Joshua

I can't see how any one could argue that Welch has brought enlightenment to this issue but I think he should be given the opportunity to try. I have no doubt that what Welch said, would have heartened many people and had them reaching for their pitch forks, but it is relatively easy to whip up a mob, all you need is a lot of ill informed people, tell them their home and family are under threat and point them towards the 'enemy'. I find it hard to believe that Welch (as an IWA regional chairman) is expressing a view totally at odds with his colleagues, it is hard to imagine that he does not discuss such important matters with those colleagues and that if they disagreed, someone wouldn't have said something along the lines of, "god almighty Vaughan, you can't say that, much less publish it". To paraphrase, part of what he said was; 'I encourage members to go out and gather evidence about all these spongers hiding in our West Midland waterways and report them to CRT'. Personally, I suspect Welch (and his colleagues) got carried away with the CRT's September briefing paper and their new public display of friendship, and thought the time was right to whip up a mob and declare war on a section of the boating fraternity that has annoyed them for a long time. They took careful aim, had a pop and missed, and now it is being suggested that it was all down to one individual who if he apologizes, everything will return to normal. I don't believe he is a lone voice and I don't think he should apologise. I think he should try to justify what he said and get his hitherto silent allies to stand up and be counted. If he fails to prove his point or demonstrate that it is representative of a large number of reasonable people (not a mob) then he should admit he is out of touch and abused his representative role to further an extreme prejudice and in the circumstances can not continue as a representative of the group as a whole. To avoid any doubt, I also believe there are some mooring problems on our network but they are complex and multifaceted not the single, simple issue that Welch sees. Patience, cool heads and everyone's cooperation is needed. I do think that the CRT are trying to resolve them and that they are being imaginative in their engagement with all types of boaters to find solutions. I believe that a mob witch hunt of a certain type of boater, would not only undermine that good work but is unjustifiable and morally indefensible.

Is there not an issue with the length of cables? Does a generator not need to be as near as possible to the battery bank?

Fair enough. If he does retract it, would your confidence in him as a competent representative, be fully restored?

Forget Jenlyn for a minute (sorry Jenlyn, no offence) I really am not trying to put you on the spot, but as a supporter of the IWA and a boater with a view. What do you think Welch could possibly apologise for that would make any difference? I expect he could do with some helpful suggestions.

It’s a bugger when the institution you unconditionally defend, let you down, but I’m surprised you think my question is unreasonable.

That's my point, how can it be sincere? What is he going to apologise for? Laurence Hogg had no doubt what Welch was saying and would quite rightly feel betrayed if Welch apologised. Edited for spelling

An apology would surely be hypocritical. If Welch believes what he said and given how strongly he presented those views, it is hard to draw any other conclusion, he should stick by them, step down as a representative of the CRT council and the IWA and join the rest of us where he will have the chance to try and get re-elected on the platform of his true views.

The detail in those pictures John, particularly the second, is exquisite, and what a superb lesson in the art of patience, seeing those is going to make even 4mph on the canals seem far too fast!

I am sure you will have read the thread before posting so will know that I certainly wouldn’t disagree. As for the “screaming” and suggestion that most narrowboats don’t have enough ventilation, unless the screaming is your own, there must be a parallel thread you are getting confused with. Of course, it is worth pointing out that whilst most narrowboats may well be designed with good ventilation, Julynian has nicely pointed out just how easy it is for an owner to circumvent (no pun intended) that design. To avoid any doubt, I am not suggesting Julynian, that your boat lacks adequate ventilation, even after your modifications, in fact, if you don’t have any condensation or dampness in your boat then I would argue that your ventilation must be perfect.

Within the norms of our real world and the temperatures we actually live in, the process of heat/expansion and rising dew point has a practical limit. Given the amount of water a single adult sweats just sitting still, the air on a boat that is not ventilated, even if you have it as hot as a sauna, will either condense into water on a cool surface or leave some of its moisture on all your ‘spongey’ soft furnishings. Of course, if you were cruising in an orbit close to the sun, in the vacuum of space then ……

Even if you hermetically seal the boat as Bottle suggests and have every single surface spray foam insulated, the water vapour that you introduce through sweat and your cooking/heating appliances will not be reduced one bit. All you are doing with insulation, is making sure that the relatively warm moist air, does not condense out onto a cold surface BEFORE you have time to VENTILATE it out of your boat. As Julynian admits, his windows still get covered in condensation, that is because the warm moist air in his boat is getting to the cold surface of the window, if it didn't condense there, it would do it somewhere else, most probably on all your soft furnishings, mattress etc. The only way to prevent or reduce condensation (other than avoiding introducing moisture in the first place) is to vent the warm moist air before it becomes saturated. Edited for spelling

I admire your imagination.

Where do you think all the humidity goes then? If you don’t vent it, your soft furnishings will have to soak it up instead, it has to go somewhere.

All this talk of art got me thinking, I have never really given the profile avatar thing much thought, now it struck me that I don't have one and maybe I should, et voila! The one I have chosen, the white dot, (see left) might seem a bit plain but I was inspired by all the snow we are having at the moment. Any way, I am going to change it each week so that it doesn't get boring, look out next week for a really nice white star that I am working on, I am drawing my inspiration for that one, from a painstaking examination of snow flakes.

Well done johnmuck, for coming clean. Your annoyance at not being able to get easily onto a lock landing in difficult conditions is understandable, unfortunately, your reaction to that annoyance and the assumptions you drew about a boat that was in your way, is exactly what Welchers feed off, we need to stop feeding them before they become a nuisance.

