ChrisPy

what grandchildren, John?? are you trying to tell me something? I'll give one of the kids a good smack if it's true.

well I'm not volunteering, just yet.

yeah whose shirly are you anyway? dear bottle, you really need to use a spell and grammar checker before you can afford to cast nasturtiums on the waters ..........

important points with ropes: 1. make sure each piece has 2 ends, no more, no less. 2. ropes with only one end should be cut in the middle, that way you will have at least one piece with 2 ends, which is OK. If you still end up with a piece with only one end, discard it. 3. ropes with more than 2 ends (like 3 ends) are confusing and should again be cut into shorter lengths so that you have at least one piece with 2 ends. Any left-over pieces with only one end should be discarded. 4. ropes come in different sizes. Thick ropes should be labelled to distinguish them from thin ropes. 5. very thin ropes are called string and should never be used. 6. very very thin ropes are called thread and can be used for repairing sails. If you don't have any sails on your narrowboat, discard them. 7. ropes are made in various contrasting colours for very good reasons. Do not use blue ropes if you have green paintwork - blue and geeen should never be seen .... Similarly orange ropes should never be used if your boat is painted red. 8. ropes that are hard and shiny and make clanking noises are called chains. Be careful - this can be confusing in the dark. 9. ropes that are hard but do not make clanking noises are made of wire and are called cables. These should never be confused with the wires (sometimes incorrectly called cables) used by sparky types (thick wires for power people and thin wires for signals people). 10. salty people like to splice ropes and things. Beware the mainbrace. When inexperienced people try to splice it they start to get giddy and fall about a bit. ............... sorry, waiting out my leave knowing that my boat won't be delivered 'til I've gone back to work is a bit like watching paint dry on a cold wet day, or waiting for the crane that never comes ...........

bit confusing when you've only got one eye and one arm, Horatio style.

I asked about the stern tube and the bilge pump when I was in Liverpool today. The engine tray is sealed as required by BSS, but any water in the cabin or either side of the engine finds its way past the engine and into the below-gland sump. Apparently this is deep enough to activate the float switch before the water is swilling about the general bilge area. GOOD ONE. I was assured that, with engine mounts in good condition, the absence of a flexible coupling is not a problem. It is as I described earlier in this thread, with a flexibly mounted stuffing gland. 'We've never had a call-out and have never heard of a premature engine/gearbox bearing failure'. I suppose that's good enough.

.............. well, I had a bottom-laying date of 14 Feb, and an appointment to view the nearly completed shell on 24 Feb. Today I was at the yard, and they are 1 week late. But the bottom and sides are in place, and once Liverpool Boats get started they have to finish, to make room for the next one. I'll probably be back up there on 3 March, before I fly out. They have 3 widebeams in fabrication and two in painting. Apparently the poor weather is holding up paint drying, which affects the whole schedule. Pity, because mine will be paintless - in the raw. Neil, the widebeam shop supervisor, was very helpful and accommodating, and I'm confident of a good product. The boat will be delivered a few days after I'm back in Turkey, so my next leave in April/May should be a busy one. I've decided to fit a Morso multi-fuel stove for the moment, to avoid the problems of red diesel. That means I won't need a large tank for heating fuel fixed in the front cockpit, so I'm saving about £800 altogether for the moment. I visted Lockgate who told me I can convert it to diesel later if I want. Also visted Norman Millar at Shardlow, very helpful. He sold me a calorifier with 1" internal coils (ideal for a gravity circuit fed from the stove) which I couldn't find elsewhere, so I gave him more of my custom (which was probably quite welcome on a sleety day in late February) and also bought the drain and pressure pumps and a Thetford C2 wide cassette toilet. - "all I need is a ship, and a star to steer her by......"

well as you ask (NOT), so politely (nobody else did ): Dearest windlass, I'm representing BP on the construction of 466km of their 42" pipeline to export oil from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean, all part of a plot to prevent the Russians getting control of it. Yes, it's probably the biggest pipeline contract in the world just now, and I'm the sucker... But it pays for a boat

conduit is a good idea for future maintenence and modifications. where did you hear this scare story about PU coating affecting cable insulation? Polystyrene, yes. Polyurethane, no.

our night time temperatures in the Turkish highlands have been down to minus 45C, but no frozen pipes on the camp yet. If there's no wind it doesn't feel much different to minus 5C, as long as you're wearing the compulsory 4-layer clothing system. The bl**dy land rover discoverys with diesel engines and fancy computerised engine management sytems won't start below minus 15C. Have to keep them running all night. The favourite vehicle here is a Lada Niva that just keeps on going. I'm really looking forward to coming home to a chilly UK - NOT !!

Gordon Bennett - give it a rest Maffi !

doesn't tell you what is the continuous 40degreeC rating. It might only be 250W. See Sterling website for discussion on how inverters are rated.

Gone Whatever happened to the crane?

Made in America by Bill Bryson makes very good reading. He makes the point that UK English is a dynamic language, whilst standard US English is stuck in the 17th century. The purest form of standard spoken US English he found was a colony of fishermen living on an island on the eastern seaboard, who spoke exackerlly the zame agsent as is zpoken by vishermen in zertain parts of East Anglia, which iz were they came from 350 years ago.

VAT? any pics?

I stand corrected your SS Lord Ship. grovel grovel they sure 'ave got strange plumpers round yore neck o' the woods, Zur, am'n't they?

and 'ow abaht yore speling, my dere windlass? oh, 'twas deliberate was it? who are you kidding?

dICK hEAD ..... your honoroble worshipful thingy... are you sure? I think you will find that the pipe that feeds your taps continues up to the attic where it feeds a header tank fitted with a ball-cock valve. The header tank is only there to keep the hot water sytem topped up. The water that arrives at the taps should not pass through the header tank.

Three holidays on Thames cruisers in late 50s (Maid Line, then Clark's of Sunbury). Loved it. Family moved to Reading in 1960. Joined the kayak club, competed intensely in BCU slalom meetings on the Thames and the Welsh rivers. Kept in training by racing the Salter's steamers (surfing on the stern wave to get a breather - the skippers did not like that !) Family moved to Dartmouth in 1963 and I spent my university vacations crewing on yachts, racing and cruising cross-channel. Bought a speedboat in 1972 and played with water skiing. Designed and built a 36ft steel fishing boat in 1975. Had a family and earned money - no time for boats. Wanted a second (or first) home with river frontage. Out of my price range. Now looking forward to retirement sometime in the next 5-10 years, chose a boat as a waterside second home with cruising opportunities. I always feel incomplete somehow if I am not near water.

I was considering one until I realised the addtitional cost compared with a conventional wide beam. I found the DBA forum before this one. The answer is that there was no advice given, except the maximum size of boat that could navigate the broad canals. I don't recall that the Barge Buyers Handbook was any better.

lovely navigation lights, but not quite in keeping? how long before a bargee's pole ............