IanD
Patron
-
Posts
11,379 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
89
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Gallery
Blogs
Store
Posts posted by IanD
-
-
8 minutes ago, Paul C said:
FFS, is this your hobby (arguing on the internet)?
Yes. Every time I take him off ignore -- you know, just in case he says something sensible -- within a short time he ends up in an argument with me and throwing accusations or insults. And then accuses me of arguing for the sake of it -- you can read the last few posts and decide where the blame lies.
As far as I'm concerned he can go into the total-waste-of-space bin with higgs/phil/WC... 😞
-
12 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:
I think that you will find that nowhere have I said anything about forcing other people to 'go at my pace', in fact I have clearly stated in my first post,".....To be honest, if I'm caught up by another boat I'm quite content to pull over and let them pass....." but you obviously missed that. The fact is that on most narrow canals, overtaking is simply a PITA because of the underwater profile of the canal (always shallower at the sides). Overtaking on wide canals and rivers, no real problem, but narrow canals not really. So you are following someone down the Rushall canal (if it's open at the moment), or the Chesterfield, or the Huddersfield and you want them to get out of your way (and inevitably run aground) so that you can overtake, that to me sounds more like arrogance.
I'm not sure that carries much weight, coming from a caravanner
If you're following someone down a canal with not enough room or water to pass, then stay behind.
Which is different to the case where there *is* enough space and water, as I keep saying but you keep ignoring... 😉
-
33 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:
For a bit of evening entertainment I read the owners manual of a boat I moved recently and the section on bow thrusters said "they are only effective when moving in forward gear". I think I used them twice in 44 hours of cruising and neither time was I moving forward.
The general tone of the piece on bow thrusters was "please try not to use them, they aren't up to much".
The whole thing was a bit odd.
They take a lot of power and flatten batteries and (mostly) overheat quite quickly, and are often undersized and ineffective, so in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to use them they're a bit of a liability.
There are exceptions to this (like the 48V Vetus Pro BT) but these are expensive and never fitted to hire boats -- in fact they're pretty rare on narrowboats full stop.
-
3 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:
It may have once been primarily a transport system, it is now primarily a leisure system. The difference between 2mph and 4mph is minimal since you can rush as much as you want, as I've heard boaters saying,"We have to get around the Leicester Ring"(really?) only to go around the next corner and find either a tree down across the canal which may well hold you up for a couple of days or a lock gate that some muppet has dislodged that may also hold you up for a couple of days. In my hire boating days I always had a 'bail out' point where if I hadn't reached there by halfway through the week (for whatever reason) I'd turn around and go back the way I'd come. I always reference the comment of an old friend that I used to go salt water sailing with, "We don't do timetables, we just do destinations". If your life is dependent upon tight schedules it's possible that narrowboating isn't really for you since there are a whole host of things that can bugger up any schedule, not simply slow boaters
.
All true -- but there are still times when this isn't the case, like when you're close to the boatyard on the final afternoon of a two-week holiday and you get stuck behind dawdler-twit... 😉
Regardless of *why* the boat behind (speed merchant?) wants to go faster than the boat in front (dawdler?), if there's space and water to let them pass there's no reason not to do so, apart from pig-headedness... 😞
-
3
-
-
5 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:
That is because they dont fit hire Narrowboats with bow thrusters 😄
Because if they did some people would use them for steering instead of the tiller... 😉
-
3 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:
I don’t have a crystal ball, apparently my projects tend toward late delivery.I'm sure the boatyard would have been happy about me delivering the boat back to them late, so long as I explained about dawdler-twit... 😉
My point is that the whole incident was completely unnecessary, he wasn't in a hurry so it would have been absolutely no skin off his nose to pull over and slow down for a minute or so to let me pass -- and I had asked nicely, and explained why I wanted to do this. His response was "it's not a Grand Prix", and to not just refuse to let me pass but deliberately add extra delay when he was mooring up "at home". Just plain selfish bloody-mindedness... 😞
-
1
-
-
1 minute ago, M_JG said:
Thats not what I mean and you know it.
The exact cost of that boat is a matter between the buyer and the builder. No body else, unless the information is divulged with the permission of the buyer of course.
Its common courtesy and good business practice.
I would less than pleased if a builder divulged to a fellow customer how much a bespoke boat I was having built cost.
Good for you -- but you're not a client, are you? How do you suggest a boatbuilder tells customers what different boats are likely to cost without mentioning budgetary prices?
I work with confidential information and non-disclosure agreements on things *way* more expensive and secret than boats, so I suggest you don't tell me how to suck eggs -- and I'm not going to disclose what information was or wasn't disclosed, or what permission was involved, because it's none of your damn business.
Why am I not surprised that within 5 minutes of me making the mistake of peeking at one of your mails just in case you had something worthwhile to say, you've picked an argument yet again?
Bye bye -- again... 😞
-
1
-
-
12 minutes ago, M_JG said:
So what happened to client confidentiality?
