Arthur Marshall

I think there's usually more than one reason for packing in boating. I don't enjoy it as much as I used to, but that's partly because I'm older and creakier, not just because there are more pillocks about. And the rest of my life's better too now they don't make me go out to work any more, so I quite like being home and enjoying that as opposed to being pleased to get away from it. There aren't enough idiots out there to spoil it, really. And, nine times out of ten, seeing as how you're on a boat, you can get away from them if you really want to.

If CRT's mooring fees are supposed to be in line with commercial ones, how come they charge me nearly £300 more than I pay for my EOG?

I think it's fairly plain that the OP is saying that boats dumped on 14 day moorings, clogging them up so those moving about can't use them, are not being lived on, thereby implying that it would be fine if they were genuine liveaboards continuously cruising. Nowt to do with liveaboards. I admit to getting a bit narked myself when the prime mooring spots are taken by what is obviously an abandoned boat, waiting to be collected when the owner can be bothered to shift it another mile or two. And seeing as how most of them are still there three weeks later on my way past again, I think the concept of the dedicated fortnightly CCer is a myth. What amazes me, though, is how someone can abandon such a huge investment with so little security.

If a continuous cruiser, why limit your search for a mooring to Wiltshire? If UC will pay for one elsewhere that should give you a base to work from. Things like insurance and safety certificates will be treated as normal living expenses,but having to move round the country for one reason or another is fairly normal.

I think most of us who were around in the late 60's and early 70's had such a nice time that everything that came later was a bit of a disappointment!

They have to. You can't keep cutting taxes for rich people without having more poor people who can't evade taxation. And, while the indigenous population won't work cheap, you have to import those who will work all hours, do crap jobs and pay tax. Not sure if that's why the proportion of selfish plonkers is on the rise though. I've only been out on the boat in the last ten days and I've met three total asterisks already.

Followed a boat home yesterday. They pulled out just in front of me and pottered along at tickover, stopping at every bridge to line it all up - hitting most of them as he then had no steering. I pulled up, made a cup of tea, watched them out of sight, started off and caught them up again next bridge, still going at tickover. He gazed thoughtfully at me catching him up (and the boat behind me, catching me up), steered carefully into the middle of the channel and slowed down again, occasionally handing the tiller over to his six year old child to make sure he zigzagged a bit more. I hoped at one point he'd got stuck on the mud, but sadly he hadn't. That's the second clown in two weeks... and then there's the offensive clot living on his boat who runs the genny till midnight every night opposite the VM. And the moron at Stone last year moored next to me (opposite all the houses) who started his engine at 11pm and ran it till 5am (he said he needed to get some hot water for a shower, when I said that it was a bit late). I assume he ran it till 5 because I'd complained. I don't think the proportion of unpleasant twits is any higher than it used to be, there's just more people about. It's why I start most of my boating days at about 6am, while the buggers are still asleep. When I've found a nice solitary mooring at about half ten, I don't care what they do, I just commiserate with everyone else going past in a queue.

My SR2 takes just over 5 litres, which is what the manual says (9 1/2 pints). The dipstick is a bit odd in that it shows two levels as usual, min and max, but there seems to be only about half a litre between them. Nothing at all shows on the stick until there's about four litres in. I can't remember the number on the top - will check when next i go to the boat. ETA I have a vague memory of being told that the SR2 dipstick should have three marks on it rather than two, and I don't think the number on the top related to anything in the manual when i looked it up, but as it's got the right amount of oil in at the full level I stopped worrying about it some years ago.

Someone crashed hard into the stop lock on the Macc a couple of weeks ago (deliberately trying to open it before it was empty, according to a witness), dislodging the gate post (or whatever it's called) and the metal collar round it at the bottom, so the gate got progressively worse as it leant more and more into the canal. I came through last week and got stuck as the gate would no longer open enough - had to surge it out by opening the top paddles a couple of times. Emailed CRT when i got home with a description of the problem, went through it again last Sunday and it's been fixed. Must have been done within a day or two of my emailing, and they've refixed all the gates, not just the buggered one.

Trouble with retaliating is that you move slower than them and there's always another bridge where they can drop something heavier on you. Best to shrug, forget it. Alternatively, get a camera out and ostentatiously take their photos,while very obviously phoning the cops on your mobile.

