haggis

Ginger is great for "spicing up" any recipe which uses apples - crumble, pie etc Haggis

Mink are nasty fearless creatures which kill off most of the other wildlife on and in the canal. We used to have a good population of swans, ducks, moorhens, coots etc on the Union canal but not any more. Over a fairly short period, Mr Mink has reduced the bird populatioon so that it is now almost an event to see other wildife. They are absolutely fearless and will face up to anything and unlike most wildlife they don't seem to mind wandering where there are people about. The mink farmers and others who released them into the wild have a lot to answer for. haggis Edited (I hope) to sort out typos :-)

I can only speak from my own experience and when we cruised the Lanky in Gamebird several years ago we found the opposite! OK there are a lot of boats (mostly GRP) moored there but they are mainly in marinas and as they don't move very often, they don't affect the boats which do cruise. We found it one of the friendliest, picturesque canals we have been on (and there aren't many we haven't cruised) and we are looking forward to revisiting the Lanky next year on Copperkins via the Ribble link (we trailed Gamebird there). Our little canal society took part in the trail boat festival on the Upper Reaches a few years ago and we found that the local Lancaster canal folk were delightful. They have worked so hard over the years on the Lancatser . PLEASE sign their petition. Haggis.

Hi Micth, nice to see you have joined us on here. There was a question recently about a composting toilet on a boat which I thought you might have answered ;-) Ann, AKA Haggis.

Signed haggis

No you won't, Mac! I can understand why most boaters faced with the choice of paying not a lot to boat on less than 100 miles of inland waterways or paying lots of pennies to have access to over 2000 miles, opt to boat in England. That is probably why there are so few boats up here. We have a foot in both camps with a trailable Sea Otter which we keep on the Union canal and which we can put on a trailer and take down south to Festivals etc, and a share in a 58 foot narrrow boat south of the border. The best of both worlds and two different types of boating. We even venture out to sea on the Firth of Clyde occasionally with Gamebird. Really freaks our insurance company Haggis

Iain bought one of these several years ago to get rid of moles form our lawn. You put batteries in it and stick it into the ground. It has been amazingly successful. It is still in its box in the garage without any batteries and we haven't seen a mole since Haggis

Worth checking on Ebay. We got a hardly used (and very clean) Thetford C400 with cassette for about £100 a year ago for our trip boat. The guy selling them gets them, I think, from caravans which are being broken up. At that price, I reckonned that it would be worth any cleaning I had to do I donned the Marigolds, put the unit in the bath and used the shower head. I think we downloaded installation instructions from the Thetford web site. These Thetfords now come so that the cassette can emerge from either the right or left but the old ones , I underdstand, had to have a cassette of the correct orientation. Haggis

I was told by a BW director that there is a reason for putting the Cill notices on the top beams. When a boat comes into a lock, going downhill, the gate is open and the back of the balance beam is along side the steerer so he sees and he reads the notice. If he doesn't know what a cill is, as the water goes down, he sees the wall marking for the cill and this tells him to make sure that his stern is not on top of it. Good theory but not sure if it actually works like that :-). Boaters are probaly so busy reading signs and trying to understand them that their attention is not on their boat and they get hung up. Any time I have seen a boat almost getting hung up it was because the steerer was distracted by something and not watching his boat. No amount of signs will stop that. haggis.

Apparently, the cill pictures are put on the back of lock beams so that the steerer will see them as they enter the lock (with the gate open!). This alerts them to the fact that there is a risk of getting hung up and when they see the cill marking on the lock side, all becomes clear. Such faith, I thought, when I was told this by a high up BW person Haggis.

[ Do the RYA course by all means - its really interesting and great fun - and it will help you understand a lot more about boat safety, the world of boats and boating in general - but steering and controlling a narrowboat in a canal is a very different experience to sailing/motorcruising on wider waters, and an RYA certificate won't help you with many of the things that will be your biggest challenges on a narrowboat.... The RYA do an Inland Waterways Helsmans certificate which is all done on a canal boat. I found it a very useful day. Lots of tuition and the chance to try out things I hadn't done before - like turning a 58 foot boat in its own length in the middle of a marina with boats moored all around. You are continually assessed during the day and get told at the end whether you have passed or failed. Well worth doing for anyone new to canal boating Haggis.

Yes thats what was worrying me. With the space so limited we would be standing in the tray to use all the facilities! I have never noticed ours being flimsy but we do have a bit of carpet on top of it - except when it is being used as a shower Haggis

The boat appears to have been found according to NBW haggis

I'll probbaly be shot down in flames but in my mind, if you are living on your boat, you do just that. You don't live on the banking as well. Having seen the mess caused by residential moorers right outside folks houses, I have a lot of sympathy with landowners who make such conditions. It is a bit different if the mooring is not near habitation but the landowner still has the right to impose conditions, I expect. Haggis, ducking for cover.

The figures do seem high and it looks like NBW thought so too as they have done some research on how the numbers tie up. NBW seems to be a well visited site, even if a lot of the vistors slag it off elsewhere :-) It would be interesting to see how many would vote and what the results would be if an exactly the same poll was conducted here... If two well used sites come up with the same answer, BW will have to accept that the results are accurate. Not that they will probaly do anything about it though as they still seem to think that we all love them :-) Haggis Haggis.

The poll is now closed with over 36,000 people having voted. 81% say they are dissatisfied with BW. haggis.

I don't have an email address for Phil but if you put a message on the OwnerShips message board (open to all) at http://pub2.bravenet.com/forum/show.php?se...ernum=153944258 I think he will probaby see it or someone will alert him. Haggis

We used the slip at Shepley Bridge Marina in Mirfield a few years ago to launch a 26 foot Sea Otter and although it was Ok to launch, we could not have retreived her there as there is a big drop off at the end of the slip. A very friendly and helpful yard. We took her out at the slip at Hebden Bridge which no one seemed to know who owned. It was a very good slip. I know that Sea Otters have also used the slip at Sowery Bridge. Haggis.

I thought I had read somewhere that BW had given the owner a timescale to get his boat back in the water. If that is the case, perhaps the contractors who did the awful job of doing this were engaged by the owner and not by BW. I would have thought that even if that were the case though, BW would wnat to know/have a say in how it was done. I felt so sorry for the owners while watching the video, especailly as I think the boat is their home. Haggis.

Yes, I saw that but I had hoped they would also publish them on thier web site, which they appear to have done. I just wasn't looking in the right place Haggis

Thanks, Howard but that's the date of the Scottish User Group meeting. We usually have a BWS Annual Meeting attended by the BW top brass from down south and Scottish politicians.