Arthur Marshall

Would you use Silcone stuff or the polyeurothane sealants that set like rubber? Not sure I've spelt either right...

Mine have the same - really good places for moss to grow.. That's all been cleared out - it's a weird leak.

I think the window predates Sikaflex by about fifty years. Taking it out is, i think, beyond my capabilities as it would mean dismantling quite a lot of the internal boat stuff, which I really don't want to do. It's going to have to be a bodge of some sort...

Must admit I've never found Captain Tolley's to be any use at all, it creeps OK, runs out the other end but doesn't seem to seal anything. I'm going to have to do something with the window frame in place - I'm not sure I can actually get it out without dismantling half the boat. So at least at first I'm going to try sealing it round the edge.

Have acquired a fairly serious window leak, actual source untraceable as usual although it SEEMS, unlikely as it sounds, to be coming in under the bottom of the hopper type windows These are very simple, just an aluminium gutter at the bottom (that the glass sits in) and frame at sides with a gutter at he top and a single piece of glass that either tilts in a bit to let the air in or gets shoved against the sides with a couple of wedges. I'm going to scrape back to the metal all round the frame and lower gutter and whack it with sealant - question is, what's best? I was thinking Sikaflex?

Mine's gone up by just under 3%, can't be bothered to work it out exactly, so it looks like it's the inflation amount. I'm on EOG on the Macc. Still going to make a fair old dent in the bank balance, especially as the boatyard have just told me what they're charging me for taking the flexible coupling out, looking at it, putting it back again and doing a spot of welding at the bottom of the rudder. But then, if you wanted to be rich, why would you have a boat?.

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I can see this being an argument put forward by CRT. It isn't my idea of fairness. The amount of use someone gets out of their boat may have absolutely no relation to the distance they travel - I know several who use their boats in a marina every weekend as a retreat and never go anywhere. The argument that boaters find the current system complex and out of date is ludicrous. It certainly isn't complex, and "out of date" is a meaningless phrase. I suspect CRT will at least try to differentiate between liveaboards, continuous cruisers, and leisure boats, though how they'll do it while making it less complex beats me.

It's nowhere near as bad as it was. The bit from Marple down to Manchester is fairly unpleasant in that it's a bit of a wasteland, and you may find a lot of vandalised locks - I did it a few years back and had to call CRT out to clear one which the lads had dropped a load of masonry into. No yobbo trouble though and there are safe moorings in Manchester. Manchester itself is a joy to boat through now.

Is there any particular reason, really, why a long boat should pay any more than a short boat? The only rationale I can see is that there is an assumption that someone who can afford a large boat can afford to pay more. Mooring fees, yes, a 70 footer uses more bank space. But it doesn't really have any greater effect when cruising than my 40 footer. I can see them trying to differentiate between Ccers and leisure boaters though.- why should someone who only uses their boat for a few weeks in the year pay as much as someone who uses it all the time? That would also, of course, affect the "dumpers" as well as the liveaboards and would probably herd most of them into marinas where CRT thinks they belong.

If mobile phones don't work on half the network, I can't see that trackers will. And enforcement would be ludicrous - they'd have to be bolted to the boat with some kind of security dongle or you'd just unship them and leave them at the mooring if you were charged by distance, or move them about by bike if you wanted to stay put.

There are only certain things covered by the annual subs, so they will charge you for anything else. Their engineers have been known to walk away and leave someone (eg me) stranded when faced with anything they don't understand, such a Lister SR2... though that said, others have been more than helpful. I've had a lot of money off them for gearbox repairs, though I don't think i'm extracting anything as the boat's always been maintained - it's just a bit old, like me. I think some people just aren't interested in the thing as a boat, just as a floating house, so they don't do even the basic stuff.

Someone at some time has disconnected them on my SR2. I've never had any trouble starting, and only been through one starter in thirty years (with quite a fair bit of boating - not just a couple of weeks a year!).

You moor up anywhere near me and nip off to the pub and I'll be there with me spanner...

Great news. Wish I'd known a month or so ago!

These days a lot of boats run their engines for hours and I have an aversion to having my boat filled with someone else's diesel fumes. So I usually leave gaps and, in fact, moor as far from everyone else as I can. I also consider this to be considerate as I play the trombone... However , if it gets crowded, I move up.

S.A.E. VISCOSITY 30W A.P.I. CC/SE MIL-L-2104B, MIL-L-46152B - would that be OK for a Lister SR2?

I've always understood the "problem". You explained it to me at inordinate length once while I sat on my boat, ending in a wildly misogynistic rant which led me to have considerable doubts about the veracity of any of the preceding story - which had been quite convincing up till then. I still think you were seriously badly treated by CRT but were also to a large extent the architect of your own misfortune. This, however has nothing to do with the topic any more than your accusations of prejudice, ignorance etc against other contributors have - personal attacks the likes of which are what separated out most of on here from those not. And you may have missed that my comment about section 8ing some who had fallen into the cut was what some of us call a "humourous" intervention. Not a particularly good one, I admit. I forgot that any mention of Section 8 pushes buttons in some cases and the old bandwagon lurches into sight, accompanied with more vitriol against anyone with an alternative viewpoint.

CRT probably countersued for him polluting the canal. Mind you, if he'd been there much longer, they'd have Section 8'd him and, heaved him out and dumped him three hundred miles from where he wanted to be.

I'm trying to think how CRT staff negligence could lead to a claim. Putting bollards where you can trip over them? Not tidying up the lock surround? Letting the bank collapse so your boat sinks? Lock walls with protruding stones was a recent one. I imagine proving negligence on an extremely aged system that's constantly teetering on the verge of falling to bits could be tricky.

Falling, of course, is perfectly safe. It's the landing that's the problem.

I'll look it up. Aadvice much appreciated.

If it does look OK, it's still got great gouges out where we chopped bits out to get to the bolts, which I'd like to fill. I was thinking Sikaflex or Marineflex?

I have an overpowering urge to get the boat onto the towpath... It still scares the life out of me. I had to write a song to get it out of my head...

Some of the bits round there are too deep to stand up in.

There is hope on the horizon. A miracle has occurred and the yard have got the boat out of the water, unshipped the coupling and they reckon its not in as bad a staate as it looked. Going to have a look tomorrow and possibly just fill the bits we chopped out and replace it , this time with the right number of bolts.