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Our boat has been at Glascote Basin since last November where it is being repainted to a very high standard by the team at Norton Canes Boatbuilders with experienced supervision provided by Sarah Edgson. There is more information on our website here. We did start repainting 'Alnwick' in 2005 but for many reasons, progress slowed when we had completed the outside of the back cabin. By 2016, we decided that the paint we had purchased more than ten years earlier was by then too old to use!

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...

Only because after Terry Darlington made it sound dangerous in his book (it wasn't), no-one would insure narrowboats crossing the Channel any more. We did take Snail out to sea in Europe a few times where she behaved very well, even in chop. Unlike Chris Coburn who has achieved all kinds of exploits in his very ordinary nb, we had ours especially made with a 15mm bottom plate, ballast cut to fit so they couldn't slide, 67hp engine, PRM260 gear box, large prop (22x22), double sized skin tanks, all portholes, trad stern, tender that was always available for use if needed, easy to tow along behind on the big European waterways. Snail easily makes 10 kts, (we tested this on the Gent-Terneuzen Canal,built in 1823 which is 200m wide and capable of accomodating ships up to 125,000 tons, with a draught of up to 12.5 m) not a lot of use now we've come back to the UK canals. My blog and book illustrates what's achievable.

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

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

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.

I didn't carefully avoid your question I meticulously ignored it.

That's not really a useful thing to say. The fuel itself is carbon neutral. It's a wholly unreasonable standard to state that the entirety of the energy grid and transportation needs to be carbon neutral before any of the products it touch can be carbon neutral. I consider all biofuels to be effectively carbon neutral, because they are part of a closed loop carbon cycle. Grow plants - absorb carbon - burn plants - release carbon. The truth is a little more complicated than that, but that's the basic principle. Possibly there was biomass growing before the biofuel plants, and possibly that was slightly higher in carbon content (e.g. rainforests). Possibly the biofuel was created with energy derived from fossil sources. Possibly it was transported with fossil fuels. But all of those things serve to muddy the waters. The problem with your objection is that it equates HVO and mineral diesel as "both not carbon neutral", but the difference is that while both diesel and biofuel takes energy to produce and transport, burning the diesel itself is the primary source of carbon in the one, and burning the HVO does not itself contribute carbon. This is exactly the type of obfuscation that is employed by the oil companies and others with a vested interest in fossil fuels, which is why I must protest. THIS IS DONE DELIBERATELY in order to try to distract people from the basics, which is that growing and consuming biomass is ultimately carbon neutral. There's only one major contributor to carbon, and that's the mining of fossil fuels and other carbon-containing minerals (for example limestone for cement). If we ceased the mining of carbon containing minerals, carbon neutrality would naturally follow, because all other carbon is part of the carbon cycle. It's really as simple as that, so whenever I find someone talking about farming or burning wood or anything else being "bad for the environment", I try to point out that these issues are trivial in comparison to the biggest problem - that humans are increasing atmospheric carbon concentration to prehistoric levels through the release of prehistoric carbon.

Mine attached itself to a bolt sticking out so I don’t think it could have rolled out of the way.

Plenty of water in the Huddersfield narrow 💦😁

I'm always delighted when I see there is an update on the best thread on cwdf (it's my favourite anyway)! Fantastic work.

I know where potable water comes from and the processes involved in ensuring that it is to a safe standard. It is much more involved than a few filters on a boat and it is constantly tested.

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.