Mike Todd

Why is my post hidden? Simon Bishop Oxmarineservices

Such locks only protect against non boaters. The only way to ensure proper behaviour by boaters is to install captive locks that will not release the key until lock is properly shut as with some of the mechanised locks up north. A little expensive I fear.

An assumption that an income stream can be wholly used on direct costs is a nonsense that sooner or later will lead to bankruptcy (as, sadly, too many have found) In general Overheads refers to costs that cannot be avoided and have to be funded somewhere. The fairest way is to allocate these costs proportionate to each cost centre. A related problem is when a business experiments with a new product and sells it at a price based on marginal cost plus a small extra. That is fine whilst the mainstream business continues unabated but the problems come to the surface when the new business succeeds and the old business declines so that there is less and less contribution to overheads. I guess that one of the commonest routes to Carey Street is not paying the tax man on time! It is not an unjustified overhead, best forgotten . . . Properly accounting for depreciation (and hence maintenance) is very similar.

I imagine that watching a horse change must have been, for its time, as exciting as a F1 pit stop, especially in the days when they refuelled as well!

Indeed - some while back when there were problems with certain bridges, the instinct was to introduce speed limits but it was then realised that this led to increased loads as the traffic bunched up. Zero speed = maximum load! One of the reasons that capital intensive business activities fail is inattention to a realistic depreciation charge. An example I have been testing by observation is that of canal marinas. Once built they are, at first, quite inexpensive to run esp if not intended as a destination/tourist attraction. The 'profits' are then distributed (spent) and so the business cannot sustain the maintenance cost once elements start to life out.

?availability of someone paid/volunteer to do the locking up?

Similarly, with short tunnels sans towpath, horse drawn canal boats could unhitch and let the boat drift through t the other end and then re-hitch. Watched it being done by the horse boat people on the Peak Forest a few years back. At least in a tunnel you do not have sudden wind burst to upset the procedure!

Now looked up what we did in 1976. Seems we hired in August from Penkridge for two weeks. Went south to Shroppie and then up to Middlewich. Down the T&M to Kidsgrove where we turned up the Macc. Down Ashton to Ducie Street and along the Bridgewater. Down T&M to Middlewich, returned to Shroppie and then back to Penkridge. Children were then 6 and 4. I wonder how long it would take us today, even without water issues or kids to look after! Regarding the weather, I do not recall water shortages although I vaguely remember it being quite hot at times. But then, that route currently has no restrictions, so perhaps we were lucky in our choice of base and route.

Chaining up locks each day and then opening up in the morning is an expensive option, in terms of person power. Perhaps they chose ones to close that would minimise traffic and be easiest for staff to get to. Some of the GU locks south of Fenny are not easy to get to.

Speed is not unrelated to capacity: imagine freight trains going at 30 mph . . . at a certain level, more speed means more capacity. To some extent the trade off depends on how close the demand is to capacity as the next step - more lines - is very expensive, and often not feasible.

It was indeed quite a skill on the part of the steerer and the horseman. Much of the practice around entering locks persisted well into the powered era, especially around how fast (or slow) a boat should be moving in order both to reach the far end but without under collision with the end stop. With time an increasing premium, such skills helped to reduce journey times, if only a little, but that would be welcome. I'm unaware the miniskirts feature much in drag. Or am I just to out of date?

Plenty of still functioning churches have their old pews but the capacity calculations are a bit more generous on space, if not comfort.

Sadly I remember those cobbles all too well: earlier this year Christine and I were staying a couple of days in a self catering unit close to here but alongside the river. We were walking to the cathedral when, just a few metres from the pic, she tripped and fell heavily on her arm. She just felt a bit sore the rest of the day but by morning it was obvious that something was amiss. We went straight to the nearby A&E and had amazingly swift attention but only to confirm that she had fractured her upper arm. Overall she has had good treatment from NHS, but here and in Swindon as well as physio and she is now all but recovered, if still not back to opening paddles!

A number of the notices in the recent past have actually said that boaters a free to navigate between locked flights - I certainly recall this on the L&L. and also I think re the long pound between Claydon and Napton.

