Dave_P
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Posts posted by Dave_P
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6 minutes ago, WotEver said:
I think you need to brush up on your history and understand the origin of the ‘continuous cruiser’ license. It ended up being poorly written and thereby permitting bridge hoppers, causing CaRT to introduce the unofficial 20 mile ‘rule’ which prevented the worst of the piss-takers from standing still. Whether they go back to parliament and ask for the legislation to be re-drafted at some point in the future is unlikely but not impossible.
I'm well aware that BW's guidance for continuous cruisers used to be substantially different to the guidance given now. However, that only goes to show that there is no single definition of a continuous cruiser, despite what some members would wish.
For clarity, my original post was designed to speculate on the reasons for the 100 mile range suggested by IWA - that is, to prevent liveaboards who work in a single site from avoiding having a home mooring. I wasn't passing judgement on that other than to imply that members tend to look after their own interests (in this case, relatively well off retirees).
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Just now, WotEver said:
No you weren’t. You were referring to someone who wants to avoid paying for a mooring and thereby declaring himself to be a continuous cruiser when in fact he wishes to remain in one particular area and not cruise at all.
Your self-made-up definition of continuous cruisers isn't really helpful in this discussion and doesn't match with CRTs either, thankfully.
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1 minute ago, WotEver said:
No it doesn’t. It means that you’ll have to pay for a mooring.
Thanks for the pedantry. I was (obviously) referring to continuous cruisers.
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The cruising range suggested by the IWA is 100 miles. I work in Oldbury, West Midlands. To exceed the minimum range, I would need to go as far as Macclesfield in the North, Northhampton in the East, Sharpness in the South and Llangollen in the West. This effectively rules out any chance of commuting to a specific place of work, which, I suspect, is the whole point. I'd also wager that the majority of IWA members are retired.
When I'm away from my mooring for a length of time, my cruising range is around 50 miles, Worcester, Stratford, Tamworth, Stafford, Gnosall etc.
This keeps my commuting time to around 1 hour, which is reasonable for me.
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1 hour ago, David Schweizer said:
We used piling hooks for years and unlike "nappy Pins" never lost one. When you remove the rope from a piling hook, it falls onto the top of the piling, wheras nappy pins requie two hands to stop them sliding down the back of the piling and into the water. We did have a pair of "nappy pins" with rings and short looped ropes attached to them, so that the looped end could be placed onto a mooring dolly and the pin dropped onto the piling to hold the boat close to the bank before the boat's mooring ropes and hooks could be deployed. A very useful idea learnt from another boater which made mooring a lot easier on a busy waterway.
With regard to mooring rope angles it would seem that each boat varies. We had a high bow and found that the boat held best with a rear line almost at right angles, and a forward line at 45 degrees. We always dropped fenders down against the piling and preferred ropes to be tight, which prevented a lot of backwards and forwards movement when other boats passed.
Never remove the rope until you've removed the nappy pin, that way you'll never lose one.
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A similar thing happened to me. While away, my calorifier exploded in my engine bay (cruiser stern). On my return I was puzzled as to why my water tank was suddenly empty. I proceeded to start filling my water tank. Then I noticed my water pump was running and I was very confused. Eventually I checked under my deck boards. I have no auto setting on my bilge pump. The engine was pretty much submerged. Boat didn't sink though.
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Perhaps I'm not keeping up with price increases but is looks like a pretty well worn and tired boat with a basic fit out. Maybe a little on the cheap side but what are others saying it could be worth? £30k? £35k?
I'm always having a half a look out for a longer boat but this one wouldn't interest me at all, even at that price.
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I've used both types and never had one come off (that I can remember anyway). If put on correctly, I'm not really sure how that is even possible unless the whole section of armco is torn away.
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On 09/06/2018 at 22:17, mrsmelly said:
And a complete waste of space. Bin it.
I've been using mine for 8 years now and find them very useful. What's your problem with it?
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I've been with Collidge & Partners since day one. The initial reason was that a saw their flyer at a marina, rang them and they seemed nice. Now I'd be unlikely to go anywhere else because, a few years back I had a large and potentially complicated claim. C&P were excellent throughout the process. I've been singing their praises to anyone who asks ever since.
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6 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
They were just bullet points of a very long FT article that folks didn't want to subscribe to, to read.
I was quoting the article, not the bullet points. the article is not clear.