Nonsense. Cooling humid air inside the boat is exactly what causes the condensation, what has ‘equalising’ the air temperatures got to do with it? When you open the door to a boat full of condensation (ventilate it) it dries up because all the humid air is replaced with drier air from outside, warm humid air leaving the boat is ‘replaced’ by incoming air not cooled by it. A given volume of air can hold a given amount of water, if you cool the air it can hold less, when it reaches 100% saturation (dew point) it condenses into water.

Ventilation is the key to preventing condensation, the average adult sweats a couple of litres a day (a lot more if you exercise) and it has to go somewhere.

I agree with Chris. You can't really make comparisons without taking a lot of (difficult to measure) 'things' into consideration. I no longer have a car but spend 4 times as much on diesel. My boat and contents insurance is double that of my old house insurance and far less comprehensive. My electricity generation costs are way more expensive than when I had a house and yet I am 10 times more limited in the amount available to use. Although I don't have the expense of a car, over the course of a year, my public transport bill is just as expensive, for example it just cost me £700 on buses, trains and ferries, to visit my mother in France. As for my coal bill……. The point is, I will spend whatever I have to make my life as pleasant as possible and my life (broadly speaking) can only be as comfortable as the money I have to make it so, whether that is £5,000 a year or £50,000. For me, all of this is academic, I am very happy, happier than I was before I moved onto my boat. If my budget reduces I will cut my cloth accordingly, for example, to visit my mother I might have to leave my partner on the boat with the dog and hitch hike on my own. But, I love boats and I love being on them and I love moving them even more. The quickest and easiest way for the OP to lose a lot of money, is to buy a boat then realise he actually isn't happy living on one, it wont matter a dam how big or small his overheads are.

Me too, when I realised it wasn't, I got quite depressed. On the other hand, I think Welch has drawn attention to a very real problem. A LOT more residential boats lining its canals is just what Birmingham needs, they are, as Laurence Hogg I think was intimating, dead without them. Perhaps this should be added to the agenda for the forthcoming Birmingham meeting with CRT. The canals would have to be made a bit more inviting than the current tumble weeds, motorway fly-overs, passing trains and scruffy industrial units currently present. To attract people, it would probably need a small management team to coordinate with local employment agencies, schools and transport networks, do the London and K&A boaters have such organisers that could be called upon to investigate the Birmingham network, I am sure that CRT would be very supportive of such a move. I believe the Birmingham canals present great untapped potential for lots of on line residential moorings and as they are currently devoid of boats, VM's and popular pubs, they present a wonderful clean sheet providing the ideal opportunity to get them well organised from the start and avoid some of the problems that perhaps London suffers. It is well known that such boating communities, spark and then feed rapid urban regeneration, it's just what these canals are crying out for. It would be interesting to hear other views on how this might be achieved?

Thank you for that Richard, as a man interested in navigation, would you recommend that model, any annoying features, anything better?

Provided she can find her way back to the boat, it isn't absolutely necessary that she can find the centre of town but it would be nice! I am assuming plugging it into a laptop would be a quick and easy way of telling it where to take my girlfriend before bringing her back again. To be fair to my girlfriend, with town centre moorings being so naturally popular, we more often than not, have to moor out of town, so the journey into town is not always that straight forward. I'll check out the eTrex Mac compatibility. Edit to say: Advice coming in quicker than my reply, note lack of Mac compatibility

Oh god, please no, I appreciate your help but.. 'Smart' phones are the bane of our life and as soon as we can live without a G3 signal they will go (they are currently the cheapest option for keeping in touch with family in several different countries). Those clumsy, hit and miss touch screens and far, far, far, far too many idiotic functions make using them a dreaded experience. Attempting to select a function is like trying to pick a coin out of a basket full of snakes. The tiny screens are totally inappropriate for map reading and to run the mapping/GPS functions you have to allow the service provider access to your every move, a bit like wearing a criminals ankle bracelet. I like my privacy too much. No, we need a dedicated GPS and it doesn't need a map, Garmin do something called an e-Trex that looks appealing but I know so little about gps and the options and I don't think the E Trex works with Mac software. Basically, all it really needs is the electronic version of a ball of string that can be given some coordinates using a Mac and Google maps or the like.

My girlfriend and I CC, so every week or so is somewhere new. Problem is, my girlfriend has very little spacial awareness and is often nervous about getting lost when heading off into a new town on general scouting duties or walking the dog. Can someone recommend a really good personal handheld GPS that will solve this problem? Any software needs to work with Mac. It will be regularly and well used so robust , waterproof and rechargeable batteries are features that would be nice. Thanks.

During all the preparations for the rebirth of BW as a trust, I imagine a lot of time and money was spent with rebranding consultants and it would be inconceivable that someone didn't notice that 'Canal and River Trust', would be abbreviated as 'Cart'. They obviously knew that no one would use the full title in conversation. The only other possibility would be 'C.R.T' but even the briefest of surveys, say a quick whip round the boardroom table would, I am sure, have returned mostly, 'carts'. Thus, I assume they must be happy with the title. Although I originally felt it was a bit naff, I have grown to accept it. Personally, I find it a lot easier in conversation to say 'cart' than 'C.R.T.' and thus when writing, do the same as it mimics what I say. 'C.R.T.' has never tripped off the tongue. Corporations normally think long and hard about these things, because they know the public will say what comes natural to them, not what someone tells them to. Funny thing is, that I always used to refer to BW as 'British Waterways', using the full spoken title but abbreviate it as BW when writing. 'British Waterways' does easily trip off the tongue.