Bee

Or the telly when on the move unless you've got a much better aerial than me. It does sound a bit odd but as long as it works and the batts. stay charged then it's probably ok.

Have been up and down the very beautiful R. Somme a time or two, Absolutely bound to have passed over some explosives on that one.

That is a Bad Thing, there should be some good big holes to shed water. Rain will eventually sink a boat but make a horrible mess before that event but just look at the water coming over/through gates sometimes. About 10 days ago I tied to a fairly high wall, hot and sunny, 2 hours later torrential rain and thunder and then the car park above the wall emptied many hundreds of gallons into the river through pipes in the wall. They would have sunk a narrowboat in minutes if unlucky enough to fill fore or aft decks. I think we may have filled and sunk as well if we'd been under a pipe. That was in France but its still a wake up call.

We didn't when we did it from Portishead to Bristol, I really don't think you can go far wrong but if you have an ordnance survey map that could give some reassurance, it's not very far.

I think the future is plastic, dunno what its called but you see seats and fenceposts and gates and things made from recycled plastic stuff, if that was in planks you could extrude a diy kit for a 'wooden' boat or the whole middle bit for a narrowboat, I'm off to the shed to do some inventing.

Can only hope whoever did it had a rotten miserable life.

The driveplate is a disc, 8 - 10 " dia or so that bolts onto the engine flywheel and has a splined socket that the gearbox plugs into, this is how the engine drives the gearbox, when you shove it into gear the lever actuates the clutch (fwd or reverse) in the gearbox and then the prop shaft revolves. this is how most modern engines work. Driveplates can fall apart with all sorts of rattles. Older engines have a variety of reverse gears but its really not a big job to separate the engine / gearbox on a modern engine.

If it was me I would run it until it gets a bit rough and then grab the top of the engine and hold it really firmly to see if that calms it down a bit, that might give you an indication as to the state of the engine mounts, I would still be looking at the drive plate though.

Ooo that needs looking at, I would like to remove the head really just to make sure that its all ok and valve stems are not bent, a couple of pushrods are not a big problem but all the other moving bits need a careful looking over - and rockers and shaft etc.

Personally I would overcoat the whole thing above the waterline with some sort of B&Q / Wickes bituminous tarry stuff and keep the expensive 2 pack for underwater, doesn't take long to slap a coat of black on and keep it looking good.

Last time I did Harwich - Hook of Holland on the ferry it was perfectly safe for a pedalo let alone a narrowboat, Its all relative, some boats are safe 365 days a year, some in fair weather only, narrowboats for fewer days that, there's probably a few days every year when the Irish sea is possible, it would be interesting to get some stability data on various lengths of a 7' wide flat bottomed steel tube with no apertures and a few tons of ballast.

Plonk it on the roofrack and take it to the Thames, brilliant.

Its so easy to ruin someones day by being a $%^ when with just a bit of effort you can make someone feel brilliant. I can't really believe in Karma but what goes around really does come around. I collected the car in France last year to drive it back to the boat, (300 km) and pulled into a layby to sleep, woke up after a few hours, headlights on, battery totally flat, many, many, miles from anywhere, absolutely totally stuffed, stuck my thumb out with little hope of any success but after 20 mins. a man who was late for work stopped in a beaten up old golf, he had jump leads, 5 mins later I was on my way. Either I had done something helpful in the past or I am due to do something in the future but that act of kindness saved me from a really horrible day. Ever since then I have alarmed many Frenchmen in laybys by offering all sorts of help, they have all run away so far.

Done bits of it when dark, magical, port and st'bd, and some sort of headlight to pick out the lock channel and a map to see where you are. As said though, locks are damned hard by hand.

I've noticed that bottles that are running out sometimes smell, maybe when the pressure drops right off something no longer seats / seals. Imagination? Dunno.