Tony Dunkley

Or, looking at how the butty's laying and how close the stern-end is to the stop-lock end of the bridge, . . . maybe Longford.

I doubt it would have been a wasted journey, though, . . . . . more of a welcome, possibly planned, opportunity for Parry to personally congratulate his top enforcer on securing a safer, and better managed and conserved future for the river Trent by freeing it from the menacing presence of Andy Wingfield. Is there any more news on last week's threatened seizure of the Licensed/PBC'd boat on a private mooring on the Trent? Perhaps there are even more rewards in the offing for Garner, after successfully intimidating someone else in ill health into removing his licensed, insured and BSSC'd boat away from it's mooring on privately owned land and into a fairly distant marina by threatening to seize steal it on the grounds of refusal to pay an unlawfully demanded EoG mooring fee.

I don't see that there can be any doubt that senior C&RT staff and executives DO at least act, if not think, collectively. The real problem is that the collective 'mind' is misguided, ill-intentioned, and irretrievably addled, but nonetheless firmly set on this PR crusade which is nothing more than a cynical attempt to help to create an illusion of being well run and efficient, whilst at the same time, diverting attention away from their lamentable performance as a navigation authority.

Despite the Order, made on 5 July last, restoring C&RT's struck out Claim against me and ordering a Directions Hearing on the f.a.d. after 15 August 2016, the Nottingham County Court have yet to fix a date for Directions, so taking into account the usual interval between notice and hearing, C&RT aren't going to have the opportunity for a lower Court rehearsal of any of these lame arguments re. the MNC and the ludicrous assertions that the 1983 Act repealed certain 'inconvenient' aspects of the 1971 Act.

Not strictly true, Nigel, . . . although they will revoke your boat Licence or PBC and then Section 8 your boat for not having what they have just unlawfully deprived you of, . . . and I think they should be given every opportunity and encouragement to stick their heads into that particular noose as frequently as possible. I do have it on good authority that Garner and Shoosmiths have now been allocated their own parking spaces at Nottingham County Court.

That Amended Defence seems very feeble to me. The studious avoidance of the PRN issue, the pathetic attempts to establish some interchangeability in effect and function between a 'Licence' and a [registration] 'Certificate', and resorting yet again to the S.13/Houseboat nonsense, all smacks of the despair that must be felt by those being sent to a gunfight, armed only with a bag of rocks, . . . poor Mr Stoner !

It's not generally known, but this requirement was the inspiration for the amusing practice of carefully stretching [wrinkle-free] clingfilm across the tops of lavatory bowls.

No time restrictions on the length of stay on these moorings either, . . . . the land alongside the river is under the control/ownership of Notts County Council, and C&RT have no say over the use of these moorings.

From the two replies below it seems that there is some confusion with regard to the potentially dangerous situation that pleasure craft could unwittingly get themselves into when leaving the Brayford on the Witham and running down to Stamp End during or immediately after a wet spell but with only a relatively small rise in water levels. The river Witham runs into Brayford Pool under the railway in the South Eastern corner and runs out of the North Eastern corner where the swingbridge has been replaced with a fly-over which now allows un-hindered passage, in the direction of the current, from still water on the Brayford side of where the swingbridge was into what can sometimes be very fast running water through the old swingbridge abuttments and through the Glory Hole. Coming upriver in these conditions [in a Westerly direction from Stamp End to the Brayford] with a lot of 'fresh' on, any boats will be able to see the Glory Hole from a good way off, but they will be stemming a very strong, fast current and the only potential danger they face is that of a boat running the bridge [with the current] and unable to slow down or stop. The very real potential danger now that the swingbridge has gone, and because you can't see the Glory Hole until you're through and clear of where the old swingbridge was, is that boats travelling in an Easterly direction [out of the Brayford] can find themselves leaving virtually still water, into a very fast current in the space of less than a boats length as they pass between the old swingbridge abuttments, and committed to running the Glory Hole even in the event of there being insufficient headroom, or a boat coming the other way. These warning/traffic lights, even if working as intended, are not really of any use at all if there is any appreciable current running through there. If the water level is up, even by only a few inches, and there is anything more than the slightest of currents running, then anything but the lightest and smallest of boats, or boats sufficiently powerful and controllable enough to stop end-on with the current, should swing in the Brayford and drop down sternfirst to Stamp End.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . Or, . . . . why are the lights there at all ? The story is, there were never any lights, or anything else, back in the days when there was commercial traffic [off the Trent in Sheffield-size and Lincoln-size barges] to the mills down near Stamp End. Normal practice was to swing in the Brayford and drop down stern first through the swing bridge and the Glory Hole.

Yes, . . . . . I know a very good one. You can get him on 07553 294325.

The test described, on it's own, will narrow the problem down to being either water leakage into to inlet combustion air flow, or a head gasket leaking between a water passage and a cylinder wall, so the best way forward with this is to carry out the under load [with the cap loose] running test and a combustion gas leakage test at the same time. The results from the combined test will indicate whether it's head/head gasket or a leaking [ into the inlet ports] heat exchanger casting. Before getting even this relatively simple and inexpensive test done, it would be well worth you running it up under load to smoking temperature with the cap off and watching for any sign of air bubbles forming and surfacing under and around the filler neck on the H'ex'er, or combined manifolds/header tank if it's keel cooled. If it's head or head gasket there will be a distinct smell, similar to diesel exhaust fumes, coming out of the filler neck whilst the engine is running. If your engine is identical to the one in the photo's you've posted, and particularly if it's keel cooled, it would be well worth checking for water leaks from the rubber piping on the engine oil cooler, . . . . the air intake is just above, and very close, and there could be something as simple as a pin hole leak spraying water at it.

