Bob Blues

Passed through Cowley Lock yesterday and Locked Up with a BW (sorry CART) gent. Asked about the dredging to which he said, It will be slow as they cant disturb any nest. Last chap who did got reported to the police and prosecuted. He reckons about 4 weeks but I guess it will be central navigation only Bob

Paul, This forum is nearly as nasty as the Pilots PPL/IR forum. On this forum the rules go like this, Use the Search, which will generally return masses of irrelevant posts. Spend a few hrs going through the returned posts with no answer. Ask your Question and try to be polite as possible. You will get a short and mean reply, saying “search the forum”. Ignore it. The posts after will be about your topic and generally good natured and informative and helpful. By post 6 the forum will have descended into a general off topic slanging match with mindless people hiding behind anonymity threating all sorts of mischief if they ever find you adding no assistance help to your original question. Ignore it and put them on the ignore list. Respond to the first/second helpful answer by PM. Never post another message in that thread with the attempt of trying to bring it back to the original topic. Bob

I have a B3 Hammond and Leslie on my NB along with a 24 Track studio along with Studio monitors and a load of ancillary gear. I posted a pic on here when I first set it up http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?app=galleryℑ=4099 a few years ago. Ive sold the rack of 3 in the background and changed the XK3 to a B3 but everything else is good. I found that I can get 5 hrs of production work off my batteries and the peace of being on the cut helps with the thought process. I also do 3 radio shows a week from the boat specializing in Blues. If you have something Blusey then send me a PM and I'll get it sent over. I get about 20k downloads a week from all over the world. I also have worked on a few albums, which are sent over and then I import them into the studio record my Hammond then send it back Works great. Have fun. If you are in Rickmansworth for the Canal Festival on 16-18 may. I'll be out with the Millionairs (ska) at the closing event on the Sunday. Bob

Not on a canal but worth a visit if you are around Summerset.I was there last weekend... Hic! Bayford, near Wincanton, ciderfest at The Unicorn (CAMRA'S Heart of Wessex cider inn of 2014) 25th-27th April... Burrowhill cider Medium 6.0% abv Blackdragon cider 7.2% + Dog Dancer Med Dry 6.5% Ben Crossman Cider 6.5% Bridge Farm Single Variety Browns + Vintage 6.5% + 9.0abv old Fashion one for the Die Hards. Bennett's Cider 6.0% Dry Countryman Cider scrumpy Dry 6.0% Cheddar Valley 6.0% Medium Chant Cider Badger's Spit 7.0% Naish Cider 7.5% Goldrush cider Single Variety not sure on the Strength. Grey's Cider Med/Sweet Green Valley Rum Tiddley Tum 8.3% Vintage Dry + Medium Heritage cider 4.5% medium Heck,s Kingston Black, Stoke Red, Porter's Perfection 6.5% 7.2% 6.8% Med, Very Dry, Dry King Brain Organic 6.0% Dry New Forest Cider snakecatcher 6.8% Marshwood Vale Dorset Tit Medium 7.2% Tom Putt Dry 6.5% Parsons Choice Sweet 6.2% Palmerhayes Cider Medium + Dry 5.8% Rich's Legbender6.0% Sheppy's Cider 6.0% Slack Alice 4.6% Torre Cider Tornado Good 8.4% Wilkin's Sweet + Dry 6.0% Also Real Perry Hendre Huffcap or Blakeney Red Wilcox's Cider Med/Dry Westons Old Rosie 7.3% Rosies Pig 4.8% Wiscombe Suicider 8.0% Winkleigh Cider Sams 6.2% Tanpitts Cider 7.5% Straw Press

If you are thinking about coming along in May this year, you can book on line at http://www.rwtbooking.com/ Information about the festival is at http://www.rwt.org.uk/news/35/festival-2014 Bob

Pulls up sandbag and swings the lamp. When I was in the Army I was artic trained and we use to go to Norway every year and we had something called Naphtha which has a boiling point of 30C (light Naphtha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naphtha ) We used it for cooking when we were out in the ooloo (oo-loo) [wild] as it didn’t freeze. The heat from your hands was enough to expand the liquid to get a stove going. However as one person found you could drink it and get pissed very quickly especially if you mixed it with Orange! I never tried but a few of my Idiot friends did. I can still see others Im not sure about Bob

