David Schweizer

Wasn't Sculptor also converted to a London Fire Boat If so, maybe the lever control was fitted at the same time.

Pisces, which was a Small Northwich, had a rachet lever throttle control, and a very long pivoted lever connnected to the gearbox for gear change. I do not know whether they were original equipment, or controls fitted when the boat was either converted into a Fire Boat, or later into a Water Bus, but they were the controls on the boat when aquired from Brittish Waterways in the early 1960's. I seem to remember seeing another former working boat with a similar arrangement some years ago, but cannot remember the name of the boat.

Yes thank you. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I was already aware of the newspaper article identified by Heartland, but had forgotten about it, along with some census research I conducted some years ago. To make ammends the link to a 2019 thread giving more information is here:- https://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?/topic/99623-canal-boat-or-narrowboat/

Rolt certainly appears to be the first person who used the term Narrow Boat in print, but he must have got the term from someone, and it was a tad more than 50 years ago his book "Narrow Boat" was published in 1944.

Is this sort of "humour" appropriate?

Very unlikely as very few went to school or ever learnt to read and write. Up until quite recently there would always be a good number at the Braunston historic boat rally, but sadly many of them have either passed away in the last few years, or are too unwell to attend. If you want to see old photos, may I suggest that you start by taking a look at the Historic boats for sale section.

Fair enough, I must have mis understood what you were trying to say. However, there are a lot more members on here who remember working boats then you may think, but most of them choose to post only infrequently.

How does that make recollections of those who rermember the old working boats, make their experience any less relevant ?

I have never heard of that happening. I knew a lot of boating families in the 1960's, and can only think of two who might have qualified for that sort of treatment. All the others kept both themselves and their boats clean and tidy, despite the often dirty work.

deleted My Bronze windlass is exactly the same as the one illustrated.

I still have my bronze Boatman's Cabin (Laurence Hogg) short throw windlass. It is a lovely item, which I used on all but the stiffest lock paddles. It is now in my small collection of interesting windlasses, but not on display!

Not really. Old rare, and interesting postcards can fetch serious money.

Yes, I just found that !!

Just a bit out of date (15 years and only one post)

I dont know if he is still around and/or still painting, but you could always ask Phil if he would be willing to tidy them up a bit. Alternatively you could try Meg Gregory, who was Phil's aprentice, and paints in a similar style.

No not too late. They could take some careful renovation and restoration if you are good with a small brush, but if not, Dave Moore's suggestion is the best way to go, it is what many boat decoraters would do.

Alternatively, having realised it was a typo, you could have edited your post to remove the unfortunate comment.

Why do you do it? Your subsequent post indicates that you clearly understood my post despite the obvious typo, making foolish comments does you no justice.

I read somewhere that you need rto be qualified to make and set up Lithium battery banks, but do not remember what the qualifictaion involved.

I did monitor the batteries on a regular basis, but rather than install an expensive monitoring system, relied upon good old fashioned voltmeters and ammeters, together with a Sterling Advanced Battery Regulator. I had a battery charger on board, but cannot remember ever using it on my batteries. We tended to move every day which ensured that the batteries were always being re-charged.. The US batteries we had on the boat were desisigned to power golf buggies, small fork lift trucks etc and would tolerate being heavily discharged, without any damage occuring.

In my many past years of boating I have heard various reports of LA batteries leaking acid or gas, and someimes exploding, but have never had any experience of this happening in my boat, or indeed on any boat owned by friends. All this leads me to ask whether this is good fortune or better quality equipment and installation.

My first set of extra deep cycle batteries lasted 13 years before I passed them on to another boater. They were beginning to loose charge when I left the boat for several weeks, and needed a top up charge every few days, AFAIK they lasted at least another five years before they did not want to hold charge for more than a day. Not knowing how much an equivalent bank of Lithium batteries would cost, I do not know whether there would be any cost advantage.

At the risk of hi-jacking this thread, may I please ask what are the benefits of replacing LA batteries with Lithium ones. We had two heavy duty Deep cycle US batteries in Helvetia, and they went on trouble free for years. They never ran down during usage and kept their charge consistently, they did not even require the electrolyte topping up for the first five or six years, and then it was only every few months (or more) when a small amount of de-ionised water was needed.