Clifford

Dave P. It wasn't your particular shade of light oak I was referring to! Of course I agree that everyone should have the boat that's perfect for them, and not worry what someone else likes. Our fitout is very dark, not very high quality, veneer. We love it cos to us it feels "nice and boaty", but our idea of 'proper' narrowboats has no doubt been influenced by many years of hiring. You'd probably see our boat and say "Yuch! Looks looks like a naff hireboat from twenty years ago".

I've ordered the 12v Bible. Also found a pdf of "The 12v Doctor's Practical Handbook". Astonishing book with hand-drawn pictures. www.smer.fi/docut/12volthandbook.pdf Not sure if it's any good for narrowboats, though. Doesn't mention "amps per hour" once.

Whether it is logical, or the worst kind of predjudice, to judge someone by the paper they read. We Daily Mail readers in particular dislike being judged this way. It's SO wrong to make snap judgments of whole groups of people, especially from external characteristics. (time for the Yes Minister view of different paper readers)

I know they vary. On of the best features of a trad stern must be being able to get to the engine in the dry. But some we looked at had no space forward of the engine so the only access was from on top (like a cruiser, but less room to wriggle around to get at stuff). An extra foot or so of space forward of the engine and it looked like you get really good access. But as regards storage space, a semitrad can give you two big external lockers over the engine instead of the internal over-engine space of a trad stern. Not a bad swap. Yet some people say 'trads have more useful internal space' as though they think all trads have an extra bedroom or something, compared to a semitrad of the same length. I'm not knocking trad sterns, we could easily have bought one. I never thought we'd end up with a semitrad and the stern type wasn't the reason we choose the boat we did.

Yes, the feeling of power, working chunky machinery, is very nice. Best of all is making beepy noises and flashy lights and stopping cars at a lift bridge in the rush hour. Really, don't forget the key next time you go looking at canals. It would be frustrating to come to a loo inthe hour of need and remember the key sitting on the mantlepiece. Before you take your key near the water (they are magnetically attracted to each other) get a cork ball keyring. With that in your pocket you'll feel the part even more.

Is there a prize for the least useful thread subject? Sorry, I can understand you are a bit too anxious about your situation to worry about etiquette. How's it going?

I know this is dragging the topic up again, but I hadn't seen this thread before. I was so glad to see people discussing rowing/paddling with the tiller to assist in turning. I mentioned it on another forum ages ago, and everyone seemed to think I was either barmy or talking about the paddlewheel effect from the prop. I usex to use it on our share boat. It was a cruiser stern with the control column a bit low, so the throttle wasn't quite comfortable to hold all the time, but wasn't in the right place to grab quickly for a blip of throttle (to tighten a turn), either. The answer was a *sudden* tug on the tiller. It was a very effective way to jump the bow across the extra inch if I thought I'd not got a lock entry quite right, for example. This was on a very ordinary clone cruiser with a very normal size rudder. I quickly got used to the feel of how hard to pull to make it work best, and it felt quite different from just a fast. but normal, turn.

Like I said, a magnifying glass burning a hole in something doesn't create new light and heat , it just moves it around. So areas around the hot, bright spot are cooler and darker than they were before the lens arrived.

I feel a sudden urge to drtop a spanner on a battery. Someone else's of course.

The 'most popular' boat features deff do NOT add up to the 'perfect boat'. Boats lined in Light Oak veneer with a thick coat of lacquer, millions of 'em. Yuch! Looks like something from the Grauniad "ideal London pad" pullout from twenty years ago.

So you can now go and try a sanny station loo! If your interest in boating survives that, you've got it bad! For the full ecperience, take a bucket of something unpleasant with you and see if you can hold your breath for the full time it takes to empty it down the drain. Don't wear white shoes. That will make up your mind for you on the big question - what kind of loo to get. Seriously, welcome aboard. With a loo key and a handcuff key you are already proper boaters. Getting a boat to match will be easy.

Mike, thanks. A real compliment when it comes from a proper boiler engineer.

How will you get the motorbike to the boat?