I have servers at Fasthosts for the radio network and all if my streams are down too. Eventual I got through to them and they confirm they had a power outage at 8 AM this morning. Although they have standby generators which kicked in protecting the servers, a lot of the network infrastructure wasn't under this control. So some of the network routing and ancillary equipment like support servers wasn't protected. The are hoping for end of Play today for a full service. My virtual servers are up but I cant ssh into them and they need power cycling. I do have some back-doors put into my servers but as yet I cant get to them as the network is down. I think they are only n+1 on power unlike Sungard or Rackspace which are 2N minimum. You get what you pay for. I get unlimited bandwidth and a virtual server for £40 a month. Sungard charge £5313 pa for 1KW power/cooling and £600 perm Mb for Bandwidth. (I was a Solution Architect for them)..

that was for Somerset. I guess she just took the local delivery as normal. Bob

For what it is worth, My view on this is that a Diesel engine although more efficient than a Petrol can only achieve 25-30% efficiency. The new BMW engines are claimed to be 34% but a old NB engine will never be more than 20%. The rest going to heat etc. So, Bearing this in mind and the time actually spent moving compared to idling whilst waiting for locks, chatting, enjoying a pint whilst the engine charges etc, means that the time spent propulsion and with the efficiency figures I claim between 15% and 20% depending on how long I cruse for. Never more than 20%. and 0% when I'm moored up the the winter. Bob My GF just had 1500 lts of heating oil delivered to her house it was 69p ltr including vat. Time to take some Jerrycans down I think Smells like Diesel.

thanks, Did CaRT complete the dredging I know it was held off after being promised earlier this year Bob

Wotcher, Does anyone have an update to the Slough Arm dredging or how serviceable it is now? I have been wanting to cruse for a year or so but has always been told its very difficult to navigate. Then I heard that the CaRT were dredging it. Bob

Harefield marina south of Rickmasworth Marina is one that doesn't require a waterways license but it's not residential. There are many boats here that were last licensed in 2004 and have never moved since. I know Phill sells weekly licenses if you want to go out. Not sure how long this will carry on for as I think CART want to stop it but as far as I see it, an Unlicensed marina you need to get day/ week passes to be legal Bob

Thanks Steve, I guess I am slightly pissed by the Big Boy bully tactics of CART. Of course I would like to see them get their comeuppance but I cant afford it and I could do I really want to take them on single handed. I do intend to get a copy of the two parliament acts just to see where their powers extend to. The only thing is, If they dont have powers to enforce No-return then I think they equally don't have the powers to push this roving permit as there is no legal standing to enforce it. This was quite clear in the removed section 18. But you are closer to the Powers than I so, I will let you the rest of the excellent team discuss it all with CART. Warmest Regards, Bob

Hello John, Thank you for your reply. I do intend to but from information received by other people about asking CART for legal requests they seem to go unheard and making a request under the freedom of information act CART go very quiet and as mentioned in the article on NBW they have not responded to NABO who have issued a complain. I course there is the social media route FB Twitter etc but that seems to get CART all worked up. I just though as you were going to see them first hand you might ask on our behalf. Bob