I can't remember the model or type, but I can recall, on an occasion when attending to some sterngear problems on a Vetus engined boat, noticing that the inlet manifold had been incorporated into the heat exchanger/exhaust manifold casting. This is a little unusual, but probably done that way on that particular engine because of cylinder head design and port positioning considerations. If your engine has a similar heat exchanger body/casting, then a defect or crack in the casting could possibly allow coolant to seep into the inlet combustion air flow as temperature and cooling system pressure rises with the engine under load. You could commence checking for and eliminating this possibility by running the engine up to the load/temperature conditions when the white smoke has been appearing, but with the H/ex'er pressure cap left loose.

I'm not familiar with this particular engine model, but the white smoke after a spell under load and the coolant loss are typically symptomatic of a leaking intercooler matrix on a turbocharged engine.

Thanks for that info, Nigel, . . . I wasn't aware of that draft. If this really is about to happen, then it is almost beyond belief that C&RT are about to embark on yet another ill-advised and illegal pantomime involving the same criminal offences committed when they seized and removed Leigh's boat from it's mooring at Farndon.

Or they could be marking multiple wrecks, all sunk in a neat row after hitting an unmarked obstruction which has been placed in the river without Planning Permission. I doubt that C&RT would want to use Cardinal marks without 'prior consent' from the Vatican.

I think you may be missing the point. These green buoys are navigational marks, and whatever the Waterways Nobrainsman may think, do NOT require Planning consent prior to establishment.

Having looked back over the correspondence and communications with Walker in 2014 when he was colluding with C&RT during his 'independent' investigation into the formal Complaint I had made, there are distinct echoes here of almost exactly the same degree of profound ignorance and weird thinking. In Walker's strange world 'mal-administration' occurs only if C&RT fail to adhere to their own policies and procedures, irrespective of whether or not those same policies and procedures are in line with whatever is laid down in the relevant legislation.

What I find most disturbing about Walker is that prior to embarking on the present chapter in his career, he held a fairly responsible position looking after nuclear reactors. I think we can all count ourselves very fortunate not to have been vapourized into oblivion, . . . the level of risk in having someone such as this messing about with a nuclear reactor certainly puts the Cuban missile crisis into a different perspective.

If the boat is in a Marina, then it isn't on C&RT waters and doesn't need to be licensed, . . . . whatever the fantasists in C&RT may say, or wish, to the contrary.

I have got a low mileage/hours, ex-vehicle 1.8 bare engine which I've had in stock for quite some time. It's a BLMC 'Gold Seal' factory exchange engine that came out of an MOT failure van. If your engine is repairable, then a straight exchange with your present one would get you going again with minimal delay.

Got it already, Alan. It specifies the minimum dredged navigable channel dimensions on the Upper Trent, what they call the 'Minimum Open Channel' as 7.0 metres wide by 1.3 metres deep, at which point they consider that dredging has become necessary, . . . subject, presumably, to Planning Permission !

The Waterways Odbumsman has just published his Annual Report for the year 2015 - 2016 containing what appears to be the lamest and most ridiculous excuse yet offered up for C&RT's inability to function as a competent and responsible navigation authority :~ Case No 823 – the marking of shallows on the River Severn Mr D has a boat which he moors at a marina on the River Severn. In July 2013 his boat hit an underwater obstruction near Worcester, which damaged it. He said that other people’s boats had hit the same obstruction and that in some cases the cost of repairing the damage had been substantial. Mr D felt that the Trust had been slow in dealing with and marking the obstruction. It seems to have taken some time for the Trust to have accepted the existence of the hazard. Part of the problem is that apart from a single instance in March 2012, its incidents log had no record of any incidents at that location between 2004 and the grounding of Mr D’s boat in July 2013. Minimum Open Channel (MOC) box charts provided by the Trust, depicting the river depth and the boundaries of the navigable channel, showed that at some points on the bend in the river where the hazard was located, the MOC box was entirely outside the centre line of the river, which would generally be regarded as the safest course navigate, and that on the outside of the bend there are shallows. While this may not pose a major problem for flat-bottomed boats such as barges or narrowboats, Mr D’s boat had a V‑shaped keel and therefore a deeper maximum draught. Even after the Trust seemed to accept the existence of the hazard, Mr D felt that it was too slow in taking action to mark the hazard. The Trust accepted that information about the hazard might not have been uploaded to its incidents database, and that there was scope for improvement in its record-keeping system. It said that this would be raised at a senior level within the Trust. It also explained to me that once it became clear that there was a hazard, the marking of it necessitated the obtaining of planning permission from two local authorities and consent from the Environment Agency. Although Mr D at one point noted that there had been progress, his view was that a whole year had elapsed with little or no progress. I concluded that the evidence provided by Mr D, about incidents having been reported to the Trust, was persuasive. I also concluded that the Trust had been slow to act. I recommended that: that the Trust provide Mr D with an explanation of what actions it had taken, or was proposing to take, to address any deficiencies in the incident logging and reporting system, both locally and across the Trust; that the Trust provide Mr D with an update on progress about marking the hazard, and navigation guide, with its best estimate for completion; and that the Trust confirm that it accepted the existence of the hazard and the lack of any navigation guide. I decided that the Trust should also provide an update to other licence holders in the area.

Be grateful that it does, . . . when Hurth boxes start engaging gears smoothly and quietly it either means they're about clapped out, and on the verge of failing to engage drive at all, or if you're lucky, just very long overdue for an oil change. The harsh engagement is due to both clutches incorporating an identical mechanical self-servo feature which operates as the driven plates begin to engage with the drivers. There is no pressurized oil operation or lubrication in Hurth mechanical boxes.