Mike Todd
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Posts posted by Mike Todd
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22 minutes ago, Lily Rose said:
Mine does that randomly and quite frequently. I discovered years ago that if I give it a bit of a whack with my hand it changes albeit not always correctly. If the 1st whack doesn't fix it the 2nd usually does.
In the days when computers used thermionic valves (might first experience) such treatment was known as 'preventative maintenance'. Best not done when coming to the end of an hour's computation.
The underlying logic was codified into a 'facility' in which, at the start of a day, or session, the voltage to the valves was increased (I cannot recall whether a steady state of sudden) The logic was that it was better for a failing device to be replaced before losing computational time (which was precious)
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38 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:
There is a video of it going in on Facebook, taken from a gate security camera, It was a big splash The Friendly Narrowboat And Waterways Group... | Trent and Mersey up above rumps lock Middlewich. | Facebook
Full link
That clip shows the lorry already on the wrong side of the road. The driver of the on-coming vehicle must have taken a deep breath . . .
Just now, magnetman said:Sounds like Loughborough Junction SW9 (Brixton) and SE24 (Herne Hill).
Try again!
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20 minutes ago, magnetman said:
Limehouse cut is in Poplar.
I used to live on Limehouse cut and sometimes the address came with Poplar depending on who sent the letter.
Bit of a while since I lived in London (almost 60 years!) but in any case I was south of the river and any where north was considered alien country . . .
On the other hand, I guess you do not have to be in Bow to hear the bells (and important claim for some folk).
At one time the Post Office (with its new fangled postcodes) caused problems with on-the-ground culture. Where I lived was close to the boundary between two postcodes. The name of one was known for its poshness and the other for it gangsters. The PO did not quite align with subcultural boundaries!
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48 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:
I've not managed to complete a planned cruise for years because of a combination of water shortages and lock failures. I'm planning what might be my last long cruise over July and August this year, and if, once again, I have to cut it short to race home before they shut the system down it makes paying my over two grand a year for licences and fees an unaffordable and totally unworthwhile joke. The point is that while we all know CRT is short of money, so am I, and they either have to provide value for it or it will stop coming. An at least two year delay at Todbrook, where it seems to have been more important to appease the local yacht owners than keep the canals open, plus other reservoirs being run down because, again, lack of maintenance, doesn't give me much faith in the system lasting more than another year or three. These things are cumulative.
There's another breach waiting to happen on the lower Macc at a big spillway at Congleton aquaduct, where a large coping stone has been missing for years and the water is now only held in by a bit of ancient piling that is almost rusted or rotted through.
Again, I suspect there is a bit more to the Toddbrook after effects story that is generally indicated. It was certainly a wake up call for all reservoir owners who had for a long time not come to terms with increasing statutory requirements. (One of the problems with making comparisons with the past is when the goalposts shift!) The fact that a surprising proportion of CaRT reservoirs have needed substantial work at the same time (even though there are in total more than is generally recognised) does at least suggest that someone (either inside CaRT or in the regulatory bodies) has been prompted to take a closer and more rigorous (pedantic?) look at the way that the regs are interpreted.
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15 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:
Perhaps a slight sense of urgency in sorting out Todbrook might have helped those of us on the Macc and the T&M. Was supposed to be completed summer 2024, now we're looking at 2026. I reckon a lot of people are starting to wonder if it's worth paying three grand a year to keep a boat that never actually lets them complete a summer holiday. Or whether it's worth risking a grand to hire one that possibly will leave them stranded miles from their car.
Most hire companies I know will go to considerable lengths to ensure that their hirers are not stranded far from their car - if nothing else, they also need to get the next hirers to the boat, having serviced it in the meantime. Private owners - a different matter but if you are like us, doing a long cruise in shorter segments, you do get used to finding ways and places to do the car shuffle.
11 hours ago, Ianws said:The content of the notification references some previous comments on here about reduced reservoir capacity, because of concerns about the reservoir structure, but the wording is quite opaque " We're also part-way through a programme of major reservoir improvements, as required by legislation, so we were not able to start this season with complete holdings for several reservoirs."