I should have put my "BMC=RedRag" warning a bit earlier! Given my recent moan about people stubbornly getting units wrong, I'd better just come quietly and say, "Yes, the proper name is back cabin".

I just noticed the figure from Phil's wind generator. I didn't know they were as effective as that! I though solar has pretty much eclipsed them. Look, it was a serious point, Ok? I just accidentally left my UnconsciousPunGenerator switched on

I was trying out Android apps on my not very smartphone last week. It was fascinating to see how the little arrow moved bang on down the canal and round every little bend and past every house instantly (on the OpenStreetMap map, I've got the whole country downloaded, so no data signal required). The app I was using for measuring speed was GPS Status, a very well used one. It supposedly measured to tenths of an mph. but actually the discrimination wasn't very fine, it kept jumping from say 2.6 mph to 3.2 and back. It could be because that's the best either the software or the particular GPS chip in my phone could do, or it may be simply a limitation of GPS. I'm guessing it's at least partly to do with it only sampling the GPS signal once per second. But also due to imprecision in position. Incidentally, before losing it after a very brief ownership, my previous (newer) phone was very very accurate at satellite positioning. It didn't just pick up GPS satellites (US system) but also the Russian ones. It sometimes was using 20 satellites at once, with incredible location precision and stability. (Nearly sailed the boat to Ukraine, though). I think all new phones pick up the Russian sats. Something about the Russians threatening huge import tariffs on any that didn't. So when buying a handheld GPS, check whether it does the Russian system, too. In a few years it weill be even better when the European sats are all working.

Why shouldn't yotty types be offended by people who look like scruffyboaters? It gives us the right to be even ruder about blazers and captain's hats on the cut.

Actually, although I suggested 'leaving lock gates open', that hasn't come up for ages. Do we all close gates behind us without thinking about it now (unless there is someone coming the other way, Yippee!) ?

Whether you are allowed to comment about another boat providing ONE lock worker watching you do all the work, when the boat is clearly full of teenagers on Playstations.

Whether it's polite to refer to the crew as Locky Lackeys.

Perhaps cassettes are better, but our portapotti experience was that the GLUGwhooshGLUGsplatter effect was omnidirectional, however hard you pressed the little button!

You mean youve got a device to generate picoamps per year from hot air? Plug it in here and you'll never need diesel again.

More redundancy... One advantage of a heater that pumps hot water round both radiators AND calorifier is (provided you can turn on the pump when the heater is off) is free daytime cabin heating while cruising. Our share boat had an alde (the older tall, thin one). When cruising on a cool autumn or spring day (ie when the stove wasn't lit all day) we would turn on the Alde circulation pump without firing up the boiler. This would circulate water round the Alde's calorifier coil and round the radiators, stealing heat from the hot water heated by the engine calorifier coil. In effect we were using the calorifier as what green energy firms call an accumulator. It wasn't very efficient, but it kept the radiators at a nice background temparature all day for nowt. An hour or two before stopping for the night, we would turn off the pump so we got a tank of hot water. And light the stove to keep the saloon warm - the Alde was only used as a backup, it slurped gas.

Paul, You are definitely doing this deliberately to test my new saintly patience ! Why not measure everything in groats and miligrams per week? Seriously, sounds like you are getting all the milliamp weeks you need.

Ipads neet a large current, I think. My Nexus is the same, it will run down if used when plugged into a normal 12v charger. I found out two things. - For full charging, it needs 2amps at 5volts. - The usb charging lead must either be a proper charging lead, or (if it's a data AND charging lead) have its data leads shorted together, otherwise the Nexus thinks it's plugged into a PC and reduces its power demand to avoid overloading the PC's usb socket. You can tell if it's satisfied that it's connected to a proper charging source when it shows "charging AC". The second point doesn't apply in your case, obviously, because your Ipad likes the charging lead when it's plugged into the car 12v socket. Similarly, your adapter must be able to deliver enough power, because it can suck enough power out of your car socket. All I can think of is that your boat 12v socket can't deliver 10 watts. But that doesn't sound very likely.