Morning all, Firstly Thanks you to all for the hard work you are putting in on this. I have a question if you can put to Sally or indeed anyone from Cart when you meet them next. I was looking through Narrowboat world and there was a piece about no return and they are suggesting CART have no legal powers to impose No return or specifying periods when you can moor It mentions Section 42 of the 1962 British waterways act and then later the removal of section 18 from the 1995 act which explicitly mentioned no return. Please forgive the cut and paste: Bill that specifically gave it power to prohibit or control mooring. Section 18 of the Bill states:- No person shall moor or leave a vessel in contravention of a notice prominently displayed by the board in or beside any inland waterway (a) prohibiting the mooring of all vessels, or of vessels other than the kind of vessel or vessels specified in the notice, on any part of the inland waterway so specified; or ( making requirements as to the manner in which vessels are to be moored in the part of the inland waterway so specified and (without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing) the means by which vessels are to be fastened or secured; or © specifying the maximum period, hours of the day or night, or days of the week, during which mooring (whether of all vessels, or of vessels of a kind or kinds specified in the notice) is permitted or prohibited, as the case may be. The whole section was removed from the 1995 act so Where does CART get the legal powers to impose the mooring restrictions. The link: http://www.narrowboatworld.com/index.php/news-flash/5883-cart-refused-powers (it here there but its not in the index so NBW may have been asked to remove reference to it). If this article is correct and I have to say it was on NBW so I take it with some degree of caution it seems like this whole restriction episode is a waste of time as CART have no legal powers to enforce it. Of course they could site the case they won about the CM on the Kennett, but IMHO I think think this is different. So, I will get a copy of the 1962 and the 1995 acts so I can evaluate for my self before taking further action. But I'm up for a fight and CART have walked into my ring. I apologize if this has been debated on here before. Warmest Regards Bob

Well it’s me and the Dog and a B3 Hammond, Leslie, various guitars and other recording studio stuff on a 55 ft boat. Typical layout I think: Bedroom, bathroom, Dinette and kitchen so, that’s about it. Boat lists a bit and I have lots of wood and a pushbike on roof. Still got loads of space... GF wants to move aboard, I think I can squeeze her in... er.... Bob

I use to build gaming computers and the last one I built ran at 600w idle and had a 1300w power supply. Two Video cards with twin processors each along with over clocked memory and CPU and water coolers eat up a lot of power…. I tried running it on the boat one evening the battery power didn’t last long and that is running with 3 250gb SSD disk in Raid0 instead of mechanical ones. I run a mac pro book now with a SSD I think I’m down to 17 W. Do you need to run an iMac? I know the power requirements have come down but a 15inch retina screen quad processor pro book looks good value and the battery lasts hrs compared to a PC laptop. Or at a push a quad 15 inch pro book with an external 24 inch monitor. I think my dell 2407wfp uses 60w I can run the setup on a 150 w inverter saving me putting on the old Mastervolt inverter.. (I’m sure that thing leaks lol) Bob

Ooops Yes 18,000

When I had the Oil changed in my Volvo (estate) they told me they would use a long life Oil which had a life of 180000 miles. I think it was about £5 a ltr, Is this suitable for Marine engines (BMC and Isuzu And most modern engines). Bob

If I can get Solar boat to respond I'll start collecting the equipment. I was looking at High Voltage Solar Units and a 80A Mppt controller with 900A batteries. I managed to get a quote for batteries and they were a lot cheaper than Solar Boat. I'm looking at getting the guess Motor and control panel from Solar Boat and the rest sourced from other places. Looking to get a 1500 + for my engine so that will bring the total price down. I'll think about blogging never good with all that. LOL Bob B

Hello, I have been seriously considering converting my boat to Solar and have been trying to contact the Solar Boat Co for several weeks for prices and design specs but they are not answering mails and there is no phone number on their site. Their site has been changed recently and the prices page has been removed and it looks like they are no longer doing the conversion work I see it is AGNI 48V traction motor and they seem easy to get and the 48V Inverter charger also seems to be easy to get hold of. With the drop of price of High Voltage Solar panels I will take the plunge. Does anyone have a phone no or a contact or any detailed kit list. Regards Bob B

I have just got a Lurcher who lives with me on my 55ft trad, a very nice dog from a Vet friend who found her abandoned, apart from the fact she wants to jump off every time we pull up at a lock she appears to love it . (and me  ) A point to note. Dogs Trust discriminate against Boaters and will not let you have one if you want a rescue dog. I heard Battersea dogs Home do the same. Typical Move on to a boat and get discriminated against

I have the same thing, Just about to purchase a new panel of a different make. I was under the understanding that the MPPT controller was in fact an intelligent DC/DC converter, so as it dropped the voltage is upped the current like a AC transformer. So driving it at 40 V would in fact drop the voltage to 13.5V at the same time increasing the output Current in the process. Is this a correct assumption?