I remember my boating history getting off to a stuttering non-start on the Leeds Liverpool, though it's hard to remember the exact timeline.
I did an engine maintenance course first week of Feb 2020. Completed the engine maintenance on my boat just before Covid hit. Where I live most or all of 2020 was in complete lockdown. After that 2021 and 2022 were (I think) either partly in lockdown (2021) or navigation on L&L was closed due to water shortages.
I can see Arthur has a good point. One hire company has already closed because their hire business is not tenable if their hirers can't go anywhere. Other canal businesses are at risk if their customers can't get to them. We had to put back scheduled blacking a couple of years ago because the locks between us and the boatyard were closed for months on end because of water shortages.
That hire company matter has been over quoted - at the very least I have not seen the full back story, at least not on here. Since it seems to have been an isolated instance, and that they still continued with day hire, it does give me a sense that there is a bit more to it.
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39 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
Is the correct spelling not "Poplar"
With that thinking, if it was on sand, would it be at Sandwich ?
Poplar may be full of midwives but, unless Limehouse Cut counts as Poplar (Thought it was more Bow), not really a canal area.
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Glad to hear good news for once - all too easy for us all to post the bad but not the good!
Trust you had a good night's rest . . .
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The canal boat insurance market is quite small anyway and some boaters opt for very basic 3rd party, enough to get a licence. Within that, the number of overseas boaters will hardly exite even the most assiduous of brokers. It would be interesting to know the reasons but I'd hazard a guess it stems from a closed mind application of money laundering rules.
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1 hour ago, agg221 said:
There is a fairly recent Cruising the Cut video (last autumn I think) which is an interview with Rugby Boats. It goes into a bit of detail on this subject.
Alec
https://cruisingthecut.co.uk/2024/11/30/vlog-352-asking-price/
but it does not give a clear solution!
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11 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:
If you'll pardon the asperity, that's a bloody silly statement.
The vast majority of people, including probably your tenants, live in unaffordable housing, in that they can't afford it and don't pay for it. They pay a bit, and the state pays the rest. Maybe you should tell us the proportion of your unearned income comes (perfectly legitimately) from housing benefit. Landlords are some of the biggest benefit claimants going.
And, just as a point of interest, "market value" is a myth. There's no such thing, it's just a useful economic shorthand for a very complex computation. As we have discussed on many occasions, there is no "market value" for boats of a certain type. It just depends on what one person will pay for a particular one.
In the case of houses, it depends on the willingness of a mortgage provider to lend (ie create) money - a calculation that used to be x times an income and now is y times, when y is a number somebody thought they could get away with. It has nothing to do with the actual cost of building, or exchanging a house. When it goes wrong, as recently in the US or Eire, it's a disaster.
Rents are a different matter. Neither the cost of building, nor the purchase price of a house, nor it's current apparent value, has anything to do with the rent charged. That depends purely on a combination of scarcity, the ability of local people to pay, and the level of available state support. The last named makes any talk of a "market" nonsense.
Anyway, this is a bit silly and I've got a boat to paint and a euphonium to play. Both much more fun than trying to educate the wilfully ignorant.
I thought that it was widely accepted that almost all post war attempts to affect the housing market to make it more feasible for FTB to get onto the ladder have done little other than fuel house price inflation. Every form of subsidy, however well targeted, simply exposes the fact that unsubsidised price rises so that the subsidised amount stays the same - usually what most folk consider is unaffordable. Depending on the specific mechanism, the inflationary increase almost all ends up with the landlord, developer, BTL owner or whatever.
The only scheme that appears not to have had this effect is the old style Council Housing pre RTB. But we all know that is just for scroungers, profligates and idlers so why bother?
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5 hours ago, Gybe Ho said:
Every year on YouTube 10+ narrowboaters publish a breakdown of their annual expenditure living afloat. The episodes follow the same pattern where monthly costs, fixed annual charges and occasional costs are apportioned monthly. 10,000s of YouTube viewers manage to comprehend that filling a diesel tank is an occasional cost that requires some arithmetic juggled to produce a monthly figure, for some reason this process flummoxed you.
