magnetman

Yes I do remember your narrowboat at Batchworth moorings on the towpath there in the mid 00s. A Luxemotor has a completely different stem design to a Liverpool widebeam by the way. The point I was making is that narrowboats and a lot of wide beans do actually have a stem post which is designed to avoid getting caught under things because they are generally following UK narrowboat design language. A Dutch barge has no reason to follow UK narrowboat design language. It is a clear anomaly that Dutch barges turned up here due to the fact some clever people spotted it is better to sell to the demand than scrapping them. There was no reason to do the stem post like that. Then later we get other companies providing replicas. If you actually look at what happened most old Dutch barges in the UK were in fact imported as a way to elevate the value above the scrap price. This also provides an ongoing maintenance job for the yards involved in overplating. I would like to see a Dutch barge which has been replated Lots of narrows have been replated but the Dutch barges end over overplated. A way to extend the time taken for it to go to the scrap man. Nothing to do with looking after a historic Boat. There is nothing special going on there.

Yes. Giving advice on how to do locks is probably not a very good idea because it is something which happens in the present rather the future or the past. The advice I was given when I took my mothers narrowboat out of Pyrford marina in 1992 was 'Take is slowly'. She sold it to me in 1994 and I've had the misfortune to live in inadequate housing in the form of metal boxes ever since which is terrible. This is actually very sensible. Doing things slowly does not mean incompetence. I can put a narrow up or down a flight of locks a lot faster by myself than most others but being in the moment is the key. So yes. Advising others how to do things from an individual perspective is not always going to work. Caution: Boats are dangerous. Do Not Get A Boat. It will be alright. It always is and if it is not then do something else.

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Thank you for that. Although the main hazard is the cill below the top gates it is true as you say that riding the lower gates also introduces a potentially dangerous situation.

Indeed. I have images in my head of small GRP cruisers, converted lifeboats and camping launches. 'Starter Boats' One of the keys to a positive future is to enable the youth rather than stifling them.

Downhill the cill is the hazard. Keep the Boat towards the bottom gates and keep an eye on it. Touching the gates is fine as long as the bow fender can't get caught. 66ft does mean not a lot of room to drift backwards so I would be strict about the bow position

Maybe if the cills were renamed sills it would help. I'm sure there has been erudite discussion on why it is called a cill but I can not recall the reason.

If I had a car i would be electric. Two my lightweight launches are electric and one even has a brushless motor ! Definitely not hot air balloons. A steam launch would be fun occasionally as more for the smile factor than practical use. I'm not at all against progress but I understand more about materials than you realise and this HDPE is basically suited to light weight vessels and workboats which are meant for road transport. I hope my points don't come across as too negative. I'm not remotely conservative but I do think that steel will be king for quite a lot longer because it does actually do the job remarkably well. Design must not be obstructed by resistance to change but it is also worth knowing what works and why it works.

I don't buy into the theory that narrowboat design is all about maths. In reality it has always seemed to me that the situation around narrow British canals is so odd and unusual that the vessels which are used to navigate upon them have probably evolved to the point where it would be quite difficult to improve on the basics. If you actually look into it there is no other situation on the planet where people are routinely going around in Boats limited to 7ft wide. It might exist somewhere in France as an anomaly but its basically unique to Britain as an organised arrangement. Materials are interesting. GRP and Aluminium have been tried but are a very small minority of actual narrowboats in existence. Sometimes the established way as shown by decades of experience by hundreds or thousands of people is actually the right way to do it.

It is a good mission. Price is going to be interesting. If the aim is to bring new people the cost barrier needs to be taken down. This is where I think smaller more affordable vessels of this material could be a better approach. There will be two potential barriers. One is the situation about who has the money and there could also be the situation about older people, who have the money, generally being rather conservative (with a small c) in their approach. Interesting one I think.

One of the narrowboats I had used to do occasional banging noises in warm weather. I never worked out exactly what it was but suspect thermal expansion somewhere. It was not the magazine as I always kept the powder dry and at the correct temperature. Maybe this HDPE vessel could be sold with ear defenders or those noise canceling headphones as a free offer.

