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As the law will require commercial boats to empty their tanks on a Friday night (before the 'leisure' use kicks in over the weekend) our marina is ahead of the game offering this service. The 'Red' can then be sold back to them on Monday morning at a discounted rate. Everyone is happy !!

My father in law always insisted he would dance on Maggie's grave when she died. She died a few days after he had a knee replaced and couldn't stand on it for weeks. "She f**ked me one more time the b**ch!" is his take on the timing ...

Boaters and Steam Railways are an easy fix/political win. We produce a lot of visible smoke but are not a big part of the economy (or even a big producer of pollution). Tackling air travel is more economically and politically difficult so best avoided. ...............Dave

When I needed a new flue I happened to have some offcuts of 1 mm stainless welded tube going spare and made it out of that just to see how long it would last, that was 3 years ago and its still the same thickness, and as soon as I got the stove back working I noticed a huge difference in that the thin flue was radiating tons of heat into the cabin instead of wasting it out of the chimney, it also largely cleans itself as it expands and contracts all the crud flakes off inside. I wouldn't fit a heavy mild steel flue again .

Oh, and now insults! Thank you for your kind words. You have copied and pasted a large chunk of what I’ve already read and I repeat, at no point does it mention the ‘power’ of an anode as you did in a previous post. It explains in baby language that the PD of an anode-hull circuit must be impressed if it cannot be achieved simply by selection of the anode type, depending on the circumstances of the boat wrt the electrolyte it’s sitting in. Obviously, the resultant circuit will use power as does any circuit but an anode does not itself possess power as you suggested earlier in this thread, it merely forms part of a circuit, either galvanic or impressed, which will result in energy being expended.

I would probably be murdered in my sleep if the gas ran out during the night so that the central heating stopped working and the boat was cold when my other half woke up. That's why I have always had an auto change-over valve. No I don't think they leave much gas in the empty bottle - as long as there is some tiny bit of liquified gas left there will be the pressure to keep the valve the right way. On mine a big indicator triangle changes from white to red when it changes over, so as long as I check it occasionally and buy a new bottle after it has changed over there is no problem.

But perhaps not as implausible as the classic car exemption. I can't figure that one out at all.

Lots of hirers assume they will do 4mph so your 3mph estimate was not too bad. I reckon on 2.5 mph most of the time but we are big and deep. The K&A from Bradford to Bath is very slow, maybe 1.5mph much of the way, and getting stuck behind a widebeam is a real possibility. Its not a good canal for widebeams but there are a lot down there. I think the hire companies should take some of the blame as you may well have enjoyed it a lot more if you had been given more realistic expectations. Arriving in Bath and finding nowhere to moor is also always a realistic possibility. I also wish some of the locals would keep their boats a bit smarter with a bit less roof clutter, but then last week we shared a few locks with a boat with spectacular clutter and it was an enjoyable day with a pleasant and competent boater, and some of the roof clutter was actually quite interesting, in fact many of the Western Enders are creative and entertaining people and a canal boat holiday should be a chance to get away from the drabness of 9 to 5 life.. .............Dave

Resurrecting this thread for a bit, I have acquired more and different batteries for my big boat it will have 30 x 36 volt LifePo4s, they will be 2 x 15 in parallel then in series to make a 72 volt and 36KWH [nominal] for drive, it will increase the range and power available. I am adding another 3 solar panels to take me up to 4.5 KW. The only other thing to do is fit the new controller when it arrives, which should help with power as well

I did ! As a roving trader we are probably allowed to continue to use red, and as we almost always have stuff on display we are always potentially trading. However if we have a day when we have no intention of trading, maybe due to very bad weather, then we are required to ditch our entire tank of red and fill up with white at a moments notice, its just daft, I was a marginal Bexiteer, but stuff like this makes me 100% pro Brexit. ...............Dave

It was a very nice chap from CRT who inspects your boat to make sure you arnt fiddling the license! It made sense to me anyway, self declaration is bound to go wrong isnt it?

A boat fender.