Most people would assume that when discussing financial survival on a narrowboat with an income of under £1000 a month, a monthly budget item of £24 labelled "Propulsion (400 miles)" represents the monthly apportioned cost of motoring 400 miles a year, which is a typical low to middling annual millage. No one of sound mind would infer my annual narrowboating budget for someone on a low income would be modelled on nearly 5000 miles of cruising a year.
Having concluded my costing for 400 miles of propulsion is correct you then wander off on a delusional tangent and allege I probably meant 20 miles but got the calc wrong. Words fail me, as does rational thought in you case.
Did I say 20 miles?
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On 04/05/2025 at 14:46, magnetman said:
Ducks are completely quackers and will eat most things.
If too expensive they just have it put on the bill.
Stop it or I will insist the Mods get you put down! (eider)
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22 hours ago, Gybe Ho said:
No you made a cut & paste error, £24 was for the line below (propulsion). The monthly cost for coal is £50 (32 bags x £19 / 12 ) = £50.6666.
I would have made the same comment anyway as your text implied 32 bags per month (and that was another question)
Similarly, why 400 miles propulsion - again your text says per month but I guess you mean per year, ie 33 per month. A good average speed over the ground, including locks and other diversions is 2.5 miles per hour around 13 hours. Typically use 1.5l per hour = 20 l. which accords with your £24
That said, I strongly suspect that the misbelieved 20 miles range (which does require nearer your 33 miles anyway) will, after the Commission reports, no longer "satisfy the Board" with regard to continuous cruising. A longer range requirement may well bring with it extra costs as the result of, eg, longer travel to work.
Overall, I suspect that the thing that scuppers most "low income budget on a no home mooring" is making due allowance for maintenance and repairs - your £20/month for blacking is probably amongst the smaller costs. I cannot personally attest to what makes for a realistic maintenance budget for a boat towards the end of its serviceable life might be, but I do meet rather a high proportion that are in difficulties with CaRT as it will take them more than 15 days to save up for their urgent repair bill (eg engine failure) The actual cost of the repair may well increase substantially if CaRT find a way of levying charges for overstaying (to even up the costs in comparison with those having a home mooring). Finding someone to undertake repairs is not easy even on canals like K&A. Waiting for parts seems to take an age if the engine is a veteran.
In general I believe that most itemised costs of simple boat life (as beloved of red top papers short of a story) seriously underestimate the true total costs as it is easy to miss things out, especially those that do not occur every week. The total shown needs to be verified against reality. It is the total that matters at least as much as the individual item costs.
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3 hours ago, Gybe Ho said:
I suspect a health single person with no children of working age looses all benefits as income rises between £6.5k and £12.7k a year.
Yes a residential berth would take a large slice of a £1000 monthly income, though that £1000 per month is from 20 hours per week at the national minimum wage.
As to CC monthly living costs:
CRT CC Licence = £120
Insurance = £28
Cooking Gas = £14
Food = £300 for a healthy spartan diet with a few beers included
DIY Blacking =£20
Engine Service = £10
Mobile = £8
Data = £10
Heating (32 bags of coal) = £50
Propulsion (400 miles) = £24
Battery Charging = £7
Say £600 a month to survive 1 year with no car, holidays, new clothes or random boat maintenance surprises.
32 bags of coal for £24?
3 hours ago, LadyG said:Never
Some of what you 'heard' was once commonplace, even if not universal, but the work by CaRT, especially Matt P, has made a difference. The great part of boaters with no home mooring are well aware of the 'rules' and do try to comply. OTOH, boaters pushing the limits of what is allowable may well seem to be non moving to the casual observer. One of the aims is to deter towpath accumulation and thus us now a problem in only a few places. Inevitably, once enforcement has brought change in one place, folk who have been affected soon find another spot. The comparison on another thread with Bristol Van's is apposite and probably, although I have no direct contact with this sector, has similar origins. Lower cost housing in the Bristol area is notoriously hard to find.
