Dave_P

My understanding is that most kingfisher shots are done this way. Including the two posted in this thread.

Sounds like a good thing to me. Much better to ride the cill up onto the top gate than to have the risk of part of your stern snagging on something on the bottom gate. When I was new to boating I used to hang back in locks to stay away from the strong flows. All that would happen is that the boat would move around more uncontrollably. Then, one time, when heading uphill on the Rochdale, part of my rudder got stuck under a huge bolt protruding from the inside of the bottom gate. The bow continued to rise quickly while the stern was at risk of submerging. Quick action was needed to prevent a possible sinking. Now I always stay well forwards in locks.

How are the levels now on the west part of the pound?

Do you know how the walking points are awarded? I may go for that option next year.

If you like the new one, let me know if you want to sell the old one.

I've created a new thread for this topic and locked the pinned topic.

I'll tell you what you've done. You've simultaneously made the best and the worst decision of your life. To quote from Lewis Carroll; "But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked."Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.""How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice."You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here."

A friend of mine has a great photo of a kingfisher perched on the railing outside his boat in Gas Street Basin. That's about as urban as it gets.

I want one! Do you have a link to where you bought the endoscope?

This is exactly what I do. A bit time consuming but I've always managed it with little difficulty.

I don't know about this year but over the last 5 years or so, my experience is that kingfishers are on the increase around Birmingham. Or maybe I've just got better at spotting them.

4 weeks to fix the leak or 4 weeks to refill the canal?

it's worse than I thought!

Bloody plastics, coming over 'ere, stealing our jobs, having if off wiv our wimmin, cruising our rivers....

A-ha yes. I do it, a different way. Your's sounds quite good too though. I'd be worried on a wide-ish canal on a windy day that my boat would go out of reach of my hook.

I don't understand what the cabin shaft is needed for? Aren't you still holding a line? I frequently have to single hand through lift bridges. Can you send some of these helpers my way?

I'm going to make the assumption that you plan to be continuous cruisers with no access to mains electricity. If you plan to cruise 3 hours a day every other day then that (along with some solar panels) will provide the bulk of your battery charging needs from roughly march to october. I know you weren't asking about battery charging, but you'll soon find out how critical that is. A typical diesel price on the cut round here is 85p per litre and I'd allow for 1.5 litres per hour, assuming you're on a narrowboat between 50-70' long. So 45 x 1.5 = 67.5 litres used a month, which would cost about £57. You say you would have the engine running less in winter but how will you provide domestic power? Realistically you'll be running your engine more, even if cruising less. This is because your power demand will increase in winter, and your solar panels will hardly do anything. Feel free to correct my assumption and I'll rethink my advice! You should also learn about red diesel and 60:40 split declarations. You've done well then. What split do you declare?