Clarissa

Thanks for referring the Windy Smithy web site, wonders there for sure, beautiful little travellers stoves and the Towavardo, with simple rustic interior, just inspirational. If I was fitting out a boat I would choose the Towavardo style through and through. I thank you, "Drunkensailor" for showing me Windy Smithy.

People use fire cement to join the flue to the stove and with boats everything's moving as well as temperature changes when the flue heats up and expands lengthways by several millimetres, so then a huge compression forces the stove downwards onto it's plinth and something has to go. Better have spaces for expansion, don't cement the flue solidly in place and use sealers such as fiberglass fire rope combined with high temperature mastic to bed the flue inand seal joins. I've never had a stove crack and I use cheap ones made of really light cast iron, pot belly stoves for example, which by rights should not last more than a Winter or two.

Godin factory do tours for the public, it is in the North between Lille and Boulogne (a bit vague there), but google Godin and I'm sure they will be there. The usual thing prices in UK same figure as in France but one is in pounds sterling and t'other's in Euros so much cheaper in France. Many households in Northern France use wood burners and so good supplies of all stuff related, such as "BricoMart", a "B&Q" equivalent, have stoves, flues, chimney caps that revolve in the wind, fuels, high temp. mastics, fire cement and pokers galore. Also French car boot sales are called Vide Grenier - trans. Empty Loft, and often there are wood burners for sale. Newsagents have adverts for burning logs rwady cut and seasoned, sold by the "stere" which is a cubic metre. Prices range between 30 to 100 euros per stere, depending whether freshly cut pine - trans. sapine logs or seasoned oak - trans. chene, or birch trans. charme. There are many hardwood forests in Northern France.

Cut the steel pipe you use as a chimney at a forty five degree angle and weld the two parts back together with a 180 degree revolution so you get a ninety degree elbow. Cut it with a grinder, going around and around stroking the pipe neatly until it is severed. Get it welded by someone if you can't. When you buy a "flue" or a "chimney" what you get is steel pipe, nothing glamourous. Godins are heavy, but probably not more than other full size solid fuel stoves. I knew a friend with a Godin in a boat, it was a cylindrical upright model with ornate enamelling work and very hot but ticked over nicely at low heat too when shut down. I do prefer a window or opening port to be able to see some flickering flame which is a major part of running and enjoying a solid fuel stove. The overall best solid fuel stove always seems to come down to the Morso Squirrell but I like the Boatman better personally because it is ,ore compact and much lighter.

As a confirmed anchor <grin> I second what's been said by Keeping Up, and the others here. One of my own is have something to get into if the boat sinks, just a blow up kids dinghy on the roof or summat. Otherwise don't let the whole tension of going tidal wind you up, if a complete anchor like me can get away with it over 16 years there can't be anything too bad in it. Personally I find the added heartbeats of tidal waters is what makes it more enjoyable. Yachties argue endlessly about the best type of anchor, I would guess a delta, Danforth type for muddy, weedy estuary with strong tide. Plough, or CQR is what I have but they do pull through mud, or plough thereselves along in heavy wind or current and weed can wrap on the hook and make it useless. Be very careful with the rope and chain when you drop the anchor as the pull of a heavy ship as the anchor bites can do terrible damage aboard as the ship swings to the anchor and the rope sweeps across the deck. Mostly, ignore the horror films in your imagination depicting what tidal waters are going to be like, they are just waters with currents, enjoy the rippling power, be part of it, Cap'n.

Wass one of dem, Bottle? <grin>

Mind the windows behind,... Oh no, they're gonna sue. Were you using raisins, not real grape shot, OK...

You're right, the heat is not where the card is but further towards the middle of the laptop. What it must be is I use the laptop for hours on end with the WiFi card whereas I only did an hour or two before, so now it's heating up more (with all the Canal World forum hot air going through it ).

I'm some boaty character, wanna hire me? I tell tales of running aground in crocodile infested waters and play a really bad saxophone, no, not BAD as in GOOD, I mean really bad.

http://www.selectronic.fr/ have tricolour navigation lights (white all round in a red, green, white sectored housing for the top of sailing yachts masts ) as well as fore and aft navigation and interior cabin lamps, made of sets of LED's. The tricolour appeared on the market a few years ago at around 250 quid (350 euros) and selectronic sell them, postal, for about thirty five quid (45 euros). I use two cabin lamps when under way which each contain four LED's, they use 0.005 amps (5 milliamps) per unit and do not flicker like flourescent tubes. They are a funny cold blue but intense enough for reading. They were 25 quid each (35 euros) but that was four years ago and LED 12 volt lighting is everywhere now, in cars,, cycle lamps, torches, etc. People (shopkeepers) don't realise the price is plunging and availability is spreading widely, so they still try to sell old stock at extortionate prices - an LED torch, with an array of twenty, so nice and bright, with rechargeable battery, but a price of 110 quid (150 euros). I am sure I heard RS Electronics, or Maplin were selling 12 Volt LED's.. If so, then string 'em around everything, they use little power and last ten or twenty years. Me, I love 'em.

I agree, the WiFi PCMCIA card in my laptop gets pretty hot and a TV card would likely be the same. A USB connection puts the active electronics away from the insides of the laptop and will keep everything cooler. Also the antenna at the end of a PCMCIA card (both WiFi and TV) is limited in position whereas a USB connection enables the active antennae to be raised higher or nearer a window. Sometimes I can speed up the WiFi connection by ten percent just by lifting the laptop up a foot or two.

Gripping read, thanks for sharing that, I lived it in my imagination. Difficult, really difficult. These experiences show how difficult the inland waterways can be at times. The attitude of those apartment dwellers is incredible, I can't believe such narrow minded selfishness. Another world, another world. Rather be a bridge hopper than someone like that. Ha, ha, ha, and he, he, he, brilliant! Run a Jolly Roger up there too.

Buy a little cheap boat anyway and then put a wood burner in it and Bob's yer uncle - true happiness. Listen, I went from a small cheap boat to a bigger one which fitted my dreams. having explored my dreams I now hanker after the joy of that little one again. It's OK 'cos the bigger one is only eight metres anywhow so it still fits the bill for cheap little boat. And it has a chimney so I spend much of the cold months scheming and designing self build wood burners and by the time the design feels right it's Spring again. And so life carries on. A French person with a boat smaller than mine commented on the small size, saying "Ah, she is little...", the refrain came easily, "Yes, small boat, big dreams". The French sailor seemed to comprehend exactly the meaning of that answer. I could tell by her smile. Now I'm gong to paste this comment into my blog Sea Green Ribbons because I think anything that points the way to human happiness is worth saying more than once. A boat is not a house, it is a container of dreams. We can live in a boat but let's not domesticate our dreams with too much storage space and freezers and television and electric toothbrushes. I'd better not aggravate the big boaters too much, but I saw a little cylindrical wood burner, circa 1930's (in an antiques warehouse) for eighteen quid but didn't buy it because it was too tiny and anyway, it was enough to know I could fit it, having a chimney in place, but it sure did give me pleasure in finding it and assessing the potential as a new burner aboard in comparison with the various ideas I'd sketched out on paper and been pondering over the Winter months. Small boats are more fun and the wood stove you never quite find is the best one - both are as much the dream as the reality. Now, tell me I'm off the wall and I'll agree wholeheartedly. Tell me I'm discontent and I'll laugh my head off.