1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:I think you missed the point.
What in that list (no car, holidays, new cloths or random boat maintenance surprises) is a modern, leisure boat unlikely to need ......
On the K&A a good proportion of liveabiards seem to have a vehicle. Needed to get to work from many out of town mooring spots.
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4 hours ago, dmr said:
I have heard that just above the 9 can sometimes be a gathering spot for big groups of teenagers on a warm evening, probably no trouble but not relaxing. I prefer right outside/just below New Islington marina as there is much less footfall, only room for about three boats though but for two of those there is a bit of scrub between the canal and footpath. Towpath mooring on the lower sections of the Ashton is now pretty standard, you might even struggle to find a space.
When we have been there, any gathering was on opposite side where some seating us provided.
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8 minutes ago, LadyG said:
Baton Twirlers are the people who pretty much reside on the K&A, indulging in such practices as swapping moorings on a Saturday, moving as little as possible and so on.....
They may have children at school, and this is one reason for restricted navigation.
Have you navigated the K&A in recent years?
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29 minutes ago, Gybe Ho said:
We agree on the essential principal of state funded blacking being unreasonable.
I was responding to another point raised about "low income" and the use of the term "economically inactive". I hope my actual figures show that at 10 hour of work a week and an annual income of £6.5k with presumably some ongoing benefits support for housing, it is not unreasonable to expect the boatowner to put aside £20 a month for blacking.
An abled bodied person working under 10 hours a week is largely economically inactive in my opinion.
Not sure who the "batten twirlers" are, this seems to be an inhouse CWDF label. Is state funded blacking a policy objective of either of the two bargee pressure groups?
If only blacking were the only longer term cost for which 'saving' ought to be predicated. Far from it and many of them demand more urgent use of scarce resources.
You may also want to investigate, before making erroneous statements, the interaction between hours worked in a week and the eligibility or not for certain benefits. The cases of people being not only deemed ineligible but also having to repay substantial, in reality often impossible sums, just for working inadvertently one hour over whilst also being a carer really need urgent and compassionate attention. The interaction between work and benefit eligibility is quite complex across the whole system - not something I keep my head around and updated. Always best to ask an expert (preferably CA)
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1 hour ago, dmr said:
Half true, you can't moor in Canal street.....there is no towpath 😀, the canal is sunken down below the street, or rather the street has grown up, so its just a stone/brick wall most of the way. Boats do moor up above the Rochdale 9, not the best place but Ive done it without trouble. Stopping on the Manchester 18 up through Newton Heath is best avoided, as is Rochdale itself. The Ashton is a much changed canal and generally safe but with the usual cautions that one applies to an urban canal.
We have moored on several occasions, including last year, just above the Nine, mainly on the bend just before the bridge under Ducie Street itself. Also around the corner on the Ashton itself. In the first location there is very little foot traffic as most people seem take the route up via Ducie Street the connects with the Curvilinear Footbridge. No real problems on Ashton - as already said, take all the usual precautions that are sensible in an urban setting but, in reality, we have had problems in much more rural areas.
In my view the best protection against people is not to give the impression that you are establishing a fortress against the marauding masses that you clearly disdain. Talking to folk is always the best approach - and in some places the most unlikely bystanders are happy to lend a hand, especially at locks.
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28 minutes ago, JoeC said:
Manchester ... I was talking to somebody at ABC Wrenbury Mill and they mentioned that they instruct hire boaters going to Manchester to NOT STOP along certain parts of the city - Canal Street rings a bell. This is due to a lot of boat boardings, theft and damage. In fact they said that they have marshals around that area and if they see the hire boat unattended then the customers will be spoken to/deposit not returned. Only certain parts of Manchester she says is an issue and places like Castlefield are OK.
She had not heard of the problems that people say about the Ashton Canal so is this true?
Sounds a bit like an urban myth - I am not sure where/how you would moor at Canal Street.
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58 minutes ago, LadyG said:
No, not mine, its well known as an area not to stop at, druggies, I believe.
