Giant

If using nitrile/viton sheet make very sure that it's actually the good stuff. We bought some advertised as such and within a year it had been eaten away by diesel and started leaking. Looked like this when removed: The sheet underneath is what we replaced it with, a cork/nitrile mix. That's holding up nicely.

Sorry, didn't spot it had already been on here. Hard to keep up with this thread sometimes!

Humber barge ENTERPRISE for sale: 57'6" by 14'4" - about as conveniently sized as they come!

The ledge that hangs over the side windows looks wrong to me - personally I would trim that off to keep it flush with the top of the windows.

I think I can guess why you like this from your user icon.

There is a canoe club on Barking Creek. I'm sure they could advise you in great detail without any need for your own measurement contraptions.

The meaning of "houseboat" for BW/CRT purposes is defined in the British Waterways Act 1971, section 3(1): The confusion arises because there are very different definitions for other purposes in other legislation. HMRC VAT Notice 701/20 defines: And both of these in turn differ from what the "man on the Clapham omnibus" might consider to be a houseboat.

I don't see how that advances the debate really. If registration is only required on the main navigable channel, and the MNC is only part of the river, then only that part of the river is an "inland navigation belonging to or under the control of the Board", the area outside the MNC being outside their control since registration is not required there. So we're back to the original dispute over the effective meaning of the main navigable channel.

I just gave you one; this is exactly what happened when our tank bottom sprang a leak. Fortunately the engine room bilge pump was not connected to the float switch at the time. If you check the bilge regularly and are certain a catastrophic failure can never happen then fine. I'm not trying to persuade anyone to wire up their pumps in any particular way. I was just trying to explain the thinking behind the fairly common on/auto/off & alarm arrangement.

If you spill them yourself you will know about it, if they've escaped from something that's failed you may not. E.g. the bottom of our fuel tank rusted through some time ago and started leaking diesel into the bilge. Neither BSS, surveyor nor us cleaning out the tank a couple of years back caught that this was going to happen. And it's not always true that you need to spill a lot. If you're relying on a float switch to keep a bilge compartment pumped out, the water may be already sitting just below the level that will trigger the float switch.

Nobody proposed "a myriad of flashing LEDs and buzzers going off". There are good reasons for the common arrangments. One problem with the simple approach is when you spill oil, diesel or waste into the bilge, it gets pumped overboard automatically and you risk getting in serious trouble for pollution. If you're on the boat, it's safer to get a bilge warning that you can then investigate before deciding whether to pump out. If you're not on the boat, then leaving it on a float switch is the best that can be done, but there's also less chance of non-water ending up in the bilge when the boat isn't in use. Alarms are also favoured because they give a warning something is wrong if the bilge starts filling while underway. Pump noise alone might not be heard over the engine and the wind. If you're out on a big river and have just started taking on water, you'd think that might be something you'd like to know about. If you don't care about any of the above, go ahead and wire it directly to the float switch, but there's no point being ignorant about why these measures are used.

This is a very common arrangement, usually done via a 3-way control switch with OFF, AUTO and ON positions. You can also rig an alarm buzzer so that when in the OFF position, you will get a warning if the float switch is triggered.

Any such suit would be based on breach of contract, but the key question here is whether a contract exists at all, not the remedies and defences available if it does. One theory is that the issuing of the license is, in whole or part, a matter of contract law, and that the T&Cs are thus terms of a contract that the licensee can be held in breach of. CRT seem to be taking this position. The other theory is that there is in fact no contract between the boater and CRT, only a license issued and paid for as required by statute, and that any attached conditions beyond those established in statute are void. Nigel, Tony and others are of this view. I think their argument can be put in terms of contract law: there is no contract because the basic requirements of a contract (offer, acceptance, valuable consideration) are not met. In fact they might argue that none of the requirements for a contract are met: CRT do not offer a license; the availability of a license is established by statute so any "offer" from them or lack thereof has no effect. The licensee does not need to accept such conditions as are established in statute; they are already bound by them so any "acceptance" or lack thereof has no effect. For any conditions beyond those established in statute, there is no valuable consideration given in exchange for the licensee's acceptance of these conditions. The issuing of the license itself cannot count as consideration because it is required by statute.

They are for scuttling the boat to avoid it being captured and used by the enemy, of course.

It's the temperature sensor. You're supposed to attach it to the negative battery terminal so that the charger can adjust itself accordingly to the battery temperature.

Lollipop, your suggested swap is a good idea. Our barge is in London but unfortunately we are not in a position to spend that long in France at the moment. You might have better luck finding a swap via the DBA.

It's a Sheffield size so should be approx. 61'6" by 15'6". If anyone has been dreaming of doing up a Sheffield keel I would encourage them to have a look. I hadn't thought there were any more left unconverted at this point.

Really enjoying this thread W+T. There's just something really satisfying about watching something get stripped right down and then thoroughly brought back to life. I might have to ask your advice on fixing up some fibreglass on our wheelhouse roof since you seem to be quite expert at it.

They are still notoriously arsey about paperwork - I've just never heard of them raising RCD categories as an issue. If there is actually a law on the books to that effect then it would be of great concern to the DBA and others.

Where are you getting that information? Barges both new and old cross the channel fairly regularly and hardly any of them will be rated above Cat C. I have never heard of anyone having trouble from the French for this, although they check plenty of other documentation and equipment.

This is basically what the newer petrol gennies do, they generate DC and then have a built-in inverter to supply the AC. So the output frequency is decoupled from the engine RPM, which can then be continuously adjusted to keep up with the the load. Note that this is done with a pretty high DC voltage, I think they may be as much as 600V DC internally. I haven't seen this in marine diesel gennies yet but maybe someone's doing it. Running a 12V or 24V DC generator to a battery bank and then using a normal inverter achieves the same thing, but more cable losses at those voltages.

I'll have to check. They were doing a new propshaft and other associated bits for us at the same time. Here's the before and after photos though!

We had ours done by T Norris in Isleworth and they did a very good job.

Yes some have since gone, Thames MRCC closed a year ago.

"The great thing about standards is there are so many to choose from". Do you want length overall, length at waterline, length on deck, length of hull, length between perpendiculars? Not that any has a single clear definition, so in practice every rule that refers to length includes its own definition for good measure. As someone once commented to me, "She's just under the limit. It was an awfully stretchy measuring tape..."