peterboat
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Posts posted by peterboat
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43 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:
Pricing in any market is used for two purposes, to raise revenue and to reduce demand - to some extent the point of the wide beam surcharge is for the purpose of reducing demand as well as raising revenue.
There may have been no surcharge if there hadn't been a sudden influx of the things, especially on waterways that aren't really suitable.
The constant pushing of boundaries over the last two decades was going to get a reaction somewhere down the line - large boats and more boats without a home mooring, both with some people seeking to find the absolute limit in terms of size or of minimum movement, and sometimes both - no, they can't stop you doing it, but they can use charges to discourage you from doing so.
I agree with you, far to many narrowboats on unsuitable waterways, they waste space for widebeams which are the right boat for that waterway.
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8 hours ago, Matt Wardman said:
I find EVs interesting in that they are being sold on just one aspect of the problem - replace fossil fuel cars and their emissions by clean electricity.
EVs are inefficient - they are perhaps 50% or more heavier than necessary, and can accelerate so fast that large numbers of drivers (including probably me) are no skilled or experienced enough to handle the 0-60 in 5-6 seconds sprint appropropriately. Any crazy numbers of them are electric SUVs which are less safe for everyone not inside the SUV, but when the justifying reason happens, such as 'but it might snow', they slide off the road in confusion.
Yet EVs are also in some ways a very inefficient solution. They still clog up our roads with traffic, while a real answer would make alternatives practical and safe in the UK - whether e-scooters, cycles, mobility scooters, micro cars such as Smart of Citroen AMI, or just walking. On current trends we will have EVs racing up and down our narrow lanes making them just as dangerous as Fossil Fuel vehicles do.
Someone who lives in a village and loses their driving licence through sight-deterioration with age will be just as stuck as they are now.
That's an interesting stat, perhaps suggesting that there are many thousands of boaters who can carry a large overhead without needing to worry about it.
It must be quite pricey to keep a boat in a marina for 95-99% of the year without using it, and paying all the licences etc.
BTW Happy Christmas everyone.
Good point. I think for canals (especially adjacent mooring locations) a problem I see with water source is impact on the temperature of the canal, which could be quite marked. Because canals are quite restricted waterways compared to the amount of boat, especially on sections with adjacent moorings.
I had not really internalised how tight canal channels are until I did some consultation with cyclists who had ended up in canals when I was thinking about the safety aspects of tow-path cycling with clipped in pedals. Of the many cyclists who had ended up in canals, overwhelmingly they could stand up to recover.
Ballpark numbers are that a water source heat pump may need several cubic m of water every hour. Three or four boats moored together running WSHPs may have a material impact on the slow flowing water in a canal - perhaps dropping the temperature by a couple of degrees(?).
So I would look more to air source.
You shouldn't generalise some EVs arnt 59% heavier some are nearly the same weight. Our I3 is carbon fiber aluminium and plastic and light
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3 minutes ago, magnetman said:
Not me as I'll be sailing around the world in a sloop once it starts getting dodgy.
I have sailed around the world in a sloop and can assure you its very dodgy, dangerous and bloody expensive!
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1 hour ago, magnetman said:
I think Diesel will get cheaper if demand reduces. The nodding donkey pimps are not going to suddenly stop.
Doubt it, refineries will close down and demand for the bit of diesel left will shoot through the roof! It will be like Mad Max you will be killing each other for the juice 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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49 minutes ago, IanD said:
I don't think electric canal boats would need "a range equivalent to diesel", they need a range long enough that charging isn't needed more often than other things like water filling/toilet emptying -- which is rather less. Batteries -- apart from cost -- aren't the problem, charging points are.
Electrifying the canals isn't even on the government's radar, "green marine" is because -- like cars -- ships emit huge quantities of CO2. Boats on inland waterways probably emit 1000x less than either so they don't care... 😞
I do wonder if it will be one of those ouch moments? Suddenly diesel extremely expensive, banned from towns and cities, so the few of us that have done something have the waterways to ourselves for a few months, that's until they get closed down and turned into linear boat housing estates!
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18 hours ago, magnetman said:
I thought the BMW crowd had gone Tesla. M3?
