DandV

We have Origo meths 2 burner stove on Waitangi a 125 year old restored racing yacht as a safer alternative to LPG, and also the difficulty in providing compliant LPG bottle storage on board. It is a nice bit of kit, but it does have a much lower heat output for the same sized burner, dimensions, then an LPG stove. Boiling a kettle is a much more leisurely affair, and it requires frequent refills. If you have a compliant storage compartment and compliant pipework then lpg is in my experience of both, better.

You have an austerity government stepping away from spending on the elderly, and infirm, and those unable to pay their own way, instead they are saying that this role should be increasingly passed over to charities. Charities that they then systematically and increasingly under resourced. The result is inadequate care, caregiver burn out and premature descent into decrepitude and demise. And that is with people. So unless there is a radical change in government direction, it is unrealistic then to expect them adequately resource the care of elderly and infirm infrastructure and structures, that are not paying their way, such as the waterways and canals, any better. Expect instead a reduction in government resources to the administering charity, caregiver staff burn out, and more descent into decrepitude and towards demise. Blaming the caregivers for these failings is missing the point.

I generally aimed to get the boat stopped bow in first to let the crew off with the bow line and get them to take a half turn around a bollard or ring back towards the stern and then take the boat forward under minimum power using the bow line as a spring whilst turning the stern in and calling for the bowline to be adjusted for length to suit the gap or ring placement. Once along side centre line or stern line next and finally reset the bow line forward. But many times wind and current and other excuses would mean plan A would be replaced by plan B just before Val could get ashore so Val would be summonsed to the stern to take the centre line ashore and mooring would follow the stern first regime. The advantage of plan A is that with a spring in place you can use engine power to overcome the fiercest of winds and plan B is still available for a missed approach but the orders are not easily reversible.

Is this just not another result of an austerity government not providing any where near enough resources to the care givers, to look after the elderly and infirm, in this case heritage structures, and as a result losing them to premature systemic failure?

Please let the forum know when you have bought a boat, and which one. And most importantly enjoy your companions, your boat, the canals and rivers, other boaters, other waterway users, cwf members and the weather, listed in increasing order of variability, hopefully!

Well at least clothing.

Economics, regulation and societal peer pressure, like smoking cessation.

I worked it out that a NZ return economy flight used about 2tonne of fuel per person. Narrow boating for six months used about 0.7 of a tonne for the two of us.

Havn't quite got to ceasing pleasure flying but certainly reducing our carbon footprint was a factor in selling our canal boat on your side of the world reducing our air mile accumulation down to near zero. Bought a car with the proceeds, it needs it's second refuel this year!

Agree changes need to happen urgently, therefore it is necessary as a society and as individuals to urgently identify where the biggest displacements of fossil fuel use can be easily acheived and get them underway now. Push for more electrification of railway lines and better public transport to reduce private car use. Push for and take advantage of incentives to install solar and improve housing energy efficiency. There are even a lot of small things that canal boaters can get underway with now, short of scrapping your existing diesel donk, that will make a worthwhile difference. Target using less diesel each year then the year before by more solar panels, travelling slower and reducing cruising range. Sure when your existing engine needs replacement evaluate greener options, the options will rapidly improve as a result of market and regulatory pressures.

If you are seriously in the market for buying or selling a boat a very informative question to ask of a broker whilst on their premises with them and looking at their details of recently sold boats, preferably boats of a similar specification to yours, of what you are interested in buying is. "What was the actual selling price?" We had some who declined to answer, fair enough, but In the case of Rugby Boats under it's current owners, our experience, when we were on their premises, was that they were both forthcoming in answering, and that the split between asking and selling prices was remarkably small. The way that question was answered was a major factor in our selection of them to broker the sale of our boat. Our experience too on selling, was a prompt sale at very close to listed price , even though we had had initial misgivings that perhaps the suggested listed price was quite ambitious.