I've chatted to three diesel sellers about this in the last couple of weeks. One (land based) says many of his customers take it away in cans, presumably to be used on smallholdings etc, so he will continue to sell only red and boaters can decide what to do. Another (boat) said he does not know what he will do. A third (boat) said he will have to pay 10p more than supermarket prices to get white, so how can he then sell at a profit?, so will stop selling diesel. Maybe CRT could reduce the Roving Trader surcharge and every boat could become a trader and use Red, then the EEC would then have to spend several years making up some new laws just to punish the UK. .............Dave

That's right. I bought a narrowboat first time. Realised my mistake eventually.

We took our 50ft NB to Ireland and spent 2 years there. It was trucked from Calcutt to Salins on the grand canal and we wintered in Shannonharbour. Went north to Lough Erne one year and the next down the Barrow to Graignemanagh where we had great time. The big lakes can be scary in a narrowboat and it is necessary to watch the weather especially the wind strength but it’s a great country and the waterways and the Shannon lovely. As for the pubs enough said.

I know what goes on behind my closed doors, unfortunately what does go on is a lot less exciting than it was in my slightly wild youth

The K&A is very much a "Marmite" canal and the only way to find out which side you are on is to visit and arrive with an open mind. We are ere now, used to spend winters here lots but been up North and returned for a summer visit. Full of apprehension after reports that it had got even busier and had far more non-boater liveaboards but its still great, in fact better than ever. A few two many big shinny widebeams, one or two moored in silly places, was the only issue for me. The re-opened Barge Inn was quite a highlight. ............Dave

I’ve scanned it and don’t believe there’s anything in that which isn’t already understood on these boards. I also note that at no point do they refer to ‘power’.

Power is amps multiplied by volts. A cell (often incorrectly called a battery, which is 2 or more cells wired together) consist of an anode and a cathode immersed in an electrolyte. There is a potential difference between the anode and cathode and if you connect a load between the anode and cathode a current will flow. Assuming that the load is appropriately sized there will be a potential difference (voltage) across the load and a current (Amps) will flow. So the power supplied by the cell to the load can be calculated.

This one just struck me as I walked past the boat moored in front of me. (It's a forum member's boat.)

Boat came new with autochangover as standard. Advantage is that the gas never runs out - eg when it is dark, snowing or pouring with rain and blowing a hooley. Therefore not useless. If you are very poor then I suppose you may not be able to afford one. Remind me to gift you a spare candle next time I see you - I am into chariteee. Advising someone to rip it out when they already have one is not helpful. We don’t have a bowthruster.

As I 'read it' the main problem will be that Red is unlikely to be still available on the canals. No one will put in extra infrastructure and double up everything, they will simply drain and clean their existing system and sell only 'white'. Mind you tho, you can still buy red in barrels delivered to the boat, but Kero is a lot cheaper.

Ditto -- well said. The only trouble is ... the gas bottle always needs changing over on a cold and wet night. That's still better than finding out on a cold and wet night that you have two empty gas bottles, though!

I believe the main problem as I heard it is that if you put the word Google into the internet it breaks it. I was thinking of Googling that first but didn't want to risk it.

Was the Watt meter calibrated?

I always used to do before we lived aboard. At worst, it can't do any harm. I would fire it up a couple of times over winter to chuck some oil around. A few k for an engine compared to 30 quid or so for an oil and filter.

Aye lad - but you couldn't get bacon butties !!! Fourteen years of food rationing in Britain ended at midnight on 4 July 1954, when restrictions on the sale and purchase of meat and bacon were lifted. This happened nine years after the end of the war.

Canal open. 2pm.

It would take ages (or not be possible at all) if the owners weren't there to unlock the fuel cap.

Probably not. Though whether they got through the lock, or were eaten by the locals, is another matter.

He's not a random bod. He's a moderator. Rightly or wrongly, that makes people more likely to trust his advice.

We also put a hole in the bottom of them to let the water out.

Going upstream that bridge is slightly higher on the right hand side, cos the railways gradient is slightly uphill all the way to B.Stortford more or less following the river.

I have a rechargeable LED torch with various brightness settings and rarely go boating without it. Not only a backup tunnel lamp (magnetic, so just place it on the steel facing forwards to suit the steerer), but good for walking a dark towpath or seeing into odd corners of a boat, or when under working boat covers in the dark.

Having as a boat that had never had a headlight fitted (no, I don’t know why either), it might be best to go down the route of a removable LED lamp. Low power demand, coupled with a rechargeable battery and problem solved without any wiring.