I'm a client, and I hold any information I'm asked to in confidence, including various details about the boat design... 😉
-
15 minutes ago, peterboat said:
I heard various figure bandied around I suspect nearly 500k would be around right for it
Not too far off -- I know the actual figure but Ricky asked me not to make it public, like various other things about his boat builds. My narrowboat -- much smaller and with far fewer exotic features than Time of Life -- cost more than £250k, and of course I hope *I'll* be happy with it. But there are quite a few things in there that haven't been tried before, so I won't be entirely surprised if they don't all work exactly as planned.
But then if you never try anything new you never make any improvements, and I know Ricky plans to offer some of the ideas that work as options on future boats... 😉
-
1
-
-
8 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:
They misremember it when mooring though .... Gits!
Oh I dunno, surely if they left a gap big enough for another car/boat to get in there wouldn't be any problem, would there? 😉
6 minutes ago, Loddon said:I'm trying to remember if we have ever been overtaken on the canals🤔..........no can't remember once.
On the Thames however we have often been overtaken by gin palaces and twice been flagged by the EA for going to fast 😱
I don't think I've been overtaken except very occasionally by boats going "too fast" -- meaning, with a big bow wave and breaking wash, like they're not supposed to have, or doing more than 4mph with the hammer down and clouds of black smoke.
But like drivers doing 90+mph on the motorway, if they want to come past like that (and there's space) I'll let them, it's not my job to enforce speed limits and it's less stressful to let them thrash off into the distance than block them... 😉
-
30 minutes ago, MartynG said:
On the phone wifi probably needs to be turned off (it does on my android phone) to allow the phone to act as a hotspot
That happens automatically on mine (Android) when you turn mobile hotspot on...
-
6 minutes ago, Rob-M said:
The other boat passing helps pull you back out in to the channel especially if it is quite shallow which saves you having to jump off and push the boat out or destroy the bank with a bow thruster.
Indeed, but if they're coming past like they're towing a waterskier (see my post) you can tend to get pulled out too soon, it's useful to have some power on to counteract this rather than having no manoeuvrability. Of course if they pass so fast that you inevitably get pulled out into the channel and they collide with you it'll obviously be your fault, not theirs. DAMHIK... 😞
5 minutes ago, nicknorman said:I just noticed there is a boat name on your profile now. Does this mean you have got your new boat? Of course with a name like that, presumably you are one of the dawdlers!!😅
Not yet, it's in the final stages of fitting out. I don't think I'll ever be a dawdler, but neither will I block somebody who wants to go faster than me even if they seem to be going surfing... 😉
-
2
-
-
20 hours ago, nicknorman said:
I don’t think there are any diesels engines that don’t have a governor other than perhaps something extreme ancient. Even a bollinder has a governor. Unlike a petrol engine, a diesel engine is unstable in rpm especially in neutral. Slightly too much fuel and it accelerates without limit (until something breaks or terminal velocity is reached) because as the rpm increases, so does the fuel flow. Each injection of fuel gives the same dose of fuel, but they come faster and faster. Ditto if slightly too little fuel, the rpm and fuel flow steadily decreases until it stalls.
I stand corrected 🙂
-
3 minutes ago, XLD said:
Hmm. I'm going to switch eberything off and start from scratch. There is a Firestick too but I've not involved it yet🙄
I'll turn the VPN off. What is RF???
The IPad is the latest model.
RF = radio frequency i.e. the connection from the iPad to the phone. Don't know how the iPad displays this, but you should have some network diagnostics on it to see what's going on...
-
5 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:
If someone wants to overtake me I pull over and come to a standstill so no harder than going past a moored boat, just not at tickover.
I find coming to a complete standstill (power off) can cause more problems than dropping to idle, you often get pulled out towards the other boat as it passes and having some steerage way helps counteract this.
Especially if the boat coming up behind you has the hammer down and is making a wash like a speedboat, like one last year... 😞
-
56 minutes ago, XLD said:
Both bluetooths "on", reasonable 4G signal, hotspot on mobile "on"
VPN connected. So why is my iPad not connecting🤔
Does it connect with the VPN off?
When you say "doesn't connect" do you mean no RF connection at all, or no Internet?
At home your mobile will be using Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet (via your landline), on the boat it will be using the mobile network -- is this the problem?
-
4 minutes ago, nicknorman said:
Not just bridge holes, but as you know when the first boats pass on a shallow canal, there is a tendancy for the bows to end up pointing to the left unless the steerer is expecting it and compensates accordingly (plenty don't!). If there is a second boat following close behind they become a likely target for a collision!
Close following like that is the equivalent of a driver on a road coming up behind a slower vehicle and being unwilling to overtake even when safe -- many drivers seem to think that overtaking is bad driving nowadays -- but driving so close behind them that anyone who does want to get past has to overtake both vehicles at once.
