Detling

Even in winter for a livaboard?. My 300 watts struggles to give more than a few amps in winter for a few hours so maybe teens of amp hours to a 12v bank the water pumps and lights will eat all of that without fridge telly laptop/tablet charging etc.

This agrees with what my electrician said when he rewired our house he bought and fitted the box before Christmas and did the wiring in January in order to use a plastic box as the metal ones are bigger. As an aside he said that fitting metal boxes will be shortlived as all the ones he has come across have sharp edges and in his experience (large commercial installs) damage to the insulation of wires when fitting is significant and very frequent. For a boat they would be a nightmare as plastic doesn't rust and the ultra thin steel used would be soon gone in a salt air environment.

Had to call them twice over the last 4 years both times very good service and problem fixed. The second call out had a slow response (3 hour wait) as the engineer initially allocated to us as his next in his queue, got bogged down at his call and they had to allocate a second guy. The first call out we had the engineer in about a hour. One call was in Stoke the other in Leicester.

Neither have I, on one occasion when a Rose hire boat managed to make a pigs breakfast of the second lock, the volunteers (two of them) continued to feed boats up through the bottom lock until eventually the boat they had just locked through had to stay in the lock as there was no room in the pound, just about 10 of us waiting and sending crew forward to help the hire boat. This was their second lock and they had let the volunteers do the first, and did not have a clue.

"I will be laying the floor onto a suitable underlay,ie, fibreboard,or the equivalent" Hmm is this water tolerant. The floor of the boat has permanent moist air underneath due to condensation in the cold between the baseplate and the floor. It will also at some point become the receiver of litres of fluid, be that water or beer/wine. this will take ages to dry out especially in the cooler corners. All this moisture guarantee's expansion/contraction cycles and any form of laminate is not very good with them as eventually the edges curl at the joints due to pressure when expanded and then gape when dry. Tongue and groove engineered wood will not show this effect as much and neither will solid hardwood (hard as in physically hard and not just from a deciduous tree). Marine tradition has Teak as the best, but you do want some money left to buy the boat, Oak is common and sustainable, Iroko is also good, I have no idea about Bamboo but the east-west boats used it and they seem to be good after 8-10 years, at least on the one I have been on recently. Plywood sheets with a decent finish (not the cheapest grade which often has splits and gaps) with a decent wood or a good vinyl like Karndean should last you years and years.

Wouldn't happen Some places would be free some £5 some £10 and plumb spots like Little Venice £50 per night. So the rich win as they can afford to pay. More likely if we have a new parliamentary law then IMHO the mooring policy and enforcement would be given to local authorities, like car parking and we know how that has risen over the years, as well as enforceable tickets at £70 + so beware

I too once had a boat moor 2 feet from us when out in the sticks with hundreds of feet of empty armco. They sat outside drinking etc well after dark but as they were at the opposite end to the bedroom it was not a showstopper. I hope they enjoyed the 8:15 departure next day with a few revs as I accelerated away past their boat. If there is space leave a reasonable half boat length, if it fills up you can always move up. On occasion I have become the b*** in the middle of a gap, when the boats ahead and astern have left whilst I have been enjoying my pup lunch.

It depends on your cruising pattern when out. If you travel for several hours a day then battery charging is not an issue, if however you move for a few miles a day then you will not be running the engine long. A 12volt fridge will usually use 40-45 ish amp hours a day a 240 volt fridge about 50-60 ish amp hours a day it depends on how often the door is opened, what setting you have the fridge on and the cabin temperature. The extra is the inverter losses but the upside to that is you have 240 volts available all day for other uses. If you have above 300 watts solar the amount becomes irrelevant as you will get over 60 amp hours easily from the sun so you effectively have a solar fridge.

If you are extending to Leicester why not carry on down the Soar and onto the Trent and Mersey, it is a nice run and in the summer many of the locks are open as they are flood locks, not level locks so there are not many to work. It passes some lovely country with nice pubs what more can you want.