Volunteers are not as readily available as is sometimes suggested. All charities and voluntary organisations have had to face this. A significant driver has been social change in the second part of the 20C. Immediately post-war, many women were displaced back out of the workplace that they had willingly filled in times of necessity and then looked to fill their time. This was perhaps the golden age for volunteering but by the 70s, with the growth of two income households, the number of people of a physically fit age who are available to volunteer has markedly reduced. A similar challenge faces the military - 70 years ago many front line infantry could be adequately, perhaps fully, trained in a very short time as they were little more than cannon fodder. Nowadays, much of warfare involved very sophisticated equipment and operating procedures and skills that take time to acquire. As a result the role of the Reserve Army has had to be re-thought as well as the expectations on volunteers. (actually, reservists are usually paid, just not full time) It might be worth studying that experience to see if it could be applied to canal maintenance and operation. I suspect there are a good number of people who would join and undertake extensive training for that role rather than unpaid, untrained and unskilled volunteering. (I am not criticising existing volunteers, LTRU, but the suggestions for replacing much of the paid work force by unpaid people)

It would be interesting to hear viable suggestions on how to do things better, within current income streams. In my observations, CaRT engineering teams are trying quite hard to make the best use of the tight budgets. This means doing some things differently - eg the newer procedures at the gate makers, and also re-evaluating what they need to do eg gradual phasing out of laundry facilities when a substantial proportion of boaters responded that they had on board facilities. In addition, there are many examples of changing how things are done that reflect the change in the relative cost of labour. It may have been OK, in the past, to have people on hand just in case but not now. There are more opportunities to use specialist skills in roles that in the past were done by general purpose personnel, allowing better investment in time saving equipment. It is also best to be sure that you know how locks work before claiming evidence of incompetence. For example, some locks were designed to re-fill after emptying - various means were tried including what looks like unmaintained leakage. You also have to remember that a canal needs a constant flow downhill so that intermediate pounds do not run dry and also that operating so that both sets of gates contribute to retention of water, hence asking boaters always to close all gates and paddles (alas too often ignored by those who know better with sometimes significant consequences) I would encourage everyone to take any opportunity to chat with CaRT staff on the ground - it is rare that I never learn something new and/or interesting when I do so. Remember also that a failure to try to introduce new ways of doing things, as some advocate avoiding, is itself a sign of incompetence. Of course not everyone makes the best choices every time but it is also good to check the reasons before criticising.

Or tip the bucket of water into the bilge! (It is a better test in situ and usually is in a confined space anyway. It is not going to flood the cabin!

Trouble is, that kind of effect is likely to vary quite quickly as different providers seek to out compete in a tough marketplace. Most of us need to make decisions based on a much longer timescale.

We have the Greeks to thank for that! (Archimedes in particular) and also the boat will go up and down, are rotate fore and aft, all the time so a reasonable margin is needed if you want to assure submersion.

Not sure if all marina wifis use wired (cabled?) broadband to drive them. They could, today, just as well use a mobile option (after all, BT, now EE, offer a mobile backup option for a few which supposedly will keep you going if someone cuts the cable. I have tried quite a few marina wifis and generally concluded that the installation is a tick box item, just so they can say that they offer the connection whilst only a few moorers rely on it. I have yet to find one that I would want to depend on for a good streaming service.

Whilst the term case derives historically from the separate trays (cases) that held the different type characters, it is quite widely used now to indicate the style of mixing fonts eg this text is all in lower case whilst THIS IS UPPER CASE. I had not come across the specific term Title Case before or Sentence Case, but they are sometimes options used in DTP software to enforce one or other set of rules. Like spell checker, it may or may not do what you want.

At certain tunnels, such as Standedge, this is routinely advised by the staff to ensure that boats make it under the height check. But they are not so concerned if you drop down in the water a bit as that is less of an issue (usually)

I think that usually the manual on needs to be held to operate whilst the other two stay where you put them.

ANA Both Three and Vodafone same the same but they do not state anything about bandwidth - ie ratio of demand to supply. You may get a very good signal but if too many users also want a share at the same time, service will inevitably take a hit which will be more noticeable when streaming or other high traffic tasks.

Best read the stoppage notices carefully before you commit to a medium term (eg next 4 months) plan - it seems quite possible that, even with rain now, the stoppage will last at least a month or two to replenish reservoirs. Before much gets to them the ground needs to soak up quite a bit. I would not surprised, albeit very, very disappointed, if we do not get significant cruising availability (including access to Cropredy) until well into the autumn, But who knows, weather prediction is not at its most reliable right now! On the limited occasions we actually stay aboard in the marina, we now generally rely on our mobiles for streaming etc and have not yet invested in any special antenna. (We keep each phone on a different network although neither is EE) I am not sure I would want to put myself in a position where my employment/income depended on a 24/7 good signal, but that is an issue right across the canal network. Just have to factor into the daily schedule time to relocate as needed. As I am sure you already know, the ability to get adequate service is not just a matter of signal strength but also bandwidth relative to the number of logged in users (whether marina wifi or mobile) Hence, the responsiveness varies considerably with the time of day. This would be the case even if you sat right under the mast!