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"Recently, a spot on the coveted Broadway Market stretch sold for £12,500, more than the cost of some of the barges floating there. "
What this doesn't make clear is that the £12,500 is an annual charge.
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On 08/06/2018 at 09:59, Mike the Boilerman said:
Other boaters who were ‘helping’ me as a single hander.
Other boaters often tell me as a single hander to stay on the boat and they will work the lock for me. They have the best of intentions but their focus is really on getting me through and out of their way, so the welfare of my boat is not uppermost in their minds.
I hear ya! Sounds pretty familiar actually
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Thanks for this. It's always good to have a reminder of the things which can go wrong. As ever, the best advice is to remain vigilant and don't wander off or be distracted by gongoozlers.
9 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:And equally odd how folk lockside are able to blithely continue chatting and ignore a steerer frantically hooting horn, in my personal experience.
My experience of hanging up in a lock and having everyone ashore ignore me/unable to hear me yelling/hooting starkly illustrated to me how completely helpless you are on the boat if things start to go wrong. The only place to be when locking is on the lockside, NEVER on the boat.
Were the folk lockside part of your crew or just members of the public? Or were you single-handing?
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Answering my own question. This is Smethwick top lock about 1 minute ago. Maybe 1” down.
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41 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:
Our core route was 22.5 hours with options for if we were on schedule or even ahead,
We lost an hour on the Wolverhampton 21 and then another one with the general slowness of the Walsall. We would have lost another hour going back down the Walsall although we thought it possible we might recover some time up Aston and Farmer's Bridge.
The key is probably having accurate knowledge of what is a realistic speed for each section and that comes from experience.
JP
I'm interested to know your route. It seemed to have an unfeasible number of locks.
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5 minutes ago, AMModels said:
?? I think Ive seen that version in Bradshaws..... East is down and dropping, west was rising but Im sure others will have a better idea on actual figures that side.
Thanks
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1 hour ago, AMModels said:
I tend to refer to it as North and South, it bends so much it could be referred to by every point of the compass lol.
The Chasewater side is dropping slightly again, Staffs are conserving water for their Iron man contest this weekend so theres no water going into it, yesterday morning it was 5mm down on where it had recovered to so still about 4 inches down at least.
I was referring to the Wolverhampton side.
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I can imagine that Ironbridge must be tricky but how hard would it be to get the river navigable up to Bewdley? It's a nice town and I would think that having boats come and go would be good for the town's tourism etc. If all it would take is to dredge the shoal every couple of years, then surely the town council could budget for that? It seems such a shame to see the mooring rings there unused.
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6 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:
Yes they are but it is not good practice. A lot of bird shots are done by 'baiting' and it affects the birds. If you put the glass tank in water, then the bird cannot asses the depth properly.
I am a serious bird photographer and know first hand the arguments between twitchers and bird photographers. Photographers set 'baits' for the birds to get the ultimate shot. Another example is playing bird calls to attract the bird. For schedule 1 birds this is illegal in the breeding season so playing bird song to attract a Cetti's warbler or a Dartford warbler could land you in jail. Playing bird song during breeding disrupts the breeding.
There will always be an argument between bird lovers and photographers but if there is a chance of hurting or killing a kingfisher by using a fish tank to bait......then PLEASE don't do it.
Interesting comments. Thanks.
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10 hours ago, Dr Bob said:
That is a frowned upon practice. Awful. The guy should be locked up. The RSPB are trying to stamp it out. A Kingfisher diving into a fish tank doesn't know it is only 12" deep and goes in at such a speed it would break its neck on the bottom of the tank. At our local RSPB reserve, there were a group of guys trying to get tank shots like this early mornings. The RSPB caught them in the end but I was told that at least a couple of birds had died.
We've seeing one a week on average this year (midlands), so similar to last year.
My understanding is that most kingfisher shots are done this way. Including the two posted in this thread.
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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.
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How are the levels now on the west part of the pound?
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11 hours ago, Odana said:
Splendid to see there was a walker this year after all that effort we went to getting footwork included ?
After 2 years off it'll be good to rejoin the Challenge next year
Do you know how the walking points are awarded? I may go for that option next year.
London Boaters - Government Review
in General Boating
Posted
The problem for CRT is that any re-drafting was needed about 15 years ago. As each year passes, the situation becomes more entrenched.