When walking the regents canal the other day some enterprising fellow had drilled the concrete and used expanding bolts to moor with. Only problem was he had used little ones 6mm Dia and about 1 inch sticking out to tie to so IMHO rather flimsy. But a boat near by, 50 footer at least, was tied to one ring about 10 foot from the stern with a stern line and a centre line, the bow was left to swing (I wonder if he shouts SLOW DOWN)

in Aylesbury they fitted rings but someone tripped over and they were all cut off so now the only place you can actually tie up is the water point (there are three of these) as the finger pontoons are occupied by boats that move rapidly and return whilst you are looking the other way.

Thanks

Over the last 3 years about 600 miles and 600 locks each year. Longest time away from home mooring 5 weeks, shortest one night. Usually about 3 longish cruises of 3-4 weeks and lots of little ones.

I didn't see any spaces yesterday on a walk down the arm, but someone may have left shortly afterwards.

I am planning a cruise up the Leicester arm of the GU and would like to stop in Crick on the 16th and 20th of May, this is the week before the show. Does anyone know when the towpath mooring is closed off to passing boats to make way for the people staying for the show. Is it like Cropredy where boats arrive two or more weeks before the show and just sit there for weeks, blocking the moorings for passing boats.

If you use O2 for mobile forget it. It is amusing to watch people going up the field or canal bank trying to get a signal. broadcast TV can be difficult as Crick marina is in a dip. Some have also found that the dip acts as a frost pocket in winter and smoke tends to linger.

Many years ago we had a car flooded up to the top of the seats we got the engine running but the insurance co wrote the car off as a total loss as the silt in all the nooks and crannies would hold moisture causing the car to rust through from the inside of the doors cills etc. The same will apply to this boat only by completely removing all linings, and insulation if not sprayed, and then pressure washing and thorough drying ill you remove the silt and stop it harbouring damp.

Not heard that one before

You can knock off about 10% from the calculated maximum because it is unlikely you will be correctly angled and tilted to the sun and there is usually a slight haze even on the clearest of days. Rate the cables and fuses for above the maximum though to allow for ageing of the copper.

I have 300 w and it is great, but on a dull day in April or September it needs engine as well, go for 400/500w if you can 2 large panels and a 30 amp MPPT controller.

The wonders of solar. 300Watts of panel keep us independent in summer don't need to charge with fossil fuel, and in winter give a couple of amps for a few hours most days to keep the batteries topped up.

My Webasto 7 day timer just starts again at the end of the week and is effectively 365 day programmed as long as you want the same next week as this week. I would query the insurance position re leaving a fuel flame device running unattended for hours/days, also check the marina's t's and c's I suspect you would be in breach, and any resultant damage would be your personal liability. Oil filled rads on a frost stat are far safer as well as cheaper to run and don't need servicing, the only risk is all the boats switching on their rads causing the marina (post/jetty/marina) trips to overload.

I am at Ventnor Farm which has wifi included (was good until last year) and is now of limited use, or F******ng expensive. I have an external aerial and the wifi used to be as good as my landline at home. On the new system we get a daily allowance of 100Meg and a slow speed, or I can pay a huge fee per day which works out at £1600 per year for faster and 'unlimited' within reason. As I use a PC not a tablet about once a week something (usually anti virus updates) and blows that days allowance in minutes, I have windows updates off but even things like facebook use a fair bit of bandwidth on a PC. You cannot do anything except a few google queries before the adverts blow away that days allowance, so really it is only useful for forums and e-mail. It is now throttled to a snails pace and opening a page of the daily mail will take about 5 minutes and as for the Independent it will almost certainly blow the 100 meg limit before the page finishes loading. If as I sometimes do, log on as a guest I do at least get a good speed but for an hour max.

have you been to Stourport? It's OK but not location,location,location.

enjoy battling with the elsan points, a lot more often than the despised pump out.