Chertsey

I use a Lush Karma bubble bar as my in-wardrobe pot pourri, sat in a saucer on the bottom. Every so often I replace it with a new one and use the old one for its intended purpose.

I'd be inclined to get rid of the carpet and the wallpaper :-(

And I'm guessing that the bottom of a dry dock is actually quite damp? Not great conditions for working in or for blacking to harden.

I've had three different boats, including Chertsey (72' and riveted), craned with no problems. Of course it depends who does it but any reputable yard will be abiding by H&S rules which are actually pretty onerous and will have a skilled person doing it. I wouldn't let this be the deciding factor, over location and quality of work. Looks like we'll be using a dry dock for Chertsey's next blacking (because of changed location) and I'm actually not looking forward to it; I like having the boat on the bank with lots of space and air circulation and sun. But I shouldn't knock it until I've tried it I guess. Edit to return to the OP - there is absolutely no reason the hull on a modern welded 57' boat would flex unless there was already something seriously wrong with it.

As Alan Fincher mentioned in another thread, the shell is the one thing you can't change.

That one was the only one that was unmanned when we went through, making for ample photo opportunities :-)

Ha! I didn't even do that on purpose!

We did Weybridge to Oxford in August, first time on the Thames since 2008, and I was struck by how obscured/disappeared many of the channel marker signs had become in that time. As relative novices back then we found our way with ease, but this time I was grateful on quite a few occasions to be following another boat that knew the river well.

No, 'twas Bray, twice. Not necessarily the same keeper (eight years apart) nor necessarily the regular one, but he emptied the lock on us when he could see we were having difficulty getting in to the landing, and made sarcastic and sexist comments once we were in the lock, without offering any help. We were more than happy to use ropes both ends and actually built a platform in the fore end to facilitate this. We also volunteered to turn the engine off but many lock keepers said not to bother - a contrast to eight years ago. Mind you, we didn't have an old boat then - although we had an older engine. It was a Thames lock keeper who first taught me how to throw a rope over a bollard. This is my favourite Thames lock :-)

Some fishermen are simply ill informed. A couple of years ago one fishing on a lock landing (when I was single handing so no way was I not stopping there) told me in all seriousness that his angling club owned the canal. If they believe that no wonder they get upset about boats daring to use it.

Even that, not necessarily. So much depends on the initial quality and how it's been looked after. Certainly don't rule out older boats from your search.

Spotted!

Fair point, it's really more about cleaning the pipe work etc than the tank itself isn't it. I'd overlooked that because I've just got a big tank with a tap at the bottom!

''Twas only a passing comment, I wasn't particularly upset about it. More so about the loss of a butty. Saw it being done but didn't know it was Argo.

Is it significant? In the context of all the other pollutants, especially agricultural run off, detergents, and masses of chlorinated tap water? In the very dilute concentrations we're talking about? Although returning to the OP, I would still suggest that provided you've had a reasonable throughput of tap water, and no external contamination, the tank shouldn't need routine sterilising.

I thought I'd locked myself in the facilities block at Brentford. Two latches, I just couldn't get the combination right. Thought the boats were going to have to go without me!

You not been through Bray yet then? (Yes, most of them are indeed)

I'd have thought (pace Athy, I can't find the original post to quote) there was more chance of selling a butty separately. People have a motor for a while and then go really mad and decide that a butty might be a good addition to it. As long as it stays a butty, there's always the possibility of reuniting it with a suitable motor (not necessarily the same one) at some point. Off topic further (but related to the post directly above), someone told me at the weekend that Argo has been cut in half - is that true? Now if I had bought Bristol, I'd have been responsible for splitting them up...

Nasty American habit, as my father used to say. He felt the same about ice in Scotch.

And my Wilko thin bleach claims to be <5% You probably wouldn't want to add the salt.

Yes, yes, yes, YES, to nearly all of that. Two caveats. A Yorkshire teabag (a proper one, not a piddling little 'one-cup' one), properly brewed in a mug, is often better than some loose tea, especially when said 'loose tea' is actually a collection of roughly chopped twigs crammed into an in-pot strainer as in chi chi coffee shops who know bugger all about making tea but like to pretend they do. It was actually Proudhon, the anarchist, who said that all proper tea was theft. Marx would probably have advocated common ownership of proper tea, or at least of the means of production, i.e. the kettle.

Milton is (or at least it was last time I used it) sodium hypochlorite solution, the same stuff as thin bleach but more dilute and a great deal more expensive for the extra water! So cheap thin bleach (not the thick stuff which is a different chemical) would be fine, just read a Milton bottle to work out the equivalent dilution. Having said that, if there's no actual problem, just keeping it filled with fresh chlorinated tap water should stop bugs breeding.

Well, I think she was the spokesperson for both of them!

I suspect that would have confused them even more :-)And she wasn't that much younger than me! No, they were making the tea. I was steering. Getting it to me was a whole nother adventure. I get quite annoyed (again) when academics are stereotyped as being hopelessly impractical, but I have to admit that the reputation is sometimes deserved!