They blatantly copied German car makers branding.
Model S = Mercedes S class
Model X = BMW Xx series
Model 3 = BMW 3 series/Merc C class (ABC same thing)
Model Y = Asking a question.
Model Y most popular car in the world currently so copying nothing
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13 hours ago, Sailbadthesinner said:
On a wide canal, no wind I can do 3.5mph on 1kW or if conditions are less favourable 3mph on 2 kW.
However this is in a 25 foot GRP cruiser. Small is beautiful!
Yes I had similar on a Broads cruiser with no interior so it was light and a boaty shape unlike my electric widebeam
1 minute ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:I heard a diesel engine, which I’m sure would cost nothing. Then again so would a generator as I’m sure the well known Marine engine supplier that was heading the project may have a few spare lying around. 😂
It had a sizeable battery bank he told me plus the solar so the generator was the logical choice for them. Easier to sell with 25% reduction in license as well for roughly the same cost. No doubt it will be worth more as well
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14 minutes ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:
All “Pie in the Sky” ideas, in the ideal utopia world yes, but in reality things like battery barges are never going to happen, just like a network of electric boat charging points every 5 mile will not happen.
Just been talking about the Hydrogen boat that has just been built by a well known engine supplier. All funded by the Government, I hear It will be scrapped shortly, the Hydrogen tanks/propulsion system will be removed, a diesel engine fitted and someone will have a very nice Narrowboat courtesy of the Government.
I wonder if the OP @Andrew Grainger has approached any builders with his ideas and suggestions taking from here, to get real world prices? That’s if any builder wants to take on the project and can be bothered trying to make all these ideas work/fit into a 45ft boat and as said previously will it be a financially viable project or maybe just another “Pie in the Sky” paper exercise??
I heard it was keeping the electric drive and batteries and gaining a generator as it was massively cheaper, the young lad told me before he went
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On 17/12/2023 at 09:20, MtB said:
^^^This^^^ is worth repeating.
Yes an all-electric boat sounds wonderfully 'eco' but to get the electricity in sufficient quantity, one has to burn diesel. So they are not 'eco' at all really.
One can insulate to the full extend possible and cover the boat with solar panels but I think even Peter with his widebeam boat with space for 5kW of solar says he cannot cruise all day every day on solar alone. on a 45ft narrowboat I doubt there will be space for more than about 2kW of panels. Electric cooking and water heating will further reduce the cruising range available.
Also bear in mind solar hardly works at all in winter.
If I was building it today I could get more solar on the roof, maybe 7kw? Even then it's not enough as the sun doesn't always shine.
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6 hours ago, matty40s said:
....and you wonder why they get a bad name, constant bowthruster use to get round corners, and ridiculous speed.
Badly ballasted that boat, to high at the stern
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3 hours ago, IanD said:
And regardless of how many boaters didn't like the offered surcharging options, even more didn't like a flat fee rise which you seem to favour.
You keep ignoring this, but it's still true.
The reason is undoubtedly that CCers and wideboat owners are heavily outnumbered so HMers amd narrowboat owners think they should pay more, and this was made clear in the report.
But the majority winning is how votes and elections should work in a democracy, isn't it?
As I said all along it was a setup to give the answers they wanted! Also if it didn't they would fiddle it to give the right answer
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52 minutes ago, magnetman said:
I don't buy into the management failure argument. Its too simplistic.
Obviously people who tend to end up running this sort of thing are only in it for their own financial gain. That is surely a given and very unlikely to change. The type of person who gets this job is going to be generic. It is virtually impossible for anyone else to get the job because of the way job selection processes work.
Someone who knows everything about the canals down to the finest details and understands the customers and vested interests would never get the job of running the organisation unless their CV showed that they had previously run something else even if it was completely unrelated and of no relevance.
It won't happen. So all that will happen is what does happen. It can't change.
As for .gov selections in future it seems unlikely to make any difference.
