Mike Todd

I have not seen any reports which suggest that the habitat studies delayed the repair project 5 months, or even at all. They were, as i read it, conducted during the early phase when preparations for the main restoration were taking place. Long gone are the days of gung ho workers charging in and tackling the breach without any planning. You may regret the fact, but due consideration has to be given to all sorts of matters and, in most cases, legal agreements needed for access. Whenever did they come speedily? However, even old style craftsmen have the phrase 'cut once, measure twice' or, in my case measure thrice or fourth. If you have ever been involved in a major building project on a listed building you will know just how unpredictable the timescales can be.

As I understand it, the landowner is CaRT in terms of the space where you moor, assuming you dont crane out. The owner of the land against which you moor is significant as you wish to use his land to put in pins or whatever as well as oroviding access, either on foot or by vehicle. Hence you need to have two permissions and, as like a not, to make two payments, although in some circumstances they may be rolled into one. One without the other is not much help! I dont think there is any general permission for 14days offside. If you are wanting to test the boundaries of what is legal you could be in for an expensive time.

Farmers are known to be upset when the local council refuses to shift some significant fly tipping when they take the view that it is on the farmer's land and not theirs. Removal can be very expensive especially if suspected to contain noxious stuff.

Perhaps the 'miles of towpath and fields' would be considered an issue in some cases. Farmers are not well disposed to dogs being left to roam freely across their fields, especially those with livestock but I guess they'd not be too pleased with arable fields either. The question might be interpreted in the context of a 'secure' space. That said, plenty of boaters do very well with liveaboard dogs.

I was not trying to be funny (but then you probably weren't either) . . .

What was the negative return?

Map works fine for me (Chrome) and zooms in and out smoothly and so that you can see in detail exactly where the stoppage is planned.

Bet the ownes were really grateful - and relieved!

As I said my quote was from last year. In any event, I guess the underlying issue still remains until a major gate replacement happens further down, although - to be fair - they did not actually say that the problem further down was from gate losses.may be other reasons.

At least that rate of progress might string out your experience (I'm just a tad jealous!) a little longer. Do they 'charge' you for overstaying?

. . . and some on another threads seem to want us to abandon our efforts (mainly at a government level) to find alternative energy sources to carbon. The one thing that technology has not done is to reduce the 'real' price of such fuels, only to make newer finds more economic to extract (eg fracking).

What we were told in the Spring last year by the staff who were asking us to wait a while before setting off in the morning was that the repaired/replaced gates on the upper section were now reasonably watertight but had for a long time fed water down to the lower section as a result of increasing amounts of leakage. There is a regional management boundary change between the two sections and those responsible for the lower part were caught somewhat by surprise when they found that they were no longer being fed water by the other region! (There was a hint that someone thought that their birthright had been subverted!) No doubt changes in the water management process have been introduced - at least they are now better placed to treat the whole network as a single system when it comes to looking at how to use a limited resource. May sometimes take time to filter through to those on the ground, especially as more of the work is done by a day-a-week volunteers, especially the task of explaining things to boaters and other visitors..

Seems to have been corrupted after I spell checked it . . .

The base of a floating boat is unlikely to reach freezing. Ieisclighrer than water and so floats giving a layervofbinsulation so tgat even in our hardstof frosts, most of the depth does not freeze although it'll be cold enough to keep a g&t in good cindition. Thevupper part will depend on hiw well insulated the cab sides and roof are as we asctge air temperature. It may well be that the top is colder than the bottom in really strong wind chill conditions.

But don't the new owner want to sell fuel?

I was given the same story a couple of months ago.

I was going to post the same point - earlier this year we left the boat for a couple of weeks in a marina with shore line. We wanted to experiment with leaving just one item on which would not prevent the batteries from being charged. BAD IDEA. About four days before we returned something caused the marina supply on the pontoon to trip and we returned to a flat set of batteries. Did not do them much good.

It is a few years since we had to move from LH but as I tried to indicate, reception is extremely sensitive to position - an external antenna may help but the underlying reason was that the signal maps showed it to be a very marginal place. As the 'not-spot' campaign has highlighted, there has not been as much progress at serving the unwanted places as might be hoped, especially a Govt is increasingly assuming phone access for its services (try applying for benefits!) A characteristic of being in a marginal location is that signal and service will vary considerably - sometimes the season may affect it if trees are the problem! I suspect (but have not checked) that the phone companies maps will show that many marinas are in poor locations, by the nature of things they will probably be in low density population places. If the signal ain't there, not antenna is going to help! But I am not knocking external provision - just need to realise it may or may not be a solution in a particular place. We've been in marinas (short term) where there is a local wifi provision and where it will depend greatly on which pontoon you are berthed even when they have several signal points. (I know wifi is different from mobile)

At least when we were at Lower Heyford, no amount of equipment, short of a 30m mast, would do much to enable a decent mobile signal at the moorings. Even walking up the hill was unreliable although the signal was much better on the top of the station footbridge. It is still useful to check coverage maps when buying a mobile for use on a largely static basis. Another factor, I have found, is that signal strength is time dependent through the day. Further, some locations have a very small number of concurrent connections so that is someone else is using the mast heavily then others may have slow connections. (I don't know how far the packet sharing algorithms prioritise existing calls over new ones)

I thought that in previous years only a part of a VM was to be used for winter moorings - has that changed? Or was I imagining it?

how?

Is this the same story as in an earlier thread Clifton wharf scary or does lightning really strike twice in the same place?

But the efficiency of the propellers will not be the same in reverse as ahead?

no

But any half decent national strategy is about stimulating new technologies which, by the nature of things, start off being more expensive in the short term. That has happened with both solar and wind, both of which will gave known that when the early subsidies ran out their contract period, had to target a competitive price. Perhaps the next aim has to be to promote more investment in storage technologies. I just wonder whether conventional batteries are the best option or something else that can convert transient energy into stored forms. In the end, taking entropy into account, nothing is absolutely renewable, only a matter of relatively. Although one day the sun will run out I guess it will just about see me out!