gary955

If you fancy the western end of the K&A I could do you a narrowboat, flat and mooring as a package!!

That ones been for sale for a couple of years to my knowlege. thats the first time i'd seen pictures of the interiour though. Pretty isn't she? but sadly beyond my budget

it's not an inland vessel. Nor is it a converted tug, although funnily enough a converted tug was what I most wanted when I first started to think about a wide boat a couple of years ago. i went to Holland (where they love their tugs) to view some but found that almost invairably the interiour space was compromised by the hull shape and massive engine room. Sleepboot Willem was the one that came closest to stealing my heart, google it, she's lovely and although not actively for sale, the owner would part with her if offered some hard cash.

Yes that's my intention, and I'm making a start. The RYA basic seamanship and navigation course makes it all seem pretty straight forward and simple, but the storys in the bundle of Practical Boat Owner, that I was given, make it seem terrifyingly duanting!!! Perhaps the Severn Estuary is not the most benign stretch of water to learn on so I'll be taking it slowly and treating the lumpy stuff with extreme caution. In the meantime i'd like to get used to handling the boat on a large inland waterway so the G&S and river Severn seem ideal.

There's no problem with it being C&RT, I just meant that they publish their vacancy's and none suitable were currently available. A look at the completed auctions that attracted no bidders though, makes me think that it might be worth giving them a ring. Lydney harbour looks nice, and seem almost unbelievably cheap! but I lack any experience of venturing out of inland waterways and would like to moor where i could do some cruising.

The floating harbour is not too dear but has a long waiting list i think. I'm sure the Bristol Avon, although tidal in spring tides, is not drying upstream of Bristol (I'd be amazed if there were any moorings downstream) There may be room at Portishead but although the boat is more than capable of the Severn estuary, unfortunatly I (as yet) am not! Gloucester Docks would be nice but I think that may be the C&RT and there are no vacancies on the website. I'm not familiar with the Old Dock Arm, wher's that? Thanks. the 14.5m one at Patch Bridge would be long enough and an on line mooring would be nice, but I thought, when I'd looked before that it was too shallow. I'll enquire about Monks Meadow

G&S is closest deep water canal to bristol, where I work.

Hi. I'm thinking of a new boat Any tips for a long term mooring on the Glous and Sharpness for a boat with a beam of 4m and a draft of 1.5m? Edited to wonder if the Bristol Avon might be deep enough?

You'll find that I never jump on bandwagons. it was a tongue in cheek comment based on my perception of her on-line persona. I dont think she'd have taken offence.

I've rushed over to this thread fully expecting Phylis to be shown to be a scoundrel and a filthy bet welsher! Nobody would enjoy that more than me. Unfortunatly she's right. She won her bet, although it was a close run thing i think it's fair to define "arrived" as being safetly tied up and she owes not one penny. I wonder how many of us would pay out on such a substantial bet so flippantly made if we'd lost. Not many I'd wager. Would Phylis have paid out if she'd lost? I've really no idea, but for some reason her final sentence of post#44 where she acknowleges that the bet is on but says "stay safe" makes me wonder if perhaps she might have.

I can fit a three litre casserole into the oven of my Epping stove in the back cabin. It has a hot plate over the firebox and a simmering plate over the oven, if you take the top plate off the firebox then you can stir-fry over the open flame. It feels good to cook on it even though it's less convenient than the gas hob.............dont know why!

It seems to be my weekend for fishing things out of the canal. Car keys on saturday morning.....Small boy on sunday afternoon!!!! He must of plopped in while feeding the ducks. His pals reacted impecably, two of them held him by the hands (but were unable to haul him out) while a third ran at breakneck speed to get help, which happened to be me! I yanked the soggy (and sobbing) little mite out and re-united him with his mum a few yards away in the pub. Thinking about it afterwards I wish I'd advised her to check him over for cuts and grazes and maybe get him a tetinis jab if there were any.

I managed to drop my only car key in the cut this morning. Being one of those posh german cars, the replacement cost is in the region of an eye watering £400!! Fishing about with a magnet failed to retrieve it but dredging the silty bottom with a borrowed landing net managed to catch it after about half an hour, along with a goodly number of fat fresh water mussels. Amazingly the key still worked and when I took it apart there was no sign of water penetration. It's clearly my lucky day so I've bought a lottery ticket........but is eating the mussels pushing my luck too far?

Every year i have to buy a new chimney because the old one has rotted out! This years 24" model has a reverse tapered inner skin, tapering from a little over 5" at the top to just 3.5" at the bottom! is this normal? it seems like it might choke the whole flue. Assuming that the chimney is OK, would it help the draw (and perhaps offer some protection against corrosion) to pack the cavity between the inner and outer skins with rockwool and cap off with high temp silicon? Where can you buy small quantities of rockwool? Thanks in advance for the ever helpfull replies. P.S I dont want a stainless steel chimney!

all times of day and night

Many many months ago my broadband speed with Three's One Plan used to vary between 4 and 7 mbs on my mooring at the Widbrook end of BOA. Now it's between 0.5 and 1mbs and sometimes zero! A call to customer services about 3 months ago revealed that they were aware of the problem and were hoping to improve it, but if anything it's getting worse. Anyone else noticed the deterioration and know the reasons for it and when/if it might improve?

Having finaly got round to removing the leaky porthole in my back cabin roof, I've found a mess of badly corroded and pitted steel. I've ground out the worst and got the pitting clean with a rotary wire brush, ready to treat with jenolite. The question is.....Do I prime the steel before fairing it smooth with P38 and then paint it. Or apply the P38 to bare steel before priming and painting. The opinion of the forum is appeciated

Thanks for your input. I think perhaps you sell, fit and service heaters for a living so I appreciate you giving your advice freely. Do I understand correctly that a thermo top C might be W bus or non W bus? If so how do I recognise a non W bus model? I'm presuming that the ECU's that you have are non W bus? Does that mean that you can convert a W bus model to non Wbus operation? If so at what cost? Are you in Glous? that's not too far from me perhaps if you PM me a phone number it might be easier to talk on the phone. Edited to thank Chalky as well but the re-programming stuff has gone right over my head so I think it's best for me to keep it simple Ahhh Edited again to notice that NMEA is in London not Glous

Ahh it seems like a thermo top C would be the easier option then, but if an automotive one runs at a lower temperature does it's relative simplicity in comparison to a V mean that it cannot be re programmed to run hotter? Hmmmm edited to ponder that perhaps the automotive unit actually runs hotter than the marine unit?

Whoops! Sorry. The one I have is just a bi-mettalic switch. I assumed that it was typical

Yes the car one's run a higher voltage. i think thats to stop the heater draining the battery of a car below cranking voltage. My batterys are always well charged and would be close to the heater unit so I dont think that would be a problem.

Yes i think so, it's just a switch