I was right dischuffed last year when we came through Manchester on way to Ashton and Peak Forest. I kept a keen eye for all this criminal activity and totally missed it. In fact in all the times I have been through Manchester I have only once seen anything that might possibly have been some dodgy dealing. But perhaps I am just naive! Or failed the CID entry test?
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8 hours ago, Gybe Ho said:
Precedence setting court rulings are a rare event, in the mean time your friend just has to accept the prevailing interpretation at the DWP. The previous 2020 court ruling took 5? years to settle an historic grievance and that matter could result people becoming homeless in months. Zero blacking might occasionally sink a boat 5, 10 or 20 years later.
In some respects public sentiment wags the judicial tail and judges acquiesce to public grievance to avoid public ridicule. There is no groundswell of opinion that economically inactive citizens should have their boats maintained by the tax payer.
It does not aid the discussion to assume that someone eligible for benefits is economically inactive - many do have an income but find that minimum wage (even when paid correctly) puts them in a position of eligibility. Even so, that amounts involved are not going to make anyone rich!
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20 hours ago, Chance said:
Mike Mike Mike.
You make it seem like you are some sort of official case worker.
That is trash
A simple call by anybody on here to the DWP to ascertain if Housing benefit will cover mooring and license fees will result in an answer of YES.
The amount of benefit is subject to a number of factors, income, savings, where you live this being the case due to different local authorities having different benefit cap rates and of course your age, age being a factor due to under 18s will require a court order stating that they are responsible enough to take on the ongoing bills due to the legal age of financial responsibility being 18 in England.
I repeat!
My initial post was regarding Blacking and the associated costs NOT HOUSING BENEFIT.
SO many people wanting to seem self important but talking trash.
Gullible people listen and believe the trash spouted by imbaciles like this and it causes so much harm in society just look at the effect the Tate brothers are having on the youth and gullible young men, their views seems reasonable on the surface but delve a little deeper and they are masoganistic hate preachers.
Self important people like you should be banned from talking to anyone.
It should be if brains were trains you'd be a rocking horse but he didn't even make the grade of a rocking horse
https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/homeownership/living_on_a_boat
That link is from shelter the housing charity, take a look then stop spouting rubbish
https://bargee-traveller.org.uk/
As well as the link I posted from shelter, have a look at the above link from the National Barge and Travellers Association.
BOTH CLEARLY STATE MOORING FEES ARE COVERED BY HOUSING BENEFIT.
SO ALL DETRACTORS PLEASE REMAIN QUIET.
THOSE SELF IMPORTANT IMBACILES SHOULD GO FIND A SUITABLE FORUM THAY WILL LISTEN TO THEIR Rubbish WITHOUT QUESTION.
SOME ON HERE HAVE BRAINS AND QUESTION IDIOTIC POSTS FROM SELF IMPORTANT IDIOTS.
I think you will see, if your read back carefully, that I said exactly that ie that current costs such a the licence fees care covered by benefits. (One of the reasons why the debate about enhanced fees for no home mooring are rather skewed from reality as it is only a proportion of low income no home mooringers that are impacted directly)
The debate, however, had moved on from those costs to the issue of obtaining a boat in the first place (rather than bricks and mortar) and it is here that public policy has a huge gap. Apart from some misguided first time buyer schemes, there is precious little done to help people onto the housing ladder and even less if you are single and living alone.
I am afraid that forums such as this do tend to have thread drift and the OP has no particular ownership of the content. In this case, the issue of whether boat maintenance costs are - or should be - claimable from the benefit system has morphed into wider issues of housing for low income people, especially those on their own (I would make an educated guess that a high proportion of liveaboard boaters, with or without a HM, are alone. Perhaps this has driven the thread drift as most folk here seem to think that getting someone to pay your blacking costs is low probability and there are mor pressing matters for others.
