Joe Bourke

Rivnuts?

No, calling ahead not necessary, the locky can see you approaching from his lofty perch.

Sykehouse Lock is normally manned nowadays, especially in the mornings. We have been through a couple of times in the last couple of weeks. The volunteer locky was excellent.

To be honest I find that the dearer a Marina is, the less likeable the marina and moorers are. Or am I being an inverted snob?

If you want a nice expensive marina look at BWML Marinas, that's British Waterways Marinas Limited, they should be able to sort you out. We go to Hull and it costs us about £50 a night if we stay a few days.

My own marina with all facilities including a clubhouse is about 1800 including vat for a 60 footer.

What the hell are you lot talking about? You must have found the dearest residential mooring in Yorkshire and made that the average price. I would guess that the average mooring is about 2 grand a year for a 57 foot narrowboat. I know of 2 places not far away where you can moor for £500 a year regardless of size. Hardly any facilities though.

COO-VAR and Rustoleum do a matt black I think. Just check if it's good for exterior steel and for brushing.

I like the look of those Laser Rust Removal Tools, I want one when they become more affordable.

It was funny because the rope snapped before the anchor hit the bottom!

We had a mate who had engine problems on the Trent below Torksey, he threw his anchor overboard, and the rope snapped! I nearly died laughing. We breasted him down and into Keadby.

They come up on Ebay, sometimes described as caravan/bus windows, they can sometimes be for sale at boat jumbles, I've seen a full set of used windows for sale for about £100.

I got some circular framed computer fans 92mm diameter off eBay, cost about 2 quid each, trimmed off some little plastic lugs and duck taped them on to the light frame, also changed the bulbs for led equivalents, also from eBay. I have now piggy backed two fans in the shower and galley, even better extraction, and still quieter than the previous fan.

Take the opportunity to check the hoses for limescale as well Cheshire Rose, I was surprised how much there was after 5 years. We now use anti lime scale stuff more often. Anyway good luck sorting it out.

When our Jabsco macerator stopped working, I bypassed the control box and put the 12v supply straight to the pump, and voila, it kicked in, so I put a switch in the supply and operated it manually, until the new control box came. Fitted that and everything back to normal. If the pump hadn't worked, I would have had a look at the impellor, a simple job. Usually though you can tell if it's the impellor by the pump making funny noises, or your lights dimming. By the way if you block the toilet it is quite easy to overheat the relay, causing it to stick and then the control box can't do it's stuff.

There are at least 3 boat owners that do exactly that, in this yard, Goole Marina. They are always nipping back and forth to Spain. Usually appear around July and leave around October, but often come back for various quick visits. Moorings/costs vary through out the country.

Thanks for that, but I was mainly interested in the bit about magnesium anodes in salt water for a week and catastrophic consequences. We moor in Goole, and go onto salty water, quite regularly, might consider aluminium anodes when we dry dock in May. To be honest though our present anodes seem to be holding up well.

What would the catastrophe be?

Really?

Messaged you Dianamay

I have just had a vision of the Canal & Rivert Trust licensing office. Staff stood at their lecturns, scratching away at parchment with their quills, Bob Cratchett style.

There are quite a lot of mainly larger boats fitted with small house size oil fired boilers. I believe Somy and Grant are popular in barges. There are quite a few that have outputs around 12/15kw. Cheaper to buy than marine units, cheaper parts, and supposedly more reliable.

Wait until they try to put the new cylinder on.