If your phone's android, look up an app called Maps.me - this has got shops etc on it, you an download the bits of map you want and it runs offline. As far as shopping goes on the four counties, you shouldn't have any problems. You'll get to Ellesmere pretty soon, which is a really nice village with a supermarket right on the canal arm. Then (going anticlockwise) there are shops at Nantwich, Market Drayton and Wheaton Ashton, Great Haywood, Stone, Barlaston, Stoke, Wheelock and Middlewich. Some are within a comfortable ten or twenty minute walk, most much closer. The only really shopless chunk is the Middlewich link between Middlewich and Hurleston Junction (there used to be a shop at Barbridge but it's shut). There's a garage at Grindley Brook that sells stuff, I think. Also, most marinas stock basic provisions and there are plenty of those about on that route.

I'm sure you are aware that the Macc is an unusual shape, cut as a V rather than a bowl, so It's not bad in the middle but very shallow at the edges. If i remember tomorow, I'll stick a pole down and measure the depth. At the moment, if you're interested in non-residential farm moorings, there's a space going at the farm where I moor (just south of Congleton).

I lived in South Rd, down the bottom of Banks Rd. My son found the house and insisted I bought it because of the address, which was, uniquely, 35 1/2. Then I lived in Sandlea Mews, which was an old school by Sandlea Park up by the station. I was there from about 1990.

I did - and lo! Oddly, it showed on my tablet but I couldn't track it down on the PC. Then I tried to PM you, spelt the name wrong.... Irritatingly, I was in Willaston and Heswall yesterday and Birkenhead on Monday. I lived in New Brighton and West Kirby for years.

I use mine because everybody remembers me from some old TV programme, and I've been dead for years.

Just below there (the Blue Bell) is the only place in thirty years I've had my ropes cut (about four years ago). Woke up next morning bumping into the next lock. Luckily, they'd left the cut bits of rope behind so i just tied them back together... there were also a bunch of lads crawling all over the boat moored a bit further down, though they got bored after a bit and wandered off having done no damage. it's not a place to leave a boat unattended.

If that was for me, I budget for getting the bloke at the yard to do it for me. Keeps money in circulation, him in work, I can do other stuff while it's happening. He's always used bitumen before as that was what was already there, but it's been resteeled and I understand the bitumen mostly came off with the millscale, so he took the rest off and used two pack on the steel. ETA it's not the painting so much I can't do, it's the bending up and down getting the blasted stuff on the brush. An hour of that and I can't walk any more.

Most inexperienced boaters will wander up to the lock to watch and ask questions. But there certainly has been an increase in the numbers who don't but who just stand and watch. Sometimes there's good reasons, sometimes there aren't. Either way, if I'm ending up doing the whole thing on my own I just slow down a bit and take my time. What I do find odd is when there's a queue of five or six boats, and still no one bothers to walk up to the lock. But I wouldn't shut a gate in anyone's face, though I might come out a bit slow.

I only want a small amount to cover bits scraped off before the whole thing needs to be done again. I don't black it myself - too old & knackered! I'll go the Ebay route. Thanks.

My boat has always been blacked with normal bitumen previously, but has now been done with two pack epoxy. If this needs touching up before the next blacking, what should i use? Is it OK to bung some bitumen on it or do i need some of the proper stuff, and if so, what is it?

I've had times when I'd have been glad of something like that. Park benches and bus shelters for a while make you more tolerant of those wbo get stuck, and it's a lot harder to get yourself back on track now than it was fifty years ago. I can't see that a few sheds here and there ruin it for the rest of us. The way things are, there will be a lot more of them soon.

I followed a hire boat up the Macc this morning. I stopped at the boatyard for supplies and filled up with water (leaving about twenty minutes after they passed me) and caught them up two bridges later. I gave up as was closing on them on tickover, tied up at a VM, made a cup of tea and hung about for half an hour and caught them up two miles further up just before my mooring. Flat out, my boat can go at 3mph and less than that on the Macc. Slow I can understand, but sometimes it's farcical, especially if there's no way you can get past someone. However, it was a nice day...

Using a horn at every bridge or blind bend would be, pardon me for saying it, ridiculous. The noise would be endless , and if anyone expect me to hear somebody's horn over a Lister thundering away six feet from my ears they're just daft. You just bear in mind you may meet people at these places, though you rarely do, and are prepared to whack the thing into backwards. At a sensible speed you've got all the time in the world without making a great din about it. And sometimes (usually, in fact) the correct side of the canal is in the middle, so you're bound to be fairly close to a moored boat. If you've got a problem with passing boats, you're probably moored up too close to a bridge or a bend yourself (not you personally - generic you). And sometimes, if someone is moored up in the middle of a three mile line of boats (eg Golden Nook on the Shroppie), you lose the will to live at tickover and think that anyone who is daft enough to moor in that kind of place should expect people to pass at a normal cruising speed!