I don't mind abusive reactions - especially on matters where I do actually have some knowledge and experience, or where I know I do not - but others are sensitive, that is their right. I'd rather that we kept the interactions somewhere close to reality (except when postulating a perfectly run canal system! Dream on)
7 hours ago, Gybe Ho said:Despite all the rhetoric do we have an answer to "will the benefits system pay for periodic hull blacking" on a boat where the occupant is in receipt of Local Authority housing benefit support in the form of the authorities paying the CRT licence fee and possibly home mooring fees?
I suspect not due to a recent ruling by a judge that decreed Local Authorities must consider the CRT license fee to qualify for housing benefit but not the additional cost of operating a boat.
I don't think the ruling is all that recent - from memory it was pre-Covid, was it not? (see https://bargee-traveller.org.uk/landmark-judgement-confirms-housing-benefit-for-boat-licence-fees/ for a summary - in particular the status of whether home or no mooring does affects entitlement)
I think that some of the confusion in this debate is that 'getting help with ...' is confused with the more specific question about whether and (more contentious) should, the Benefit System (Housing Benefit I think has now morphed into an element of UC) fund blacking and comparable costs. Many of the forms of help that have been mentioned are from other sources, in particular those which are grants in support of particular govt policies, eg warm home, going green etc. These are often available to those not on UC as well as those who are. The complexities of accessing such help are often beyond the capabilities of those who need them.
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1 hour ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:
If we learnt anything from Nigel Moore, it was that UK law defines what is what is not legal rather than what is legal.
Furthermore, in the case of BW/CRT it is usually the Navigation Authority that defines what is legal subject to approval by parliament or a minister.
As such, the wording in the British Waterways Acts is that of British Waterways and the wording in the now abandoned TWAO's is CRT's.
That is being a bit picky, we all knew what Arthur meant, even if he was a bit wrong. Not all law is set by Parliament, eg we also have Common Law to consider. In addition, most Acts are quite general with much of the detail left to Statutory Instruments.
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3 hours ago, Chance said:
God only knows where you are obtaining this trash from but it all sounds like bluster to me, the simple FACT is that any and all persons on low income and or Universal Credit that are houses, whether that be a canal boat or a flat or house are entitled to assistance with their housing costs. This includes mooring fees, rent, or even interest on a mortgage.
Check it through Google if you doubt what I am saying.
My initial question was about Blacking not mooring fees.
Assistance with mooring fees has been happening for years and years, again check with Google if you doubt what I state. Simply type in can you obtain assistance with mooring fees through housing benefit.
I must say that there is so much snobbery on here that it seems that this must be the last bastion of the class system in the UK.
Tin pot snobbery at that.
Why should people not get assistance with their mooring fees if it is their permanent address?
Are you so affronted by the thought that people on low incomes are entering your tiny world?
Snobbery at its worst.
Then there's the moderator on here, banned me for two days for replying in kind to being insulted, it seems I can be called a chancery, a twat, a benefits scrounger and many other derogatory terms but once I retaliate in kind I get banned.
I thought this forum was for open debate and the exchange of information, yet I have found it to be full of closed minded tin pot snobs that feel affronted by the fact that assistance can be given by the state for those who don't have any other home apart from their boat and haven't squirreled away money from the tax ma.
I think every one of you that responded negatively to my initial post or felt it outrageous that assistance is given by the state should be ashamed of their narrow minded attitude.
Sadly you did not really read what I actually said or you might have realised that your comments are not well founded. Where did I say that I believe that the state should not give assistance?
You may wish to take into account that providing assistance with the cost of keeping a boat (eg licence) is not the same as providing the boat (or house).
I thought that various contributors were wanting to know what is realistically available right now - not what we might think it ought to be. Any of the advice agencies will take much the same approach: that it is better to be correct in what you tell people, however much you might wish it otherwise. Some advocacy groups do tend to encourage a belief in what is not going to happen with the result that individuals feel even angrier when they come face to face with the harsh reality.
I am dealing with a case at the moment where I have to say to the person that the current rules clearly do not permit what they want but at the same time I am raising with CaRT whether or not that specific rule is justified. We shall see.
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Tonic required. Send in your photos of what is nice on the waterways now.
in General Boating
Posted
Complete with a bath for singing in!