IanD

However some brokerages have a much better reputation for being honest than others; Rugby Boats and ABNB seem to be two of the best for this, others have been named and shamed on CWDF as less so... 😉

That'll be The Ivanhoe then. Still Sam Smiths, but a fair way from the canal -- and seems less well received than The Boat, as far as you can trust online reviews... 😉

I know all that, but the request was for a simple explanation that a non-engineer could understand... 😉 If you want to get into the details -- including what actually happens with a circular wheel not the square one I assumed for simplicity -- then you also need to consider the difference between traditional alloy rims and the far stiffer carbon fibre ones used on racing bikes, which also have a much deeper and more rigid cross-section which hardly flexes at all. And they often don't have wire spokes in tension at all, they have integral moulded CF ones which also work in compression and torsion. But this is the wrong forum for that... 😉

Correct. Unless the load is *really* heavy -- for this to happen with the numbers I gave and 2 wheels, the rider would have to weigh about 3 tons to reduce the lower spoke tension to zero. Which will never happen, the wheel will buckle and collapse long before this...<sproing> 😞

Yes, unless the spoke tension is *far* too low or the rider is *far* too heavy... 😉 Each spoke has typically 100kg or so of tension, which is why they go "ping". Assume a wheel has 32 spokes, and to simplify things split them into 8 "top", 16 "side", and 8 "bottom". With no rider on the bike, all the spokes have 100kg of tension in them, which is what keeps the wheel rigid. Even with a 400kg rider (!!!) over one wheel the top spoke tension would only increase by 25kg/spoke to 125kg/spoke (200kg "pulling up") and the bottom spoke tension would decrease by 25kg/spoke to 75kg/spoke (200kg less "pulling down").

Paul Whitehouse's recent programs on the rivers even more so... 😞

Guys, no need to get your knickers in a twist about this, I was only looking for some advice -- which was helpful, thank you 🙂

They weren't very good engineers then... 😉

I guess I can try the pub side first, and if there's no mooring there I can use the 48V bow thruster and Schilling rudder to crab sideways across to the opposite bank... 😉

That's one reason for aiming for Sprotbrough instead of carrying on and trying to make Doncaster. Is mooring either side? (I assume that's the pub at the bend) The pub is still decent according to recent reviews -- of course that could change in the next three months, going by what's happening to many pubs nowadays... 😞

Thanks, that's really helpful. Will be aiming to enter the top lock at 9am, most likely travelling alone (i.e. no other boat, but with four of us on board), aiming for Sprotbrough. Do we need to contact the volunteers or will they just be there? (this will be towards the end of June)

In 45 years of boating I've never found a need to fall in the cut. Doesn't mean it never happens though... 😉

Do you mean the locks are deliberately (automatically?) refilled after a boat going down? I thought they were boater operated?

Either way it's a lovely looking bridge 🙂 I hope they made the end anchors deep enough, going to be quite a lot of tension. Probably not as much as the Millennium (aka Wobbly) Bridge which is a similar (low-rise tension structure) concept but with steel tension cables, and which famously went "boing wobble" because nobody analysed it properly for undamped torsional resonance -- which came as a surprise to all us engineering students who were showed the famous film of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (Galloping Gertie) in our lectures... 😉

Methinks you're confusing poohsticks and poosticks... 😉

Except that centre lines are thrown to the bank (and fail to be caught) far more often than a stern line, which is also easier to retrieve if it drops in since it's dangling in the water next to the helmsman not halfway down the boat... They're also more prone to getting swept into the water by low-hanging branches scraping along the roof, which are increasingly common with poor tree management. I guess on a short boat they might be a bit too short to be useful, on a typical 57' I haven't found them to be too bad, especially if the rope end is back-spliced to make it more easily throw-able and catch-able. But if you prefer a longer one, of course that's your choice... 😉

The female boater I mentioned nearly did ...

Above 5W (Phoenix City) or opposite Tesco?

But that's what they've already got in effect in the honeypots like K&A and London, except with no CT (revenue for the council) or mooring fees (revenue for CART). They might not be there legally or with the right to stay there in perpetuity, but nevertheless they *are* there. If nobody's going to effectively enforce the CC/mooring rules (which seems to be the case, and is probably impossible to do anyway), wouldn't it be better to accept the reality and at least squeeze more money out of the CMers?

Only 8 pints minimum -- why would anybody be puking, that's just a gentle refresher? 😉

Not just potential, since these cheap/nasty windlasses appeared a few years ago I'm sure I've seen a lot more spindles with horrible grooves and wear marks in them... 😞

Where from, and how much?

We were both wrong then... 😉

Yes, like those -- there used to be a lot more of them, the ones that nearly sank us were on the GU... 😞