oarfish

Not surprised by this after having had a chat with him roughly 20 minutes after mooring near Preston brook. Combined with the bureaucratic fun of actually getting a short term license from Peel the reservation of visitor moorings on a canal already almost devoid of casual mooring sounds like we will have to use it purely for navigation.

I had a knock within 3 hours of mooring up on the Bridgewater this time. My boat is definitely not purple. Bought a month's temporary license which is a fairly bureaucratic process, they don't make it easy to be legit. From talking to the enforcement guy (who also runs a marina) they are coming down like a ton of the metaphorical on CRT visitors as they say they have a problem with CRT continuous moorers using their water to evade CRT enforcement. The team who run the ship canal are taking over the Bridgewater apparently, and they do not mess around. I told the enforcement people I would be happy to pay for both short term mooring and navigation rights if this was made possible. As it's on 24 hours rather than 2 weeks, with little in the way of designated visitor mooring, little or no short term moorings available in marinas and long stretches of cyclepath that you can't get a pin into even if you are happy to pay up it's a bit of a pain to keep within the rules as a weekend CCer. Probably just going to have to use it as a motorway with the occasional stop in Castlefield.

Going to need to change the boat's name to ;DROP TABLE SIGHTINGS;

Thanks for the tips, was looking at Jotun's range as they have a satin finish for decks

Does anybody know of a boat painter (preferably northwest / midlands) with experience stripping to metal using 2 pack coating both above and below the waterline? I'm after a hard wearing satin black and figured the same coating can be used. Everyone I have contacted seems to want to give me a shiny coach painted job.

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/20A-12V-24V-New-Tracer-2215BN-20-amps-Programmable-MPPT-Solar-Charge-Controller-with-MT50-LCD/319525_1959410231.html 2215BN can be configured up to 17V

Yes batterymegastore messed me around a few weeks ago with a bunch of Trojans, if it wasn't for the discount code for installing the terrible mobile app they wouldn't be cheap either. Intending to use my new Tracer MPPT (which has an equalise mode now).

We are planning on the Rochdale in a few weeks, have a friend up in Hebden and want to see Yorkshire this year.

This one from the little ..colony by the Cheshire Cat? I always wondered what happened to dream #1. Now we know.

We have 4x unisolar 130, very sturdy connections and tough plastic. Stand up to walking on well. They are outrageously marked up over here though, you are best purchasing from US ebay if you can.

Trevor should probably be renamed Anglo Trevor. The basin is completely dominated by their poorly tied up hire and day boats. It's a more obvious problem in the winter I guess.

I regularly get 20Mbps on EE when in an area with good signal. This is with a 3g router / high gain antenna rather than a tethered phone but their network does deliver.

We need Elon Musk / Branson / Google to hurry up with the low orbit satellite broadband as it looks like the wireless providers just can't keep up with requirements. It's not so much that its unaffordable, it's unavailable. EE 50Gb deal is about the only viable option and that's only for business accounts.

Cambrian basin was about the best central place to stay we found. Central Brum seemed remarkably short on visitor mooring space despite only having a few liveaboards hanging about due to heavy commercialisation of the towpath.

The non tidal Thames doesn't take much getting used to at all when its behaving itself - huge locks full of GRP boats and bloody rowers everywhere are the main difference. Also getting overtaken on the canal is much rarer And yes, learn to use spring lines if there are fast cruisers around or (at best) you will have a bumpy time. Nobody passes you at tickover and the speed limit is much higher than the ditch.

I hear they like to take charity donations for a slightly longer stay, seems reasonable. Didn't want to run the washing machine in there though, there's barely any flow.

If I'm not on the boat midweek, kind of. It's not a pace I could keep up for long. It's one of the reasons why we chose to go up the Llangollen in winter, when the occasional day or two over within a mile of the Grand Wizard's favourite pub doesn't actually matter. I was mostly observing that it's far easier to be compliant on some waterways than others, something you only really discover while bona fide navigating all over the place.

Thanks to the Waffen SUCC allocating much of their canal to 48 hour visitor moorings and the unsuitability of much of the canal for mooring (especially with a pretty deep boat like ours) that's not deemed a visitor mooring, the Shropshire Union can be a pretty difficult canal to comply with even if you are good about spending no more than a week or so in a 'place'. It's a lot easier to be a compliant live aboard in London despite the overcrowding. I'd rather be breasted up than pinned 3 foot out from the bank.

Charged, but not isolated. I'll try that. I'll see if I can twiddle it with the mastervolt software too. Has to be a better solution than microscopic dip switches in a tiny cupboard.

I can't manage to kick this off properly. Batteries are at 100% DIP switches are set to 'Normal' (i.e lead acid) mode I 'pulse' the DIP switch according to the manual (I assume this means on-off quickly) Voltage slowly rises to 29.4 or so then drops back to 28 in a minute. Didn't notice any flashing panel lights, but then my head isn't in the right place. I really need to boil these batteries, has anyone managed to get a Mass Combi into equalise mode? Edit - erm, that's a 230 not a 120. The manual is identical

This is the impression I get. It's not an uncommon boaty attitude

It was designed to prevent corrosion in nuclear missiles.

That and the Peak are some of the nicest canals I have been on. The SU is broadbeam through Chester. Agreed that the Weaver is probably closest wide CRT water.

I'm in my 30s (just about). I'm not completely against the idea, but this sort of thing never has the outcomes you would desire. Especially in a cutthroat situation like property ownership in a gentrifying area of London.

The going rate for moorings in Hackney would be pretty high nowadays wouldn't it? 8-10K at least? It's an up and coming area etc. Not sure why some people should be allocated cheap moorings leaving hundreds of other reluctant cruisers to be exploited by hipster canal side bar prices. If activism and knowing the right people will get you a cheap floaty home in East London then the river will be a housing estate full of socially skilled middle class kids.