother these days. But a boat bumping or riding the cill in this way does not affect the timber beam against which the top gate(s) seals - that is further upstream and the sealing face faces the other way.

I would normally stick a plastic bag over a boat prop going back into the water. Not only will this keep it clean, it will also allow you to practice your weed hatch moves for when you finally cruise your boat to its brokerage for sale.

Think I can top that - got a tyre wrapped perfectly round the prop in Leeds years ago; had to get in the canal and lever it off with (appropriately) the tyre levers I used for tensioning belts - nothing I had would cut it. Took several hours - could have do with scuba tanks!

Are you otterly sure? Stoats are stotally different but weasels are weasaly recognized... 🤣

There's a very old joke about this progression from tri-weekly, to try weekly, and eventually try weakly.

I see you deliberately ignored my feeble pun

It goes with the territory of being a human being evolved from cavemen when anyone not in your clan was the enemy as they competed for your food and women. Some people struggle to move on from their ancient ancestors! We got the same kind of prejudice about our choice of boat builder, even though he made great boats and I have never encountered an “up themselves” owner.

I've done it that way. Don't forget to leave a rope trailing from the counter so you can climb back up again. It's a bit of a pain if you have to climb up the lock gate.

As posted 22 hours ago. "The original bridge was built in the 1860s and was converted into a sliding bridge in 1925." So how did it open between the 1860s and 1925?

I periodically trim the foliage that obscures our local winding hole sign. Not that it helps much because thoughtless people still moor in the middle of the winding hole.

Blimey! You must have had a leaky stern gland.

Thanks for the further suggestions. I am still working with CRT to make roaming volunteers a thing. It has been trialled with somebody replacing/repairing water taps but showed up some issues which are being looked into. Joe

Otters in my little bit of river here. Have them on trap camera a few times now.

I think that's partly the idea of the forthcoming CRT app. From experience, direct email to the relevant region works much better than trying to explain to a call centre operator who doesn't even work for CRT. Your actual report can be forwarded exactly as you sent it to the relevant person, rather than a rephrased message. The very best way involves getting the ambulance call centre operator to get the CRT out of hours duty manager to directly ring you at midnight, but I've only needed to do that once!

I've been pretty open about what I've found since getting the boat, certainly much more so than most others about things like cost (higher than originally quoted), energy usage (more than expected), solar yield (less than expected), fuel consumption and generator running hours (more than expected), joystick failures (Vetus!!!), charging speed (lower than expected), electrical cooling (needed improvement, now done) -- because this should all be useful for anyone else thinking about going electric. But every time I do post anything some people seem to be just desperately looking for ways to find fault or tell me I've wasted my money -- I'm sure this is in part the good old green-eyed monster, but they'll never admit this. Which is why I've largely stopped posting details, because I'm fed up of this attitude -- and it's always the same people doing it, see this thread for example... 😞 Would love to do the BCN challenge, but this year it just didn't stack up with planned cruises for myself and family. Maybe next year... 😉 More trolling, see above... 😞

On water cooled boats, I am sure it is just for combustion air, but why they put them on the outside of the hull I have no idea apart from ease. It must be possible to put them on the inside, as on my cruiser stern. Or better still in the well deck with vents through the rear bulkhead, so the engine draws air through the bilge - not much good if you have filled the bilge with insulation above the ballast.

I call your fertiliser sack and raise you a builder's rubble sack. Took a saw to cut that off the prop! Was on the Walsall canal, back when you could do it without risking cyanide poisoning.

Must say I thought it feeble as well 🥰