IanD

Alperton's no worse than many other urban canal areas, and probably better than many especially with the amount of new development going on -- which you may not approve of, but is much less grotty than what used to be there. The same is happening at various locations along the Paddington Arm (e.g. Greenford) as developers take the opportunity to build overpriced canalside rabbit hutches to try and satisfy the demand for housing. Which is fine except the biggest demand is for social/truly affordable housing, which AFAIK is not what any of these are -- or at least, apart from the token minimum needed to get planning permission... 😞 Still the new effect is to move the area upmarket and de-grottify it, which is surely not entirely a bad thing, for example if visitors want to moor there?

Which section(s) of the GU are you asking about?

Not any more... 😞

That's what happened last time I tried putting an @ in front, so I thought I was doing something wrong...

Hmm, I tried that earlier and it didn't work -- let's try again... @M_JG

BTW how do you add a forum member link into a post like the one you did?

Lots of expensive flats being built there though -- and they've even got a stranded narrowboat to look at... 😉

They're often the worst, but I've come across some horribly stiff bottom paddles too, both gate and ground. Of course the hydraulic paddle gear needs very little effort but a shedload of turns, a small conventional windlass will do just fine for this (but it means you need one).

I've never used one but the GoWindlass does look like a decent bit of engineering design -- short throw for when you need it (clearance/easy paddle), longer throw for when you need that (longer throw/stiffer paddle), ratchet for when you need that (stiff paddle with short clearance). About 1kg is heavier than a standard steel windlass but not massively so. But as well as costing £70 they're out of stock... 😞