Chris T

No idea on price, but Lyme View Marina also has a slipway at Bridge 18 - 01625 858176

Apparently Bridge 49 (Fools Nook electric swing bridge) will be shut on Tuesday afternoon between 1pm and 5pm so that a cycle race can go over it. Not sure why they can't use another route, we don't have an alternative. At least we know in advance which is something.

My dad used to do a lot of the woodwork on our beloved wooden top but he is no longer able to, and so we sold her last year (yep, giving up the battle to keep it watertight) to someone who was planning to put a steel top on. Our logic was that (in my dad) we had the expertise and tools to upkeep / repair a wooden top ourselves, but it was definitely a continual maintenance job. We had her for over 17 years though, and probably couldn't have afforded an all steel boat when we bought her, so no regrets whatsoever. She was built in 1971 with a 1/4 inch steel hull, but the hull was in better condition than many much newer boats when we sold her. Ours too had an outer skin on top of the wood structure. Inside was wooden beams and formica type panels (it was the '70s...). No insulation that we ever found.

Update from CRT website 5 minutes ago: Our contractors finished grouting the washwall on Friday and have been on site over the weekend monitoring the leakage and the condition of the bed repair. Observations confirm that the leakage from the embankment into neighbouring land has now stopped and the bed repair is holding. We now plan to place more clay to finish off the bed repair over the next few days and aim to remove equipment and fencing later this week. Based on current leakage and bed conditions we do not plan to close the canal but will restrict mooring immediately over the leak location. We are cautiously optimistic about the repairs and remain committed to keeping the canal open during the coming weeks and months. We will continue to monitor the embankment and bed repairs for signs of leakage and will take steps to safeguard the canal as necessary. We will provide updates if this situation changes. Once again thank you for your continued support and interest.

Good news! Latest update on CRT stoppages page: Following a successful start to works on site we can confirm that we do not plan to install stop planks at present. We've been on site since Tuesday investigating ongoing leakage. We've located and filled a large hole in the bed of the canal. We have observed an immediate positive effect on the leakage into Bollington recreation ground. Our contractors will continue bed repairs and grouting voids behind the wash wall during the rest of this week and will be working on site over the weekend. We are optimistic that the repairs we are making now will avoid us having to drain the canal. We will review the leakage and bed condition on Monday and will provide a further update then.

OK, the manual says: the webasto draws diesel direct from the tank, so that sounds OK. but the webasto does also heat the water via a twin coil calorifier. One coil heats the water, one the radiators. It is a separate coil to the engine. The engine does not heat the radiators. Does this help?

We've not used the webasto at all yet because we've had problems with the batteries / power but the water is heated (extremely hot) by the engine, so no, it would just be for heating. I will check on the other points later if it's in the manual, or on the next visit if not. thank you!

Thanks to the helpful comments on our power/battery/Sterling questions, we are getting there, but another question please, the man we bought our boat from said that we shouldn't have the Webasto on while the engine is running. I can't see that this is stated in the Webasto manual. Is that right? Thank you Christine

With all the helpful replies, we have now discovered that 2 of the 4 domestic batteries looked to be well overdue topping up (the 2 that were difficult to get to strangely enough) so 2 new batteries are on the shopping list and hopefully this will fix it, thank you. Having had sealed gel batteries on our last boat, we didn't know to check for this. I did wonder what the de-ionised water was for and thought it must be for the webasto as it was in the same cupboard, but we certainly know now. On a related question, the man we bought the boat from said that you shouldn't run the webasto while the engine is running, although the webasto manual doesn't mention this. Is this right? Thanks again for the help.

Thank you so much everyone for your replies. We have lots to investigate here, much appreciated.

I hadn't realised it only charged when on shoreline/ generator, and that the 'combi' would just be needed for any 240v things when cruising, that's helpful, thank you. The only thing we have on 240v is the plug sockets which don't seem to work (tried a phone charger) but I assumed this is because the domestic batteries are not sufficiently charged. I think it may be the boat's way of saying she wants to go out cruising again.

OK, sorry if I haven't explained it very well, this is all new to me. Yes, I have a manual, which says it's a "3 in 1 combined pure sine wave inverter UPS/ battery charger (solar and shore)" although we don't have solar. There is a Sterling user manual which I have read but struggled to understand. We have twin alternators which I understand charge the domestic / starter battery when cruising. I thought that the inverter was still functional whilst cruising, but maybe this isn't the case? Thank you for the quick responses. Christine

We have just bought a rather youthful for us (10 year old) narrowboat, with lots of new fangled equipment that we're not used to, including a Sterling invertor. We have 4 domestic batteries, all of which are undercharged, currently showing 12 volts on the invertor, less on the panel thing with all the switches. This is after about 10 hours cruising over 2 days. When we visited before purchasing, fridge, webasto etc were all working fine, but things had been left switched on in the months before we actually got on board and now the fridge switches itself off, I assume due to lack of power, and I am unable to chill the wine. We currently have access to a shoreline, but the invertor keeps switching itself off because it shows that the starter motor battery is overcharged at 16 volts. We've tried isolating the starter motor battery but it still knew that it was there and switched off again. We've tried starting the engine and switching it off again several times to try to lose some of the charge but it didn't make much difference. Any ideas how we get it to charge the domestic batteries from the shoreline? When we were cruising, it didn't seem to mind about the starter battery, the invertor stayed switched on and was charging the domestic batteries, we just ran out of time to charge them up fully. Any suggestions welcome, thank you.

I have a much loved wooden topped narrowboat. My father used to maintain / repair the top but over the last few years has been unable to do so for health reasons. The roof is generally OK but some of the side panels and the hand rails are in need of attention. Does anyone know anyone who would be interested in undertaking this kind of work? We are based on the Macc at Poynton.