They didn't select did they? The failure that was BW got the job, the only change was more management on bigger wages and less workforce! Another management failure 🤒
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1 minute ago, IanD said:
So, as usual no actual numbers to back up your "Huge cost!!!" claim then. Why am I not surprised? 😉
And why am I not surprised that you as always politicised rather than look at what's happening on the ground and talk to workers
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1 hour ago, IanD said:
Go on, provide the numbers to show this then... 😉
Blue signs and logo changes and parties and van wrapping and executive bonuses and whatever else you can conjure up probably add up to considerably less than 1% of CART expenditure -- and yes that's my estimate, but it's based on some realistic guesstimates of how much these might all actually cost not just "Huge, innit!!!".
Yes there's been a shortfall in canal funding and maintenance for a very long time, but both have got steadily worse since CART was set up in 2012, and the Tories have been in power since 2010 -- so they were responsible for the terms under which this happened, which were a triumph in wishful thinking on all sides, both government and CART management at the time... 😞
You need to talk to CRT employees or Ex employees. Van's one van that my mate drove on lease, wrapped, then rewapped and then weeks before it was going off lease rewrapped again, before being unwrapped and handed bsck! Wonder how many Van's that happened to?
Lock gates how often are they inspected? Once ever 10 years from date of manufacturing, I know the guy that does it he is the only one by the way. So locks leaking or knackered because of high usage 10 years, Tinsley flight hardly used 10 years cost of water loss huge!
Tinsley pump failed, temp pump installed near Sheffield basin 200- 300 meter run, so the engineer installed a new pump in the old pump house and renewed all the pipes for a couple of miles cost? Millions apparently against moving it to its temporary location 200 yards from the canal.
The reason two of my friends don't work for CRT anymore is because they are boaters and couldn't cope with the waste and mismanagement of CRT, one had worked for them for years but couldn't do it anymore as it was impacting on his pleasure in boating.
You just want to make something political when it's not, it's down to crap management not managing its very small workforce! They have probably employed a couple more whilst I have done this post! Managers that is not workers
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10 minutes ago, IanD said:
Yeah, I'm sure those parties would pay for fixing 1 paddle, or maybe 0.01% of the maintenance backlog... 😞
Not excusing the parties, but you're just trying to divert the blame from where it really lies, which as in so many other failing UK infrastructure cases is government policies and funding, especially since 2010. Remind me again, who's been in power since then? 😉
CRT agreed its funding and its property portfolio for a fixed period, that period isnt over for a few years and has been failing for many years, if fact long before this government came in. I have had 23 years of locks having only one padd9at each end working, lockgates leaking like seives, towpath falling into the canal, the list is endless like the tape that BW and then CRT wrap its failing infrastructure in!
It's not just the parties its everything, blue signs, logo changes Van's getting wrapped and then wrapped again because of ch
Changes, it all costs huge amounts of money and its been going on for years!
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1 hour ago, Arthur Marshall said:
I grew up in Chichester and we used to go for a Sunday walk along the canal. I never realised canals actually had boats on them and could be navigated on, or realised that heap of rotting timber was a lock, until about twenty years later. I suspect that's the future of most of the system, while the rest of it works as a leisure facility. It's unsustainable in its present state, as failures become more and more regular and expensive. Hardly a week now goes by without a major stoppage somewhere, mostly due to lack of ongoing attention and maintenance. It aint going to get no better.
Totally correct Arthur, I have been stuck in Sheffield for a while because lock 4failed on the flight. Now its repaired and I am stuck at the top of the flight on the lock landing, which is used frequently by the trip boat though thankfully not today. Tomorrow a lot of messing around will see me safe until after new year, when weather, water levels, locks, trees or uncle Tom cobbly and all will no doubt stop me moving again!
The guys on the ground are normally fantastic however some managers do need to learn how to manage and of course money to keep the infrastructure working needs to be made available instead of being wasted on 3 large Christmas parties for the trustees!!!
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4 minutes ago, magnetman said:
Its inevitable over time it will happen.
No it won't, who does Jayne work for? I asked her about it, she said the costing was horrific so it wont happen
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7 minutes ago, Willonaboat said:
Au contraire, there is a strong possibility that the welfare state will only be increased in future by way of a Universal Basic Income. This has already been trialled in many countries: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/19/21112570/universal-basic-income-ubi-map
...including the UK:
The increased national expenditure (and borrowing) isn't a problem according to supporters of Modern Monetary Theory: https://www.investopedia.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-4588060 I don't agree.