IIRC the Highway Code says you should always leave a gap, but many drivers ignore this -- again, maybe taking the view that "If I can't/don't want to overtake, neither should anyone else". Which is exactly the dawdling boater attitude this thread is about... 😞
-
1
-
-
1 minute ago, Goliath said:
I think I’ve only once raced for a meal.
It was for a Sunday Dinner at Brewood.
Left Broad Street Basin at 8 am, with plenty of time,
but failed to build in to my contingency plan a couple of dry pounds.
but made it
As did I -- but your dry pounds were not caused by needless dawdler-twat bloody-mindedness... 😉
-
4 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:
You should have calculated your contingency properly 😉I did, I got to where we needed to after dawdler-twit eventually stopped. By steering across the canal into a side arm and shuffling backwards and forwards across the canal for five minutes while I sat there, rather than letting me pass (where there was room and deep enough water) before he moored. Harsh words were exchanged... 😞
Of course I originally had more contingency, but it got eaten up by unexpected closures on the Soar and Trent due to unseasonal heavy rainfall. But I'm sure your crystal ball would have predicted that even though the Met Office didn't... 🙂
-
2 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:
I dont think the owners of Nb Whitfield were
The original ones *and* the later ones, from what I heard...
Mind you, anyone who thought that steering a narrowboat with a joystick was ever going to work needs their head examining... 😉
-
4 hours ago, Mike Todd said:
There are far fewer places where overtaking is reasonable than most boaters imagine - so few have the chance to try it anyway. It requires greater width and length than passing in opposite directions (as with roads)
It is just a consequences of quite standard hydrodynamics. Many boaters will have experienced the same effect on narrow canals (or elsewhere on a wide beam) when going through bridge holes. Some the more spectacular are on Llangollen (which wasn't really built for (fast) boating anyway). At times, you almost come to a dead stop when nearly thorough - look carefully and see the water rushing by at the sides. In slightly wider arches, entering at speed slightly off centre will drag the boat sideways.
A lack of understanding about basic behaviour of moving water is at the root of many 'incidents'.
Overtaking is but rarely safe. Uninvited overtaking is never safe. (well, almost never!)
Or perhaps know when it is not safe so to do.
I said "when there's space to do it". I've been stuck behing a dawdler-twit who was pootling along at idle where there were no moored boats and space/depth to pass, but who refused to move over because "it's not a race".
He didn't have to get the boat back close to the hire base (and for a booked meal) that evening, I did... 😞
-
15 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:
[snip] -- but agreed 100%
But that doesn't change the fact that following a boat or being followed is a pain because it doesn't allow you to cruise in a natural and relaxed manner.
Which is the point -- having one boat holding another up is stressful for both dawdler (having to look behind all the time) and follower (having to watch ahead/slow down/drop out of gear all the time).
And completely unnecessary and pointless -- if a boat comes up behind you let them past when there's space to do it, it's not your job to be the "speed police" or tell other people how they should be boating.
I suspect that people who don't move over are the same ones who sit in the overtaking lane of motorways at 70mph when the other lane is empty... 😉
-
2
-
-
4 hours ago, blackrose said:
As opposed to determined to being miserable? 🤔
I know someone who's spent that sort of money on a boat and he seems genuinely happy with it, but £250k is nothing to him so I suppose it's no wonder he's always happy!
I think this idea of people being determined to be happy with stuff they've spent money on in order to justify the spend only applies to a tiny minority. Most people I meet are much more honest in their assessment of what they've bought.
From what I gathered from Ricky, they were happy with it because it came out just like they hoped for and was a perfect fit to their requirements, and is well suited to where it is moored and cruises (the Thames). Most people would be happy under those circumstances, except possibly @MtB... 😉
Mind you, he'd be even less happy for them if he found out what it *really* cost, which was a *lot* more than £250k... 🙂
-
1
-
-
3 hours ago, nicknorman said:
Well, being proper pedantic, a throttle is something you get on a petrol engine to restrict (throttle) the air flow into the cylinders. Diesel engines generally don’t have a throttle to restrict airflow. They do have an rpm selector, a linkage that changes the spring loading on the governor to alter the speed at which the governor reaches equilibrium.
So I think we who routinely use the term “throttle” are just as sinful as someone calling it an “accelerator”, or more so!
Or they just crudely change the amount of fuel the injection pump delivers each time, much simpler than a governor...
Best Stern for Single Handed
in New to Boating?
Posted · Edited by IanD
Indeed, I don't think anything like it has been built before. The canalworld article quoted a starting price of £350k without any of the electric propulsion and batteries or the luxury fitments, and prices have gone up since the article (as I know only too well!).
So it's easy to see that anyone wanting one like it built today would have to cough up something like the £500k that you mentioned -- and to be honest, like the famous Rolls-Royce quote, anyone who can afford that isn't going to worry about £50k either way, it's still a fraction of the cost of a posh London flat... 😉