Some pieces could be used but most of it has moss and was face down on the ground. Also the screws. I suspect it is probably conflict timber supplied by Wijma or one of the other dodgy Dutch timber importers. To be fair if the Liberians want to cut down their forests and swap it for guns so they can shoot each other are we really in a position to judge them? When it comes to Great Britain and our history I really don't think we can take the moral high ground on this kind of thing. That would be rather disingenuous.

My kids are half French and years ago we were on the way to France when this little boy about 7 was standing by his parents at Gare Du Nord station muttering what I thought was 'Putain le petrole' which would mean to me (politely) 'Oh the bloody petrol'. I asked the Woman and she said no he is saying 'Putain le patrole' which means (politely) 'Oh the bloody patrols'. He was referring to the French thing about having armed police everywhere even when nobody is doing anything wrong. Also I was stopped by the French rozzers in France and asked if I had any stupefiants in the car. I've never been stopped before so I asked the Woman if I look like a drug dealer. She said no but that she is rather obviously of North African descent. Bloody racist froggy gendarmes les fils de putes.

Come (in a northern accent) Gwyne was how my parents said it but they were upper class English persons so it may have been wrong !

i think if mixed with the shredded road cones and old tyres it could be quite good. One would need to check wind direction. After one has torn the insulation of the old copper railway wiring with one's transit pickup one could add it to the mix. And sell the copper to an innocent scrap man along with the lead from that old roof nobody needed.

The other day I found discarded Ekki/Azobe decking from a footbridge. The bridge is about 20 years old and the Ekki had a bit of moss growth. Pressure washer would have sorted it but they decided to replace with composite boards and toss the decking into the brambles. I took some of the old planks for the fire. Nice wood ! Not really worth putting through a sawmill as non slip pads had been screwed on with mild steel screws but with a SG of around 1.06 its very nice firewood !!

Good point. Always be careful about people who are trying to help. I recall some years ago arriving at Old Ford lock on the Regents section of the Grand Union at 3am. Two vessels wedged in the lock going downhill. Someone off another Boat came and 'helpfully' opened the top paddles which, because the Boats were already stuck meant the smaller one was flooded. Bad news. The helpful person who came out at 3am in Acne East London was then hospitalised by the other person whose Boat he had sunk. All good fun, blue lights etc. Ideally one should have a loud hailer and put out a message 'Thank you for your offer of assistance. It has been noted and politely declined. Please put down your windlasses. You have twenty seconds to comply'. Then one carries on with one's day without someone else messing it all up horribly.

It isn't 'clog' its more like a mix of 'thlog' and breathing out the side of the teeth. We lived in Cwm Gwaun when I was little and learnt Welsh at school.

I thought your Boat had a rounded section at the top of the stem which stops that happening. Maybe it can go far enough in. It depends how the top part is shaped. I know some fabricators don't do it but Liverpool Boats seem ok in this regard. I suppose it might go in but it might not get trapped. There is a reason the stem should be constructed like that. Its not just tradition or a bit of fun it is a safety feature. (not your Boat but similar I think)

Given how much toxic waste is already in the bottom of the canal it seems to me that just leaving the water on top might be the best option. It reminds me a bit of the Paradise landfill site by the Thames. Back in the day the land parcel was made into a marvellous riverside pleasure garden with alpine and ornamental water by the gentry then when the estate was split up the bankrupt Indians got it and used it as a landfill site. What was once beautiful pleasure grounds with a ridiculously expensive gothic water garden, riverside sequestered walks and magnificent lime avenues is now just a load of toxic ponds nobody wants to do anything with. Just leave the water there. How the mighty have fallen. Take the Great out of Britain.

Bow fenders are dodgy. I don't like the rope type with chains at all because there is too much risk that whoever fitted it did not put weak links in. As I said above weak links in the fender chains are essential. People have ended up with a cabin full of canal water just because of not doing this. It not worth losing a Boat just because of a fender.

In this situation is there 'good language' as well as 'bad language'? Does anyone have a list of good words which can be used to lighten the tone and reduce conflict levels? Rather than call someone a 'word removed'ing 'word removed'hole one could simply post something like 'Sir/Madam I would like to interject in order to register my disagreement with your position on this matter as I believe you may be making erroneous assumption'. I know that OFCOM have a list of rude words but do they have a list of the opposite as well. Extremely polite words seem important.