How many peeps got killed or badly injured per year in canal engineering before the advent of mandatory hard hats, Vs how many after?

Yes, that is the kind of thing.

Remember that if you do not keep your batteries fully charged for most of the time sulphation will kill expensive ones as fast as cheap ones. If you can't guarantee a high state of charge then you might be better off with cheaper batteries and accept batteries are consumable items.

Yes, bet its on the exhaust manifold or thermostat housing. I think that you may have an automotive temperature thermostat in the engine (82 to 88C) but as long as the coolant does not boil it should be fine. What may not be fine is when you get close to boiling water out of the hot taps. Either fit a thermostatic mixing valve to the hot domestic supply or a lower temperature engine thermostat.

Incredable. how they plan to even start montioring this i do not know. Assume it will be down to the resellers rather than the boaters. I get red diesel for free as sell plant and machinery for a living so just take a bit from the machines. I wont be stopping that

Yep we should copy the frogs pay lip service and carry on as is .....

It is convention to have one. If you get a short it can be dumping 100's of amps. Many years ago I had an 'engine fire' - long story short - the lifting eye from the top of the engine fell / broke / vibrated off and fell down onto the starter motor and getting jammed between the + terminal and the engine block. It melted everything before I could get to the battery terminals to disconnect it. Safety devices are for the odd occasion when you need them. Switching off the starter battery isolator mans you can safely work on the engine without risk of someone coming along and turning the key when you have your fingers in a vulnerable position.

For a comparatively new poster here (welcome) you have very much the right attitude, and I'm in total agreement with you. There are far more important things in life than,"Am I first in the queue?", this is an attitude carried over from driving on roads where if anyone 'pushes in' in front of you it is taken as a personal slight and must be reacted to. On the canals I am in no rush to get anywhere since, if I were, I wouldn't be in a boat, if it is important to someone to go first as far as I'm concerned, let them get on with it.

We have lived on and off in that area since 1987. We moor about a mile away. It is as safe as anywhere you can find. Long length of piling on calcutt side of boat inn bridge. Many people live/ leave boats. never had trouble apart from one other boat a long time ago, and he is long gone.

Yet another example of someone trying to buy a boat thinking boats are a cheap way of living and solving the expenses of more conventional housing. why don't we have a pinned response pointing out the realities of boating life and boat purchase, to avoid the need to repeatedly respond to unrealistic posts. Howard

Having used the double glazing film successfully last winter, I ordered some cut to size acrylic sheet last week. It arrived today, which was fortunate, as it was very cold here last night and the windows were covered with condensation this morning. I had also ordered self adhesive magnetic seal, to attach the acrylic to the frames and started fitting at 5.30 this evening,. The windows are all aproximately 1200x600mm, with flat wooden surrounds, typical of most modern fitouts. I removed the hoppers, although the opening glasses would be self supporting on the frame if I needed to open any. My wife and I cleaned the windows thoroughly, and sealed the drainage holes with sealastic, then sprinkled some silica gel crystals from Wilkinsons into the channels, to absorb any moisture between the frames. We then stuck one half of the self adhesive magnetic seal tape to the outer edges of one of the sheets, making sure there were no gaps. The other half of the tape was then magnetically attached to the stuck tape, again allowing no gaps. We then peeled off the backing from the adhesive side and, after lining the sheet up carefully, pushed the sheet against the wooden frame, pressing it down hard all the way round. We had the whole job, seven windows, finished by 8.30. Because the acrylic is glass clear and 3mm thick, it looks just like glass. We also used brown magnetic seal, which is far less obvious than white. The acrylic should also be a better thermal insulator than the film was, can be cleaned very easily and can be lifted off in seconds if required. Because it is attached to the wooden window surrounds, it also stops condensation on the aluminium window frames and the air gap is a good sound insulator. We may trim arround the edge with a wood strip, but it does look pretty neat already and is a vast improvement over the film. As all the sheets are the same size and only 4.5mm thick including the seal, they will all stack only 30mm deep behind the sofa for summer storage and of course are infinitely reuseable, taking only seconds to refit. The whole lot was only £222.97 including delivery, which I think is peanuts for years of repeated use. If anyone wants a picture of a finished window or any info on an acrylic supplier, I'd be glad to post. Roger