As for "Generally when people argue 'life is tough, get used to it', they actually mean 'your life is tough - get used to it (I'm alright jack)' "...
Life was very tough for me as a youngster but I got off my a$$ and worked my fingers to the bone to try to get myself into a better position. And I did. So forgive me if I have little sympathy for those who sit on their backsides doing nothing and then moan about how tough their life is. Spare me! I support measures to encourage and ultimately insist that those relying on handouts get off their backsides and work for a living, unless they are clearly disabled in some way that prevents them from doing so.
Never happen
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4 hours ago, Ewan123 said:
New Era at least used to say that all of their HVO used waste oils/fats.
If I understand that correctly then, it essentially means leisure boaters would be able to buy and use red HVO without any usage declaration. I do recall hearing that was one of the issues that some fuel boats/marinas came across when trying to find a supply. Well, that and the limited supply challenge.
They say the moon is made of green cheese, but I don't believe that either. A major Finnish company makes it in Rotterdam I believe it also has another arm in Singapore buying up waste oil and palm oil, so you know what's going into HVO
3 minutes ago, MJG said:Surprising really given that there is a temp. 'blockade' in the Red sea..
Russia has a very large fleet of oil tankers delivering to China, India, Pakistan, North Korea etc. I wonder how much is washed and sent back elsewhere?
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5 hours ago, MartynG said:
Meanwhile diesel price is 10p less than 2 months ago.
Oil prices still going down regardless of big production cuts! Unless of course huge amounts of Russian oil is sneaking onto the market?
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14 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
I don't think the problem has been solely price, I think, not only has 'the elephant in the room come home to roost' (what is it made from) but when I spoke with Crown oils they said there just was not enough worldwide capacity (let alone UK capacity) to meet a fraction of demand and the big users, such as construction, would get priority over a'few boaters'.
Construction dont want it because the feedstock is palm oil, environmental agency the same
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1 hour ago, Mike Tee said:
Air source
David at auchencairn garage has it in his large office and store, its changed the place dried it out and warmed it up, it's a window unit so it can in summer change to air conditioning. The large boat next to me has 2 air source heaters as well, again it really works for them, they installed them for going to south of France as air conditioning, but they are also hot dry air blowers and no condensation on their boat whatsoever! Last year in that hot spell they were cool.
Of course your air source will probably heat water for radiators
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57 minutes ago, Mike Tee said:
Thanks - it is planned to be well insulated but the developer, and the group we belong to, are proposing no underfloor heating, and radiators (which apparently will have to be bigger than 'usual'). Unfortunately its all or nothing as it is a smallish (29 units) block of flats and a housing cooperative so planning has been interesting! My current plan, assuming my health doesn't decline too much, is keep the smaller boat so I have an escape pod!!
Is it ground source or air source? I have friends with both, the ground source is better it seems, but the air source is cheaper to install. The ground source was installed in older properties but upgraded with additional insulation and double glazing.
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2 hours ago, IanD said:
No it doesn't. When the boat is outside the lock, the water is at a given level. When it moves into the lock, the water level doesn't change, so this doesn't "use" any water -- meaning, water that has to be replaced.
Nope. Really, just nope. The same amount of water is "used" (moved from above lock to below lock) regardless of how many boats of what size are in the lock when it empties or fills.
Go and make a drawing showing the state of the (full) lock before the boat enters it, after the boat enters it, after the boat has gone down in the lock, and after the boat has left the lock. The amount of water moved from the upper pound to the lower one -- "used" -- is the same in all cases, it's the drop in water level (the fall of the lock) multiplied by the area of the lock.
Archimedes understood this, but it seems that you don't... 😉
Still wrong
GOODBYE CRT........
in General Boating
Posted
To much generalisation, I have seen atrocious narrowboat drivers and equally bad widebeam drivers! Same with cars I have watched small cars struggling to get through a gap that I could drive an Artic through! I had a Narrowboat on a large waterway, one day woke up and changed it for a widebeam, I might change to a 72 foot narrowboat one day who knows?