The Bagdad Boatman (waits)

I used a wet vacuum cleaner and a thin pipe into a bottle to suck the sludge from the bottom of the tank.

what toilet fluid are you using? Cheap blue will destroy seals.

What are you using electic wise when stopped. 4 hours is not enough to charge a battery if you are discharging with lights tv etc. have you got a lesure battery and a starter battery?

A wide beam historian near Burscough has photos of L&L boats with the cabin at the front, bunks against the wall both sides and a stove in the middle.

one danger to watch out for is that any heater may raise the temperature of the water by X degrees not to a specific temp. so hot water in boiling water out..

I vote for voltage drop. The charger telling you the volts are low. one solution is to have bigger 12v cable.

do you get condensation on the foam insulation?

use a ratchet to remove and refit the drain plug as it is easy to turn the wrong way being on the other side to you. Use engine oil 30/40 not gear oil to refill.

You will be on the cannalised Thames so as long as the water level is ok you will have to buy a river licence for two days. The same flood conditions can happen on the K&A. mobile phone will be ok. Edit woops I got the idea you where at Oxford. Good anchor and chain ready to deploy and VHF if south of Brentford.

If you use a clove hitch on your pins then they stay attached to the rope.

212f is boiling point at sea level but with a pressure cap that can be increased. Heat exchange with the Perkins 108 can be with a Bowman's type sealed pressure system similar to a car. This is cooled by fresh water sucked in from the keel area passed through a weed filter or mud box pumped through the heat exchanger and spat out via the exhaust. Points to check clean the weed trap every trip. check the header tank pressure system and fill with antifreeze as required. check oil level and cleanliness.

http://www.waterwaysworld.com/images/widebeam_map.png has most of the information on wide canals. The Ribble link onto the Lancaster has a pinch point. Are you looking at the north or south for you boating or maybe planning to do as we did do one and then get lifted out and transported to do the other. The Calder and Hebble although wide is restricted in length to 58ft and above York on the Ouse and Ure to Ripon 60 ft. Headroom is tight on the Stort.

Jo Briggs boasted of taking 50 tons of sugar from Liverpool to Leeds during the war in 52 hours.

Most canal boats can be moved on a standard 40 foot artic trailer. Some need an extendable trailer and escort it longer or wider. Cranage is the most expencive so try to find a boatyard with a crane or straddle on site.

Bristol to bath is a canalised river and flows fairly fast. So you have Bristol Harbour and a few marinas. Then Bath to Devizes is a proper canal with lots of boats moored and a few boatyards and marinas.

I would put in a shunt to bleed off overcharging. The one I used would light up in strong winds with a wind generator.

They are the nuts holding the packing in to the tube. Nip them up untill the water stops dripping. if you find them coming loose you can use double nuts, but will probably not need them.

12v needs multistrand cable not single core. to mesure voltage drop mesure at the supply end then mesure at the far end.

The outboard has a water intake low down which might be blocked. The inboard needs a weed filter on the water intake to stop the weeds being sucked into the engine cooling, the intake can be blocked by weeds or even with mud. poke down to clear.

Parafin when it burns gives off fumes and water so it must be vented to the outside.

Spread a piece of cardboard under the gearbox , maybe on a couple of clean bricks to keep it out of the bilge

use a stick to push the leaver on the gearbox untill it selects forward if sucessful adjust the cable.