frangar

Posting this from Coach & Horses in Wheaton Aston. Just to say they still have the free use of a washing machine & drier....plus rather good free wifi....sadly no cask ale at the moment but they do have three handpulls....so if more of us ask & use it then they might well try it. They do have Banks mild on keg tho so all isn't lost. They also do pizzas and there is an unconnected Indian restaurant upstairs. It's only about 10 mins walk from the visitor moorings through the village and I think they are doing all they can to build the pub up. All in all a good village boozer that's offering a service to boaters. Of course no connection other than a happy punter. Edited to add. Seems on further enquiries the pub is looking for new tenants. Didn't like to ask why they haven't lasted long. Let's hope someone can take it on and bring back real ale while keeping the laundry! Cheers Gareth.

Well the present landlord keeps nice proper ale.....think when we went in a month or so ago there was a choice of at least three if not more ale including dark ones....it must have been pretty good cos I remember we stayed for more than one pint!....had a good crowd in as well. Cheers Gareth

Totally agree with this....don't use a wood primer as a first coat tho...use a general metal type primer. Wood primers won't fix to epoxy. Cheers Gareth

Without wishing to intrude on what must be a stressful time for all concerned are there any clues as to why the lid came off??... I'm sure many of us have come close to disaster at some time or another and it's only by good grace that we haven't suffered the same fate. Cheers Gareth

I really hope proceedings are taken against those lowlife who tried raising it & looting. It saddens me greatly that this sort of scum have the right to breathe. It's easy to say they should have checked the weed hatch but I'm sure I can't be the only one who has been grateful to clear something off the prop and just fastened the lid down and carried on without checking all was ok. Cheers Gareth.

You can reduce the amount of power to the charger....easy if you have a MasterView Easy control panel....slightly harder with the laptop interface and a bit of a pain with the DIP switches. The charger output is reduced a well of course. Cheers Gareth

So visiting boats get the noisy end plus probably no mooring when events are on or at least the joy of people all over your boat......what a genius idea that is! Great way to encourage more visiting boats....I feel an email to peel & the councils tourism officer coming on. Cheers Gareth.

I don't think peel want boats at all....even less ones that might move.....what's really needed is more visitor moorings in Castlefield,....not less....it's mad that they are being made into permanent moorings....I for one don't fancy going into the centre knowing there's unlikely to be space to moor somewhere that's even half safe.....it's not even like you can pop some pins in on othe bits of the towpath..... Cheers Gareth

Any Bottled gas is heavier than air....so any leaks will settle in the bottom of your boat...hence why gas lockers have to drain overboard...having a cylinder stored inside your boat means that leaks from the cylinder...even from when you swap cylinders etc...will accumulate inside the boat.....then one small spark and BOOM! Also you insurance will be invalid along with BSC..... Please do remove it ASAP. If you need extra heating you need any heater to be flued....if you have a hook up then use a oil fired rad. Cheers Gareth

I was more thinking of a waistcoat & neckerchief......while drinking a brew and having the back cabin range smoking nicely.....time to show these forgieners how proper canal boating is done....... Cheers Gareth PS...what's a haircut?

I'm fancying taking our boat over just to see the reactions we would get.......what could possibly go wrong......... It looks less crowded than this bit of the Llangollen was this afternoon.......and the boats are going slower........ Cheers Gareth

That's good...when I ran the trip boat about 17 years ago you couldnt get far into that arm at all...and when I was back up there last week I didn't even bother trying. Perhaps I should have! Cheers Gareth

Blimey you must have a hovercraft!.....unless they have dredged them. Note you can also moor opposite Anglo Welsh unless it's Friday/Saturday. They do try and take over tho with 4 day boats plus the hire fleet....I moor there to prove a point.

If by cabinet heater you mean a gas powered one with a cylinder inside it I urge you to get it off the boat ASAP! Not only do they produce vast amounts of water vapour they also don't comply with any of the boat safety regs...being an unflued appliance and having a gas cylinder not in a dedicated compartment that can drain any gas leaks over board....so you either die of CO poisoning or you get blown up.....and more to the point I don't want to be the boat next to you when either happens! Cheers Gareth

Common sense is sadly not very common these days I'm afraid....hence we must have signs....railings and sundry other things to protect ourselves from things that have been fine for a couple of hundred years......it's truly amazing the human being isn't extinct. (As an aside I was told by a boater on very shiny boat last week that lock flights confused them....this as they dumped me firmly on the bottom as they turned the lock against me on a short pound despite my vocal efforts that the lock was in my favour.......) Cheers Gareth

I think similar happened at one of the first Bulbourne open days too...all I really can remember was it was getting light as we left the pub....another great character of the cut sadly gone. My thoughts go to his family. Gareth

I have a Jabsco parmax 4 which has a 25 psi cut out & a 16 litre/min flow.....I also have a shower head with an eco setting which is supposed to save water.....and my shower is better than the 4 bar pumped shower at my mothers! Mines fed by a calorifier....all pipe work is 15mm I never see the point of fitting small water pumps. Cheers Gareth

You are thinking of Lombardini.....Nanni use the same Kubota base engine as beta with different marinising parts. Lombardini seem to be more popular in sea going boats mainly because they are lighter due to using alloy castings....there's a few in narrowboats but they seem to be mainly older budget builds. And yes you are right that they use a cam belt which needs changing...for the life of me I can't remember at what hours. Cheers Gareth

Personally I like the waeco unit...means I can leave the fridge independant of the battery's when I'm on a hook up...leaving rest of 12v off if I'm away....meaning if there's a mains failure I don't come back to a flat battery bank as I would do if running thro a charger. Some people seem to be making this quite complicated when for £50 there is a ready made solution! Cheers Gareth

I have mixed feelings about marina security....the idea of gates on the jetties is good but it's rather annoying when you wander down to find you have left the fob or keys on the boat....after the 3rd time.... One we stayed in even needed the fob for the bin store.... I'm not sure there is a simple answer really. Cheers Gareth

What you need is a waeco MPS-35 rectifier. Works with any danfoss bd-35 compressor powered fridge & auto selects between DC & AC. The output is 24v but the BD35 is fine with that...the lamp in older shorelines might not be tho. They work well. Cheers Gareth

I'm not sure that peel can give boaters much less....maybe if they close the canal to navigation?? Cheers Gareth.

Whilst I'm not usually one for advocating free loading I think the way this charge has been brought in I would take the risk if purely doing an out and back transit. Considering the facilities provided for boaters such as refuse disposal and even moorings are limited to say the least I think they are being very unreasonable. Even the main honeypot site at castle field lacks anything other than a water tap now. However I bet the boats that always seem to be on the prime visitor moorings are still there! Cheers Gareth

Really? Most modern upvc doors are eurolocks...even with multipoint locking the weak point is the eurolocks. Have a look down most uk streets. For such a naff design they are very popular! Cheers Gareth

Even if fitted with a deadlock they aren't that hard....have a Google at how easy it is to snap a Eurolock which is by far the most common type of lock fitted to houses....you can buy uprated eurolock barrels but their not cheap...I've done it to my mothers house but you can only do so much unless you want to live in a prison.... Cheers Gareth