magnetman

I have a floccinaucinihilipilification of slubberdegullions. One finds them all over the place usually with the ultracrepidarians.

A mooring without any humans is something I have managed to get. Well there is one but I quite like him.

this. Technically cats should be sent to the sausage factory for onward processing. I wonder if pet tortoises would be okay. My uncle used to have pet tortoises in his gardens. We had great fun trying to find them when visiting as children. We had snakes. Garter snakes and corn snakes. Quiet and no harm to anyone.

No pets and no children is an interesting rule. The non towpath side house at Black Jacks lock always used to have very loud dogs in their garden. That was back in the late 00s so maybe they have gone quiet now.

I did this once. Bought a narrow Boat which had a perkins 4236 on an elevated mounting running triple belts to the propeller shaft. I can't remember what gearbox it was but I took the whole thing out and fitted a Sabb twin on lower beds with a gearbox and I had a custom made cardan shaft for it. I didn't need any welding doing as the original shell had been supplied with ordinary engine beds. It was a 1970s Boat. At some stage someone had fitted the belt drive system for some reason perhaps because of the engine not being marinised. Its could be worth checking the engine beds in case the installation with the belts was added rather than being the original design.

Maybe there is some sort of lube oil starvation at one end. I had a dilution runaway on an SR2 in 1994. My first canal Boat. Rugeley railway bridge. The smoke was amazing. Fortunately the unit still had decompressors. Prior to the runaway the engine was misbehaving and tending to seize a little bit when running at tickover. Thin oil. Obviously 'seizing' usually means it locks up but it can be a tightening and general reluctance to turn. Maybe this could be followed by bearing failure if the engine was allowed to cool partially seized then started afterwards. I'm thinking about general lube oil consumption v small Diesel leak balancing each other out and not being detected on the dipstick over time. It could happen on a regularly used slightly worn engine I reckon.

The BMC 1.5D have been known to have issues with fuel diluting the lube oil leading to thin oil which could potentially cause seizing. I was told once that if an engine is inclined slightly as in the front of the Boat being up a bit there can be lubrication issues at the front end of the crankshaft. Being pressure fed it doesn't fully add up but one wonders if the Boat in question is up at the bow and the failure was at the front end. Gravity does funny things sometimes.

Davit is pronounced 'dayvit' in case anyone was unsure. Another possible solution could be a wheelchair crane. They are quite compact being designed to go in the back of vehicles. One of these with a form of mounting bracket (additional steelwork needed) could potentially be used to lift and swing a canoe. this one on fleabay has linear actuator for the swing and a parvalux geared strap winch for the lift. www.ebay.co.uk/itm/296719446748 Quite a lot of hardware but I see the £50 is a start price and they probably won't take that little. Using empty locks is probably the best suggestion.

That news story relates to the slum barges which have been moored around Teddington, Kingston and Molesey for about 20 yars. Quite big Boats. There were three. A Dutch water bunkering vessel, a Thames lighter and a Regents canal lighter. The owner a Mr Alistair Trotman was renting them out for slum cheap housing. One could come to the tenuous conclusion that people seeking cheap accommodation can be exploited in other ways but I can not possibly comment. Anyway the Boats were moved about a bit taking the piss enormously then things changed. Maybe it was brexit wot dun it in but in the end two of them (regents canal lighter and the Dutch water Boat) were transferred to other owners. The Dutch water vessel and the Thames lighter remained on the mooring at Hurst park which was itself subject to a land dispute over ownership of the riverbed. Various court proceedings. Both the remaining Boats have now been removed. One of them (Dutch water Boat) taken to EMR at Erith for scrapping. The other was taken to the Sunbury EA yard to be checked and prepared for towage to the same place. They will be recycled and made into washing machine casings. That is all I know without getting into extra security detail.

I passed your old barge at St Aines upon Thames this afternoon. Its a nice article.

Reminded me of this I took out of an old copy of waterways world Not sure if the dock cranes can handle bigger units though. Still a nice idea. Maybe a semi submersible to carry it. Or a new engine.

I had a 1986 RN DM2 for several thousand hours of narrowboating. Nice item. If it is a modern one take the covers off and give it a squirt of oil over the rockers and valve springs now and then as the pressure feed is not great. The older ones had manual oilers. Sticking exhaust valves and worn guides is a known issue due to the horizontal layout of the valve gear. RN patented clerestory combustion chambers. Nice clean burn. A lovely engine but the 2 is well known to be not all that powerful so don't give it a hard time. I think the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company knew about the situation when they put the removable engine room lids on their Boats. A very nice engine treated well but it will cause problems if abused and want taking out. Lots of nice brass and copper to polish. The covers are aluminium but at one time someone was doing brass versions for extra bling. Hand starting a DM2 is quite satisfying. Listen to the injectors cracking .

Brokers not breakers.

O M G